Hesmondhalgh, David. The Cultural Industries.
Raphael, Chad
Hesmondhalgh, David. The Cultural Industries. Thousand Oaks,
CA/London/New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2002. Pp. 290. ISBN 0-7619-5452-X (hb.) $87.00; 0-7619-5453-8 (pb.) $26.00.
David Hesmondhalgh, a Lecturer in Sociology at The Open University
in the United Kingdom, has written a textbook that synthesizes research
in political economy, cultural studies, and sociology of the media
industries. Yet he also advances an original argument about the
"interweaving of change and continuity" (p. 3) in the business
of culture since the 1970s. In the process, he weighs and rejects more
breathless, sweeping claims about the role of the media in transforming
contemporary economic and cultural life--from theories of postmodernism
and post-industrialism to accounts of global cultural imperialism and
cultural democratization.
Part One offers a theoretical basis for the book. The author
defines the cultural industries as "based upon the industrial
production and circulation of texts [that] are centrally reliant on the
work of symbol creators" (p. 14). He lays out the specific economic
characteristics that separate the media from other industries. After
reviewing a wide range of frameworks for understanding the media
business, Hesmondhalgh argues for a version of political economy rooted
in European cultural studies. He also identifies the main historical
levers of change in the media industries over the past three decades:
the economic crisis of the West in the 1970s, and the internal struggles
of the media to cope with new challenges to managing creative production
and distribution.
The second part of the book focuses on the main arenas of change
and continuity. A chapter on communications policy traces the global
turn to privatized media yet reminds us of the resilience of public
service broadcasting and the continued relevance of national governments
as policy making bodies. A chapter on concentration of ownership points
out that conglomeration is not novel and tends to be cyclical, but that
the increasing interdependence of large and small companies through a
range of alliances is new. International media flows, the subject of
another chapter, are presented as mostly stable since the 1970s, with
American media still powerful, although not unchallenged in local and
regional markets. Another chapter explains how the transformational
potential of digital technologies has been held in check by the business
strategies and production relations of the old media.
Concluding chapters evaluate the complex impacts of these
developments on media employees, audiences and citizens. Hesmondhalgh
finds little improvement in the plight of most creative workers and
journalists, who remain poorly paid and underemployed despite the riches
showered on a handful of media stars. Although creative personnel and
journalists maintain more autonomy than most workers, they face greater
intrusion of marketing pressures on their turf. While he rejects
unsubstantiated claims about the homogenization of media content and its
declining quality, Hesmondhalgh turns a more troubled gaze on the
growing commercialization of media for fostering anxious desire to
consume, alienation, and environmental harm. He notes that the
acceleration of media consumption and reduced audience attentiveness to
any one text may threaten complex argument and storytelling, but can
also replace reverence for the media with healthy skepticism.
The book makes its argument with reference to a wealth of examples
from every major cultural industry, including television, theater,
magazines, newspapers, popular music, and advertising. It also discusses
the implications of many new technologies, such as the Internet, desktop
publishing, digital recording and satellite television. The book
includes many tables, figures, references, an index and a bibliography.
Suggestions for further reading follow each chapter.
Chad Raphael
Santa Clara University
