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Cultural Industries

1) What does the term 'Cultural Industries' actually refer to?

Cultural industries combine the creation, production, and distribution of goods and services that are cultural in nature and usually protected by intellectual property rights.

2) What does Hesmondhalgh identify regarding the societies in which the cultural industries are highly profitable?


Profitable countries like UK or USA are usually dominated by the biggest companies, and have a huge inequality between the poor and the rich.

3) Why do some media products offer ideologies that challenge capitalism or inequalities in society?


4) Look at page 2 of the factsheet. What are the problems that Hesmondhalgh identifies with regards to the cultural industries?



  • Risky business
  • Creativity versus commerce
  • High production costs and low reproduction costs
  • Semi-public goods; the need to create scarcity

5) Why are so many cultural industries a 'risky business' for the companies involved?

Even if the product is good, there's no guarantee that it'll be a success. When it comes to media products, they use stars, sequels and well-known genres. With business, they use vertical integration and diversification to spread their risk and maximise profit.

6) What is your opinion on the creativity v commerce debate? Should the media be all about profit or are media products a form of artistic expression that play an important role in socjety?

I feel like since the early days of media it was always about the art and the hard work that was put to make an actual artistic piece, but the profits have a huge role in XXI century and it's impossible to create something unique nowadays because it's significant to fit into a crtain genra.

7) How do cultural industry companies minimise their risks and maximise their profits? (Clue: your work on Industries - Ownership and control will help here) 

There's a distribution and promotion proces that halps with advertising and marketing strategy. 

8) Do you agree that the way the cultural industries operate reflects the inequalities and injustices of wider society? Should the content creators, the creative minds behind media products, be better rewarded for their work?

I think there is some sort of inequality in the cultural industries when it comes to how much some productions are paid, but I don't think it's unfair in any ways. Media is for people and they are the ones that decide to be attracted to more popular things. Small productions have a small range of clients because they aren't made for a big range of different types of people. 


10) What is commodification? 

The action or process of treating something as a mere commodity. It involves producing things not only for use, but also for exchange.

11) Do you agree with the argument that while there are a huge number of media texts created, they fail to reflect the diversity of people or opinion in wider society?

It surely was an issue in the past, but I feel like now the diversity had increased to the level that it's unexeptable to not include different opinions and the diversity of people.

12) How does Hesmondhalgh suggest the cultural industries have changed? Identify the three most significant developments and explain why you think they are the most important.

Cultural industries are no longer seen as second to the ‘real’ economy. Some are actually vast global businesses.
Ownership and organisation of cultural industries is now muchbroader - the largest cultural companies now operate across a range of cultural industries (for example, TV, publishing and film).
These large conglomerates are now connected in complex wayshowever there are also many small and medium sized companieswho create cultural products. 
These companies are becomingincreasingly connected with other medium and large culturalindustries.


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