![Sample our Communication Studies journals, sign in here to start your access, 2013 & 2014 volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5927/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Information-Science2.jpg"})
Abstract
This article reviews the evolution of the concept of culture industries, when neither industry nor culture themselves are today what they were at the time when the term was coined. It attempts to explain the dilution of the term into more nebulous terms (“leisure industries,” “entertainment industries” or “creative industries”) and suggests new challenges for the research on culture industries. What is at stake is no longer an application of a Fordist production to culture, a one-directional mass communication and a mediation by experts, but rather: (1) a cultural experience which is no longer clearly separated from other activities (leisure in general, consumption and even work); (2) the communicative explosion of all industrial production in a media environment, where industrialized symbolic products are mixed with culturalized industrial products; and (3) the empowerment of the recipient, which on one hand ignores the traditional experts and on the other leads to post-productive (recreational and even creative) cultural practices.
Notes
[1] It thus appeared that ‘culture industry’ had finally ceased to conjure up ideas of threatening conspiracies of power and money which were designed to perpetuate the subordinate position of the lower classes. Evidence of this could be seen in the fact that the term was most commonly used in the plural, with ‘cultural industries’ (Hirsch, Citation1972; Lacroix & Tremblay, Citation1997; Jeffcut & Pratt, Citation2002; Negus, Citation2006; Hesmondhalgh, Citation2007a) naturally inspiring less fear than the deadly and invincible Culture Industry of the Frankfurt School.
[2] Riders on the Storm by The Doors and Billy Jean by Michael Jackson are mashed up here, in Billy Jean on the Storm: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v = BMLFrwK7EYA
[3] Selected fragments of the entire film catalog of Quentin Tarantino: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v = 6bdovgjn7BY&feature = related See also The murder scenes, one after the other, in The Sopranos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v = JhFeZZflUj4
[4] Such as the 6th season of Lost: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v = AOHVuJC1o1Y See also this recap of The Sopranos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v = AsgRwxx7au0
[5] Like this from the Fine Brothers: “100 Movie Spoilers in 5 Minutes.” Pared-down economic resources employed with a fine irony: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v = hN5avIvylDw
[6] Kubrick's The Shining as a wonderful family movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v = sfout_rgPSA