DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 6 Susana Tosca

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Digital Culture and Sociology

• Production

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about today

• Conceptual introduction
• The Production of Culture, Keith Negus.
• Intercultural Communication on Websites,
  Elizabeth Würtz
• "Lifes a Game Play More in the Third Space.,
  Susana Tosca

production
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cases synopsis example
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culture economy
du Gay et. al.

• opposed terms? spiritual vs. material, hard vs.
  soft
• related, no side dominates the other
• Economic processes are cultural phenomena
• Cultural material is manufactured
• The notion of cultural economy economic
  processes depend on meaning (also language and
  representation) for their effects and to have
  particular conditions of existence
• Businesses reflect on their organizational
  culture

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cultural economy
du Gay et. al.

• Culture is increasingly important to do business
  in the contemporary world
• Global entertainment corporations product and
  distribute culture all over the world, powerful
  agents
• More and more goods become cultural goods,
  growing aesthetization
• Increasing influence of cultural intermediaries
  advertising, design, marketing
• Internal life of organizations is also the object
  of cultural reconstruction

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globalization
Robins
Globalization is about the dissolution of the
old structures and boundaries of national states
and communities. It is about the
transnationalization of economic and cultural
life, frequently imagined in terms of the
creation of a global space and community in which
we shall all be global citizens and neighbours.
(p. 12)
what is your own experience of globalization?
what does it mean to you?
Keywords mobility, hybridization, global economy
(Castells), homogeneization, global-local...
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globalization is complex
Robins

• New (international) cultural elements are
  brought together with old (national) elements.
  Change vs. Continuity
• It is experienced differently by various social
  and cultural groups according to gender, ethnia,
  class, age, location...
• Diverse responses struggles
• Many angles
• the nature of the global corporations
• the nature of global markets
• politics
• globalization of the media industries

anxiety?
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main points
Negus

• Analysis and problematization of synergy concept
  (through a case study), no neat fit
  production-consumption,
• companies are not totally rational unities
  culture clashes within corporations workers
  groups, george michael
• The excellent introduction to Adorno and
  Horkheimers culture industry ideas, including
  standarization and pseudo individuality
• Gendrons critique to standarization in music
  (dd, source of pleasure)

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discussion? I
Negus

• Global corporations should not approach the
  nations of the world in terms of their
  differences but in terms of their similarities
  (p. 79)
• Producing culture does not simply involve making
  a product (a functional artefact, In Gendrons
  terms) which has an image (an agreed and shared
  meaning). (p. 101)

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discussion? II
Negus
I have challenged the idea that the corporations
of the culture industry are able to directly
control production and creative work simply
through their formal ownership of the means of
production. (...) I have indicated at various
points how the practices of production take place
in relation to the activities of consumption. You
should also have become aware of the ways in
which the issue of identity is important for
occupational groups, companies and artists (p.
102)
what about the IT world?
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complementary bibliography

• CASTELLS. 1996, 1997, 1998. The Information Age
  Economy, Society, and Culture (three volumes).
  Oxford Blackwell
• ROBINS, Kevin. 1997. What in the Worlds going
  on?. In du Gay et.al. Production of Culture /
  Cultures of Production. London Sage.
• NOTE There is a list of related and interesting
  bibliography in the Negus article.

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