Institutional Analysis

David Hesmondhalgh and other critical voices

David Hesmondhalgh is among a range of academics who critically analyse the relationship between media work and the media industry. In his seminal book, The Culture Industries (Sage, 2019) he suggest that:

the distinctive organisational form of the cultural industries has considerable implications for the conditions under which symbolic creativity is carried out’

The Culture Industries (Sage, 2019, p.99)

Put another way, in an article he wrote with Banks (Banks, M., & Hesmondhalgh, D. (2009). Looking for work in creative industries policy. International Journal of Cultural Policy, 415-430.)

there must be serious concerns about the extent to which this business-driven, economic agenda is compatible with the quality of working life and of human well-being in the creative industries.

Looking for work in creative industries policy. International Journal of Cultural Policy p.428

TASK 2: Make a post on the vulnerable and precarious nature of a career in the creative industries – use both quotation and theorists (but avoid copy and paste!)

A critical reflection that highlights the ‘myth-making’ process surrounding the potential digital future for young creatives, setting up a counter-weight against the desire of so many young people who are perhaps too easily seduced to pursue a career in the creative industries. Where the promise of wealth and fame and the celebration of a range of unlikely popular heroes including various dot.com millionaires, Young British Artists, celebrity chefs, pop stars, media entrepreneurs and the like, have according to Banks and Hesmondhalgh (2009), encouraged nascent creatives to imagine themselves as the ‘star’ at the centre of their own unfolding occupational drama. Put precisely,

the individualising discourses of ‘talent’ and ‘celebrity’ and the promise of future fame or consecration, have special purchase in creative work, and are often instrumental in ensuring compliance with the sometimes invidious demands of managers, organisations and the industry (Banks & Hesmondhalgh, p. 420).

As can be deduced, this approach looks to spotlight a prevailing assumption around cultural production as one that is ‘innately talent-driven and meritocratic – that anyone can make it’ (ibid).

Although, as Angela McRobbie (2002) (2016 ) and others, (Communian, Faggian, & Jewell, 2011); (O’Brien, Laurison, Miles, & Friedman, 2016); (Hesmondhalgh, 2019) have argued, the study of creative work should include a wider set of questions including the way in which aspirations to and expectations of autonomy could lead to disappointment and disillusion. As Banks and Hesmondhalgh argue,

in its utopian presentation, creative work is now imagined only as a self-actualising pleasure, rather than a potentially arduous or problematic obligation undertaken through material necessity (2009, p. 417) 

As Hesmondhalgh (2019) notes, one feature of cultural work in the complex professional era is that many more people seem to have wnated to work professionally in the cultural industries than have succeeded in do so. Few people make it, and surprisingly little attention has been paid in research to how people do so, and what stops others from getting on.’ (p.99)

Creative Pathways / Hautlieu School Research

In my own research, I looked at theories of the self and identity in relation to aspirational ambitions and the realities of the creative economy which can often be found to out of kilter. Here Lucy, notes (with some derision) how those who work in the creative industry were not quite as she expected during her placement at local digital networking hub:

• LH [00:20:14] the minute that I went in I realized not everybody who works in creativity is a fun person. There are a lot more boring than you’d expect them to be. They’re not as fun.
• MM [00:20:36] Give me some examples you mean people are doing more mundane jobs that you didn’t expect?
• LH [00:20:40] They all wore suits. Especially when you don’t have to wear a suit. It’s odd that they chose to because it kind of means that they aren’t very like free spirited and they weren’t. They didn’t look happy doing what they were doing.

[Lucy Interview]

On this point, Neilson and Rossiter (2005) note that it is highly unlikely that the creative industries will begin to register in their mapping documents or annual reports the dark side of labour for this would put the euphoric rhetoric of creative industries policy in jeopardy, and this rhetoric is fundamental to the way in which government frames the sector. They note that even when some form of failure is recognised, it is not at the fault of the institutional frameworks, or indeed the capitalist system as a whole, but rather it is down to individual error or absence. As the 2008 report Creative Britain sets forward:

‘for every individual who succeeds, there are many who do not. For many, it will be the result of a perfectly reasonable personal decision that the commitment and determination required is not for them’ (p. 20)

As if ‘determination’ and ‘commitment’ were in themselves enough to secure success? A view that is shaded into fatuous assumption by the research carried by Friedman and Laurison (The Class Ceiling: Why it pays to be privileged, 2019) and O’Brien (Are the creative industries meritocratic? An analysis of the 2014 British Labour Force Survey, 2016). 

Indeed, it is within such arguments that I framed my own research. The idea that if you have enough ‘determination and commitment’ you will be successful does not recognise the fact that you may also need some form of intervention or help to get you through the early stages of a creative career, which for many young people and their families is just not an option to consider. Nevertheless, in this extract, Victoria is clear about the pathway of her own success in the creative and media industry:

VH:[00:12:19] . . . I was lucky in the respect that I had family who are in the business so I got to do a lot of shoots. [00:17:10] I think a lot sadly does come down to luck and who you know. Which can be a shame, I don’t think there is a scheme set up which pushes people into just the media industry over here. Like a network for younger people 

In simple terms: the value of (family) connections in the industry, provide a sobering counterweight to the attributes of ‘determination and commitment’. As does the role of luck, chance and coincidence, which, in this extract from my interview with Jude, could be argued to have had a more significant impact than his formal education and any form of school / career intervention:

• MM: [00:34:02] So how do you see that? Looking back do you think that was, do you think basically you were lucky? The right person, in the right place, at the right time?
• JL: [00:34:12] Yeah.