Cultural Theory & Popular Culture – Term 3

The dawn of cultural industries

To a new way of making things

Salvador Montañés Ramírez – 11063750

Abstract

The out-of-date situation and behavior of the so called cultural industries, in terms

of copyright abusing, high prices and market determination of the “production” of

cultural “products” –equiparated by these terms to consumer products, which we

understand are not the same thing– leaves a dark scenario for both creators and

readers/listeners/viewers.

As a solution that comes out by the steady system’s own pressure, we propose in

this work the unified spread of an alternative contestatary way of developing cultural

creation and reading/listening/viewing. Our proposal, already in growth process, is a

culture apart from the institutions and the markets and based in free creativity, free

access and free sharing as a response to an industry/market that leave those who really

enjoy every form of cultural activity unsatisfied.

Key words: culture, cultural industries, open access, cultural activity

Most of the references used in this work have been found in the internet and

downloaded for free. May this act serve as defense of the idea of free access and free

sharing of culture and information present in this work.

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– S. Montañés

The dawn of cultural industries

Cultural industries nowadays

“Britney Spears, American Idol, Desperate Housewives …  The material that

passes for popular culture has never been so vapid.  Indeed, it’s almost too easy to

ridicule this stuff sold to viewers and listeners the world around.  There is no

enlightenment involved in the merchandise presented to us by car companies, banks,

and other commercial failures whose primary intent is to convince us that our future

involves us spending our money on their products.  Indeed, there is not even a pretense

or supposition that there should be any enlightenment in the equation.  So, we spend our

time watching and listening to these entertainment products while we work out how

we’ll get that new car shown to us every ten minutes during the commercial break.”

– Rob jacobs, 2009

With the rise of the internet and the new ways of gathering and sharing

information and cultural items –making a difference from cultural products, name given

by the dominant industries and market system, which carries a concrete way of creation

(production) and spreading (distribution) and limits sharing, as well as compares a

cultural item’s life and usage to a consumer product’s– a response to the mainstream

industries is being developed.

The behavior of cultural industries, following the capitalist system way of action,

has incurred into injustices with the readers/listeners/viewers and with the creators.

Hector Fouce, profesor of the Complutense University of Madrid, collects in his

article Tecnologías y medios de comunicación en la música digital. De

la crisis del mercado discográfico a las nuevas prácticas de escucha

(2010) complaints from different groups of young spanish people

stating that they would not download music for free if the prices of

the CDs or the downloadable songs were not so high.

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Potts, Cuningham, Hartley and Ormerod, authors of Social network markets: a

new definition of the creative industries (2008), talk about cultural industries as

operating within an market economy based on social networks. With this, they do not

necessarily mean to talk only about social media recently developed in the last years of

the internet’s life but to both buying and producing decisions being based on

interactions with others and their decisions, whose influence is usually decisive,

compared to price signals for other common industries.

We can translate this into two implicit conclusions:

In what concerns to consumer decision-making, if it is influenced by decisions

and opinions of other consumers around the decision-maker, that decision is to a large

extent subject to influence from marketing campaigns and trend-setting.

This applies to the point where a marketing campaign can be truly decisive, and

even the only factor to influence a purchase decision on a CD record or a book. You

only need good distribution and mediatic omnipresence, which present panorama of

media concentration on few owners’ hands makes quite easy to accomplish (Mander,

2004).

Ron Jacobs (2009) wonders wether “the culture we absorb influence us or do we

influence it”, and although he admits the difficulty of answering such a question, it fits

on the thinking line we have drawn in the previous paragraph. Jacobs uses as an

example TV series “24” and what he considers its predecesor, 007 films, stating that

such programs with their obvious political background contribute to shape our vision of

who the enemies of the state are but also how powerful the state can be, in order to

spread hate in the first case and fear in the latter.

In the case of producers, just as (in the end) market environment influences

consumer decision-making, market dictates as well what is to be produced, steadily

through time since three or four decades and with proper adaptation to modern changes.

One example for that might be how sex and provocation turned out to be a very

effective way of selling records for music producers and creators in the industry (we can

say) back in the 80’s and still keeps up today; but, at the same time, being a single

phenomenon taking place through so many years, we have been able to see how it has

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become more and more explicit as years passed. It would also be the case for violence

and sex as well in commercial film-making. Always there and always pushing harder.

Morbidity has always sold, but there has never existed more than nowadays.

Copyright issue is a debate that not long ago fulfilled news media around the

world, with events like the shut down of Megaupload by the FBI that followed the law

proposals SOPA, ACTA and PIPA in the USA.

For creators already inside the music industry (if not created directly by it) the

defense of copyright supposes a kind of auratization –following Walter Benjamin’s

(1936) concept– of their work, a feeling of superiority from where they cannot (or do

not want to) see the injustices of their work’s consumption by the public. We could

easily state this within the market economics to which marketing strategies serve.

Actually in the whole economical panorama, everything from smallest to biggest

consumer products are covered with an aura that goes beyond the use of any of them.

In the case of the so called cultural products, and concretely musical products, the

work is first deauratized when it is turned into another consumer product, but then it is

auratized again in that role of consumer product, surrounded by a marketing campaign

in charge of that. In the end, that is what advertising does: associating intangible

qualities to material products.

But in any case this would be nothing but a mask behind which economical

interests lie, specially those of distributors and record labels, who squeeze revenues

from sells taking the biggest part; only that in the case of millions-seller, the part that is

left for the creators is substancialy greater that in the case of less-known works.

Just like Benjamin said that the nazis intended to “aestheticize politics” and

“politicize art” (Romero, 2004) to develop the regime’s values to the people, culture

derived from cultural industries/markets suposes a reflection of political values as well

as economic interests from governments, which directly lead to those of big

corporations, an important part in global power’s ownership. In the end another

reflection of the opression on the people and the will to keep them entertained (few

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“cultural products” go beyond that) while those who rule us keep on doing whatever

they want with total freedom.

* * *

By now we can state that culture produced from institutionally supported (and that

includes the markets, closely related to governments every organisms and entitites is

unavoidly susceptible of political domination.

The solution is a culture born apart from the institutions and markets.

The internet, social media and web 2.0 allows culture sharing in a way that never

took place before, but the internet itself (and the access to it) is ruled by the

governments, that can apply political restrictions to it if needed; and by the market,

since internet access is controlled by telephon companies and all the industries that

make the technology possible.

We must not forget as well the influence of music companies and organisations

(from producing labels to writers and performers themselves), which could eventually

act like a strong lobby, if they saw their business model threatened, even if its because

of a perfectly legal way of creating and sharing that has nothing to do with music

industry except for its rejection.

Anyway, we are not talking of burning buildings or assaulting the congress. What

we want to propose here is a paralel “culture” which uses the tools available –inevitably

from the system: there is no alternative internet– and develops in a broad way cultural

items’ open access and creation apart from market dictates, promoting sharing and

creation without economic interests, finding the true motivation of “making” culture:

culture itself.

To a new way of making things

What should this new way of “making culture” be like? Now we are going to try

and state some main points that we could see as recquirements for the development of

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paralel cultural activity.

No economical interest: the motivation issue

Economical interests are what mostly pervert any activity within a capitalist

market-based system. From this work we strongly state that no work of culture

should pursue economic benefit as the main purpose. Cultural work cannot be

treated as current job –actually no current work should– since it is meant to

achieve an objective in another terms totally apart from the economical.

Cultural works are meant to inform people, to make them wonder, to

express an idea and share it, or to support social and political iniciatives (as some

examples) but we understand that the pursuit of benefits as an objective and not a

way, leads to a corporate-like kind of activity and as we have already seen that

supposes nothing but harm to culture and its conversion to a money-making

machine like any other consumer industry.

In other words, the activity could be the aim itself, or it could pursue social

revenues (from a political way as we said to a purely entertaining purpose).

Money as the main (and at all costs) aim can lead people or even events

from the popular culture panorama to act under and for companies’ images which

in pursuit as well of the greatest benefits possible guide themselves following

audience demand and trends in the market.

Quality creation with shoestring resources

Staying aside of the main industries and its business model (and the

restrictions it carries) involves a clear disadvantage: not having the budget a big

record label or its mother entertainment company or any sponsor would give to

you in exchange of your freedom for some years.

But once again, modern times are here to save us: now it is easier than ever

to produce and publish from home.

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Maybe the most difficult fields to carry this on were visual arts (sculpture,

paint) and music. In the first case it is hard to find materials, space and transport

resources if you have planned a great thirty metters high sculpture; but it has

become ridicously easy to make music at home, and music industries, for the

popularity and wideness of this field of arts is probably the most representative of

the cultural industry problematic.

We still need access to a computer and the internet, but after that the amount

of music-making software available is increasing, as well as the ways of

uploading and sharing it. Still far better than having to record luckily in a four-

track tape recorder or a single voice recorder.

No creativity premises

What we are talking about in this part of the work is not the cration of an –

ism, in the way that used to happen with the late 19th century and the 20th’s

vanguardist movements, but a shift of mind, far from the institutional and market

influence, a network of creation with no starting point but a personal motivation

from the creators. A kind of underground movement able to hold the system off

and questionate validity and effectiveness of the cultural industries.

Comparable value to a market “cultural product”

A common argument from the side of the cultural industries against music

downloading is that when you download an album, although you get the music,

you miss all the artwork that usually goes inside CD cases. That is why we should

consider important (when it is considered proper, according to author’s intentions)

to go beyond the limits of purely making music or writing or whatever activity

creators do by integrating it in a multidisciplinar way of working, enhancing the

result.

This is more a suggestion than a true premise, but we see as necessary that

works produced in this new way should be able to compare themselves (and

overcome) to any industrial cultural product. This means merging musical work

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with graphic artwork, with the intention of giving people an added value to every

work in the way of a network: every creator would be a network of multiple

disciplines or work within a network of workers from different disciplens in order

to complement their work with each others’.

Open Content, Open Access, free sharing

Since we present this paralel way of culture as a response to abuses from the

market and the cultural industries and in the vital context of the social media and

web 2.0, free, easy access to cultural items turns out to be essential to make it

work with the desired richness.

“ Open Content is about different work categories than software like

literature, music, photographs and further more that were created to be freely

available and used by all people in a broad way. The minimum requirement would

be that the work can be freely consumed and non-commercially copied and

distributed. Optional work uses would for example be the modification and the

commerical usage.”

“ According to an official definition of Peter Suber, Open Access means:

‘Open Access literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most

copyright

and licensing restrictions’ “

– Heuffel, 2007

Freely available, editable, non-commercial, online, free of restrictions.

Looks like an ideal, but it is already true, and it has to be even more spreaded in

the future.

There are some different open content licenses, like GNU Free

Documentation License, the Digital Peer Publishing License, or the Open Content

License (Heuffel, 2007); but the most famous, easy and practical to the moment

can be considered the Creative Commons license.

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Nowadays it is hard to meet someone who has not heard about Creative

Commons licenses. Here, a very good definition of what they are is given by

Foong (2008):

“CC licences are a set of six free standardised, “open content” copyright

licences that grant permission to the public to share and use copyright works, in

accordance with the licence terms. For example, a basic term common to all six

licences is that whenever a work is copied or redistributed under the licence,

credit must always be given to the creator/licensor. This is a “some rights

reserved” copyright licensing model that provides creators with flexible options

in governing how their work is shared and used by others. As it starts from the

premise that copyright will be exercised to permit reproduction and distribution

of the copyright material by others (subject to certain conditions of use), it is

particularly relevant to material that can be distributed online in digital form.”

In the same work, Foong also express a “concern that CC promotes a “gift

culture” which devalues creative works both in society at large and in the minds

of creators themselves.” This is a false discourse which intends to suggest that

cultural industries fairly value creator’s work, when the reality is that a really

low percentage of revenues from published works of any kind (except for the

visual arts-gallery-collectors world maybe) goes to the creators, with the

exception of those selling huge amounts (millions of copies), who are favoured

by the system.

These firsts words about this “new way of doing things” in a cultural sense should

be seen as an initial proposal, for sure open to changes, doubts, responses, or rejects, as

there exists a huge gap in the author’s knowledge and experience, but it could be

considered as a first try of a student to think about a beginning to what he nowadays

thinks should be an independent and enriching practise.

* * *

I have based the second part of this work on thoughts and ideas that I had slightly

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forged as I watched the panorama of music industry and its abuses and out-of-date

methods. Of course the idea about that panorama and my original sketch-of-an-idea

have been fed by the research (never deep enough) developed for this work.

As an auto-critic, the whole statement in this work should be questioned by an

idea: since the idea of the second part wants to be a response to the institutionalised

culture born from cultural industry/market, it is really easy to think that, the way it has

been presented in this work suposes an institutionalisation of that alternative idea (even

“alternative” is already a institutionalised label).

Even if I have not presented the idea for this new culture with a catchy title or an

–ism behind, there is a little fear that I may have fallen into the dynamic I was fighting

against by talking about new-born ways of carrying cultural activities and creation as a

unique phenomenon or by trying to state points of action for it.

In that case, perhaps this work is now ready to be thrown to the bin (or failed).

But my purpose, and the purpose of that original sketch already in my mind, was

that this way of creating and sharing became a main way of doing things, just like we

try not to buy products that abuse of labor conditions or land massive exploitation. In

the end, that “way” of doing things in cultural activity is a response to the main power,

barely stated in the first part of this work –more than ever not only in the content but

also in the way of acting–, a protest, and hopefully part of a system switch in many

other aspects that, now for sure, go beyond my knowledge.

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References:

– Benjamin, W. (1936) The work of art in the age of Mechanical Reproduction.

Retrieved from http://www.google.com/url?

sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CDUQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F

%2Fitp.nyu.edu%2F~mp51%2Fcommlab%2Fwalterbenjamin.pdf&ei=6px0T4-

cOdCgOv-DgU0&usg=AFQjCNF30AcPFB66Ssfb6juTk4m6gXS1tg

– Cavanagh, J.; Mander, J.; International Forum on Globalization. Alternative

Task Force. (2004) Alternatives to economic globalization: a better world is possible.

Berrett-Koehler Publishers

– Fouce, H. (2010) Tecnologías y medios de comunicación en la

música digital. De la crisis del mercado discográfico a las nuevas

prácticas de escucha. Comunicar (34) 65-72. Retrieved from

http://www.revistacomunicar.com/verpdf.php?

numero=34&articulo=34-2010-08

– Heuffel, S. (2007) Creative Commons Licenses. Vienna University of

Economics and Business Administrations. Retrieved from

http://wi.wu-wien.ac.at/rgf/diplomarbeiten/Seminararbeiten/2007/200706_Heuffel/

CreativeCommonLicenses_Heuffel_se.pdf

– Jacobs, R. (2009) Into the Vapid. Consuming cultural products. Counterpunch.

Retrieved from

http://www.counterpunch.org/2009/08/02/consuming-the-cultural-product/

– Potts, J.; Cuningham, S.; Hartley, J.; Ormerod, P. (2008) Social network

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markets: a new definition of the creative industries. Journal of Cultural Economics.

Retrieved from http://www.springerlink.com/content/h673836r0183w64q/fulltext.pdf

– Romero, A. (2004) Benjamin: Estética y nazismo. Retrieved from

http://anibalromero.net/Walter.Benjamin.estetica.pdf

– Romero González, M. (n.d.) El concepto de la industria cultural de Theodor

Adorno. Interiorgráfico (11) Retrieved from

http://www.interiorgrafico.com/articulos/32-segunda-edicion-interiorgrafico-/37-el-

concepto-de-la-industria-cultural-de-theodor-adorno

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