Economics and mass culture

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• Mass/popular culture is a commodity that is produced, sold, consumed
• Yet different from other traditional goods because no clear use-value
  • Karl Marx: founder of communism, political economist, found history to be a series of class struggles,
  • Defined different values of a good; two concern us:
    • Use-value: The utility or usefulness to a consumer
      • "May spring from stomach or from the fancy"
      • Used, and most often, used up
      • Usually applied to material goods
    • Exchange-value: The rate at which one commodity exchanges for another
      • Measured by money, labor, time exchange
  • Cultural forms represent unique form of commodity
    • Value often not material based and subject to deterioration
      • Materials subject to deterioration: food, cars, houses, etc.
      • Cultural forms that are not: songs, stories, film
      • While culture may require material to transport, the desired good is not the material onto which it is recorded
  • Cultural forms are often not used up, unlike material goods
    • Songs, stories do not lose value with repeated plays or recitals
    • Even fine art does not deteriorate due to use
    • Conversely, value of culture often increases with greater exposure
• Critical distinction from traditional goods: Costs of production & reproduction
  • Production costs of mass culture: high
    • Consider a television program -- several costly requirements
      • Preproduction, studio, equipment, crew, producer, director, writer, editing, etc.
  • Reproduction costs of mass culture: low
    • Once produced, replication of cultural form requires little labor or cost per unit
  • Versus material goods
    • Similar production, reproduction costs (consider a house or car)
    • Each house, car, ton of iron, etc., has approximate value
    • But few cultural productions have value -- most music releases, TV shows fail to create profit
    • Material examples have recognized value; cultural examples must be recognized by audience to have value

Fiske's two economies

• Cultural commodities move through two economies
  • Financial economy: consumption, production clearly distinct
    • Harvest ear of corn, sell/purchase, consume
    • Value exists regardless of consumer's use/consumption
    • The financial economy of a cultural product contains two subeconomies:
      1. Material commodity sold to producers, consumers -- DVD, CD, download
      2. Audience as commodity sold to advertisers or sponsors -- based on demographics of audience (age, income, geography, education, etc.)
  • Cultural economy: distinctions not as clear
    • Music is produced, sold and "consumed"
    • But what is commodified? Not only wealth, but social identity, pleasures, meanings, etc.
    • The assignment of these values is an individual response to culture -- a bottom-up process
      • Scholars have found great variety in meanings and pleasures from the same show by similiar groups
    • Production of meaning/pleasure is the responsibility of the consumer
    • Meanings/pleasures often determine selection of cultural goods (individually and in the aggregate)