The cultural industries

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?

In the societies where the cultural industries tend to be highly profitable they are with large companies and there political allies which help them to make a lot of money.

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

Nowadays there is a lot of competition therefore business have to come up with a good original idea that will help them to gain all the customers and beat their competitors and rise to the top.


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

Some problems that Hesmondhalgh identifies are having a risky business and also high production costs/ low reproduction costs.

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

The main reason that they are a risky business for companies involved is because the product that they create is not always going to be successful and sometimes it could lead them to not help because no business wants to be involved in a loss and sometimes it could lead to bad media.

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 believe personally that media should be about a form of artistic expression that play an important role in society because films are a very important to people and play an important role and without them nothing would be the same. 

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 are many ways that they minimise risks but three of those ways are conglomerate ownership, diversification and 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 I agree that they should be awarded more for their work and more for what they put forward because without them a lot of things would be different and probably wouldn't do as well.

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?

As time goes on film makers get use to making more better affects and start to use them more in their movies to make certain scenes more realistic and you will see this being used a lot more 


10) What is commodification? 

Commodification is the action or process of treating someone with goods and services.

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?

Yes I agree because not all them are able to reach out to people the way that they want to and give the message that they want to give and sometimes they may end up giving a negative view instead of a positive one that they are trying to give and this needs to change because people will start judging each other based on what they see and hear.

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.

Digitalisation because over the year peoples phones and computers have been able to access a lot of different things and reach out further than they were before, for example amazon prime are a big name and although there is only one official website/ app for amazon prime but there are millions of people watching it.

Formation of IT it over the years has become more and more advanced meaning that it is easier for companies such as apple to bring out new iPhone and new products because their technology is improving every year therefore whenever they release a new product it is guaranteed to be better than the previous one.