David Hesmondhalgh

The theory of David Hesmondhalgh

Hesmondhalgh, David (2018): “The Cultural Industries”.
Ryan, Bill (1992): “Making Capital from Culture”.

Formatting

The film industry can be very lucrative, but there are plenty of risks. David Hesmondhalgh (2018) argued cultural industry companies devised a variety of strategies to overcome the “perceived difficulties in making profits”. The term formatting refers the ways these institutions try to increase their chances of success.

For example, the feel-good comedy is seen as a financially reliable genre because they target a mass audience. Appealing to all ages and gender, action-adventure and superhero films are also considered to be four-quadrant productions.

Major studios can afford famous actors and directors to improve the marketability of their films. Hesmondhalgh called this star power. Notice how “Blinded by the Light” emphasises its use of Bruce Springsteen’s music. It should be no surprise to learn advertisements for the film appeared at the start of his music videos on YouTube. The film also plays on the director’s previous success, “Bend It Like Beckham”.

Another formatting technique is the series. The Marvel Cinematic Universe epitomises this concept of serialisation. Being part of a franchise almost guarantees success compared to the riskier stand-alone texts. That is why the big screen is full of sequels, prequels, spin-offs, alternate timelines and reboots. As Bill Ryan (1992) argued, formatting as an attempt to “confront the uncertainties of the cultural marketplace” through some “form of creative control”.

What is the term that describe the effort to maximize audiences through genre, stars and serialization. How is it applied to your close study product?

Why are media industries risky business?

Industries that make texts: distinctive features

•Risky business. ‘It is a well-established fact that most books, recordings and films fail, and that most revenue comes from a small number of big hits” Researchers had noted that 80 percent of income derives from 20 per cent of product or 90 per cent of income from 10 per cent of product. Often success is more concentrated that this.

Traditional cultural industries face competition from companies that use new form of technologies in neighbouring sectors, such as the IT industries in the twentieth-first century.

Audience use cultural products in unpredictable ways. Art consumption is often associated with status and difference. As a result, fashionable performer or styles, even if heavily marketized, can suddenly come to be perceived as outmoded.

This is why ‘symbol creators’ artists are given a relative (yet not unlimited) freedom to produce original and distinctive products that might become hits. However, media industries must continuously control the circulation and availability of the artists come up with.

Cultural companies are relying on neighbouring cultural industries to make their products known and valued by the public. A film for example relies on good film reviews that are published either on print or online.

Creativity versus commerce

Although quite often media products films are successful both commercially and aesthetically — meaning they are both popular with the public and the ‘experts’ — there is a predominant idea that commercial interests limit and often opposes the creative personality of the artists. Creativity and commerce seem to be in a constant struggle or else, a tense dialogue. The autonomy of the artists in a commercial environment is highly contested and debatable.

High production costs and low reproduction costs

A film might be very expensive to make, but it is much cheaper to reproduce and circulate it. There is a high ratio between fixed costs (production) and variable costs (circulation). This means that big heats are extremely profitable (compensating for the inevitably large number of misses). This leads to a very strong orientation towards ‘audience maximization’ in the cultural industries and a consequent emphasis on circulation and on marketing activities.

Semi-public goods

Cultural industries products like films can be ‘consumed‘ limitless times without losing their value (as opposed to food for example). What is more the means of industrial reproduction of cultural goods are relatively low in cost. This means that firms have to achieve the scarcity which gives values to good by limiting access to cultural goods and services via artificial means.