CULTURAL INDUSTIRES BLOG TASK

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

- The term 'cultural industry' refers to the creation, production, and distribution of products of a cultural or artistic nature.

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

- Hesmondhalgh identifies that societies in which the cultural industries are highly profitable tend to be societies that support the conditions where large companies, and their political allies make money. 

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

- Cultural industries are competing with each other to secure audience members.

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?

- Risk derives from the fact that audiences use cultural commodities in highly volatile and unpredictable ways. Cultural industries can be highly profitable in spite of high levels of risk, but it may be difficult to achieve high levels of profit for independent or individual companies.

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 society?

- I don't think that the media should be all about profit as it means that the producers won't be focusing on the quality of what they're producing as they'll be thinking of the money instead. As a result of them making it about profit, they may not even receive the money they want if no one is interested in wha they've produced. 

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

- Through vertical and horizontal integration. 

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?

- Yes because since cultural industries create, produce and distribute products of cultural and artistic nature, they can control how those products will be perceived which can control whether inequality or injustice can be controlled.

9) Listen and read the transcript to the opening 9 minutes of the Freakonomics podcast - No Hollywood Ending for the Visual-Effects Industry. Why has the visual effects industry suffered despite the huge budgets for most Hollywood movies?

- The visual effects industry were possibly risking the artists career because of the problems they had( political and economical).

10) What is commodification? 

- A commodification refers to the process through which news is translated in a good or service designed to earn its producer a profit when it’s sold in a market. 

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?

- I agree with this statement because although there are lots of media texts out there I don't think that they specifically aim to achieve the message that the audience want put out there.

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.

- Ownership and control of most industries is now broader: this means there can be a wider range of people involved with different opinions and ideas.

- Digitalisation: it’s an advantage to industries as what they produce or create can reach a wider range of people in a short amount of time.

- Increase in amount companies spend on advertising: this means that industries will have a better chance of being known.