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’ (…).”
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.
:::::::::::::::::::
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 20th 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…
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