Test + model Answer *

“[Cultural determinism is] the view that systems of values and beliefs have causal primacy [over the structure of the Cultural Industries]. (…) A version of such cultural determinism underlies the commonly expressed (…) view that ‘the media give people what they want’ — that is, the shape of the media is determined by its audiences’ culturally shaped desires and expectations. (…) this view can be heard with (…) regularity in cultural industry organisations and among public commentators and politicians. The main problem with it is that it ignores the huge role media themselves play in shaping the desires and expectations of audiences.

(…) the objection to cultural reductionism is not that it attributes causal properties to cultural processes. Clearly, for example, changes in leisure time and practices have an enormous influence on what cultural industry companies can do. The problem here, as with any reduction, is the begging of further questions about causality, such as, ‘how did these cultural practices come to take the form that they did?’ There are added difficulties in discussing the causal effects of cultural processes that are connected to the difficulties of definition surrounding the term ‘culture’ (…).”

 David Hesmondhalgh,  The Cultural Industries (2006). 81-82.

Analyze this excerpt using as a contextualizing example one of the case studies considered in class. Amongst other aspects you deem relevant, underline the tensions Hesmondhalgh is referring to and provide an operative definition of culture.

If you quote from other sources included in our bibliographical list, please refer the author’s last name and the page number.

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Analyzing the Cultural Industries, David Hesmondhalg is careful to avoid what he calls a reductionist approach — a perspective that privileges one factor in the definition of the structure and the patterns of change of the Cultural Industries. In order to consider the intricate dynamics between the institutions that produce and circulate cultural texts, the author does not use the concept ‘culture’ in the anthropological sense (anything that creates meaning to a group of people), but, citing Raymond Williams, chooses to define it as a “signifying system” used to communicate, reproduce and experience social meaning (11-12, 82).

In the excerpt presented, Hesmondhalg starts by providing a definition and an example of a cultural determinist approach towards media content and then counter-argues stating that cultural practices do influence the Cultural Industries but, simultaneously, the later also shape cultural experience. Indeed, the complexity of these dynamics should be addressed in the academic field and also taken into consideration in the political arenas, in order to avoid a simplistic approach that would simply state that, for instance, the content of the media is the direct answer to the audience’s wishes. Sociological changes do have an impact on the Cultural Industries, a clear example, pointed out by the author, being the growth in the amount of leisure time and money to spend on leisure activities that has characterized the Western experience since the middle of the 20^th century.

Nonetheless, especially since the 1980s with the rise of neoliberalism and the increasing margins of profit for big corporations, the Cultural Industries themselves play a huge role in shaping the consumers’ expectations and desires. This is evident in the increase in advertising expenditure (91) with the professed objective of influencing and manipulating the consumer’s desires and choices. In fact, advertising integrates the Cultural Industries and simultaneously guarantees their commercial success, generating ever increasing margins of profit for the few economic groups who own most of the corporations (with their intricate conglomerates that many times take over profitable smaller enterprises). As the engine of the capitalist system, the advertising industry molds the public’s decisions and absorbs the alternative cultural fields that may develop against the hegemonic ideology and modes of production — Peterson and Anand describe this process as the dialectic of resistance and appropriation (325).

As early as 1938, focusing specifically on the music industries, Theodor Adorno comments on how the music circulated by the later means to obliterate the individual will and to create alienating conditions that serve the ruling power. Listening to music that is mechanized and destitute of any artistic qualities, the public is led to believe that they have a choice while in fact they blindly consume what is offered. While Adorno’s view, on a first approach, might be read as political determinism, in fact it helps us understand the aforementioned dynamics, since it highlights the fact that the cultural products we consume help shape our desires whose impact on the production industries in turn shape their outputs. Thus, one cannot assume a cultural determinist perspective and argue that the consumers’ choices per se are the main factor that conditions cultural production, for most consumers’ expectations derive directly from the products that the cultural industries feed them with. Definitely, one cannot chose what she ignores in the first place and, when accustomed to consume dubious quality music or TV programs that anesthetize her critical sense, it is not reasonable to expect that she will (be able to) develop her critical faculties and ask for something different. Offer therefore affects demand and perpetuates patterns of consumption that disempower citizens turning them into mere consumers and maintaining the status quo.

Case studies [to be articulated with your argumentation!] — Mad Men + Pop Art commented on these dynamics + Barbie doll could be used as an example of how a socialization object models the future-adult’s behaviors (namely, convincing young girls that they should grow up as fashion addicts and contribute to what the documentary The Story of Stuff describes as “the golden arrow of consumption”). Additionally, in a still racially segregated world, it confers hyper visibility to patterns of beauty and body types representative of a particular ethnic group. + How does Terry Richardson’s imagery condition the hegemonic identity politics and shape the consumer’s expectations about how women should dress and man should act towards them?

To conclude / In conclusion / Summing up my arguments…