Transforming Cultural Industries: From Consumerism to Socialization

Nada Švob-Đokić, Ph.D.Scientific Adviser

Institute for International RelationsZagreb

The concept of culture industry propaganda and mass entertainment enabled by new

technologies (Adorno) industries that produce cultural goods and services and

therefore combine the cultural and the economic production of symbols, meanings and contents that are

distributed through markets and consumed by masses of population

typical forms of industrial production and organization to produce and distribute symbols (Garnham)

culture industries comprise tangible products and intangible intellectual or artistic services with creative content, economic value and market objectives (UNCTAD)

culture/creative industries: broadening of scope, presentation and consumption through new technologies

Transformative character

Fast development Broadening of scope Changing contents Changing symbols Global spread Fast standardization Fast penetration into different cultures, societies,

civilizational contexts Extremely innovative and dynamic Mediated (new technologies and new media)

Transformative character

Main cultural changes are induced by culture industries, through new technologies and social media in particular, and they are reflected in the specific, but rather general, cultural contexts (of national and ethnic cultures)

Culture industries are transformed to enable interaction with specific, particular cultural values. They enable interaction among different cultures.

Global level: the global multiculture (networks, network societies and network information economies)

Social media and culture industries ‘industrial media’, now commonly referred to as

‘traditional’, ‘broadcast’ or ‘mass’ media social media: online contents that transform

monologues (broadcast from one source) into dialogues and multilogues (parallel communication of many subjects)

culture industry is more interested in constructing and renewing the simultaneous contact between broadcasters and receivers than it is in the formation of historical memory

culture industry appears to be a bridge that links industrial and post-industrial societies through cultural communication and consumption

Social media and culture industries The remodeling of cultures, supported by

functioning of the “network information economy” is indeed carried on and expressed through the development of culture industries and the production changes that such development implies. It does not discard memories and cultural values, but it reinterprets them in a new way that enables their fast and global distribution and consumption, which eventually leads to the final oblivion of traditional cultures and established cultural values.

Social media facilitate processes of changing of cultural memories, and incite remodeling of cultures and cultural identities.

Social media and culture industries Social media facilitate the promotion of culture and

creative industries products, but their influence on processes of production and consumption of cultural contents and cultural values cannot be documented

Social media provide the links between cultural productions, values and human groups and societies, and support socialization of cultural values

In this respect socialization is tightly connected to cultural consumption and to the change and dynamics of cultural development. It often depends on mediation of cultural values.

Social media and culture industries Social media provide the missing link between

consumerism and socialization. They support an ever faster and cheaper distribution of cultural industries products and services, but they also provide for easy involvement of consumers in the production of cultural products (e.g. computer games, music, etc.)

The conceptual framework for interactions between culture industry and social media is provided by the concept of long tail culture (Ch. Anderson)

Culture industries and cultural socialization in Southeastern Europe(SEE) SEE displays very different types of socialization,

communication, medialization of cultures, as well as different types of cultures themselves. Development of culture industries is a rather new phenomenon that fastly progresses, but relies mostly on ‘industrial media’

Societies of the region depend on the import of cultural industries’ products hallmarked by the continuous raise of consumerism. The markets are formatted by imports. The local productions rarely reach global levels.

Such position favors passive consumption of cultural industry products that tends to support and ensure heavy imports of contents and general cultural values, which does not support creativity, but rather imitation of foreign products and their eventual adaptation to local tastes and habits

Culture industries and cultural socialization in Southeastern Europe(SEE) Transformation of culture industries in SEE region tends to take

the direction towards localization and not towards globalization of cultural products and cultural communication

If globalization is interpreted as re-localization of global trends (Kraidy) expectations for the development of culture industries may raise.

If transformative practices could enrich local development of culture industries and faster technological change, the use of local talents, places, etc., may incite faster socialization of new cultural values and increase cultural communication

For the present, “All those promises of happiness by the culture industry… are basically the experience of the transitory” (de Carvalho)

Culture industries and cultural socialization in Southeastern Europe(SEE) Culture industries exist as small scale productions and, when not

extremely imitative of global trends, they appear to be ‘smart’ culture industries able to employ new, ever more flexible technologies, talents and social environments

they may substantially increase cultural production; cultural consumption may grow, widen and intensify in the contexts of particular, small and identity specific cultures

Culture industries developing in Southeastern Europe could stand in between the large, transnational global productions and highly individualized cultural consumption, offering a new, interesting, middle-scale type of cultural creativity that is supportive of different and ever more diversified cultural communities in the region