CMNS 230 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Pay Television, Economic Surplus, Fixed Cost
8 Aug 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Films, music express ideas and inform, entertain while ordinary commodties, cars and detergent, are essentially utilitarian and useful function with no intellectual discourse, Cultural products are to be bought and sold to. They respond to forces of supply, demand and competition. A true and vital marketplace of cultural products. Key economic attributes of cultural products, how the market for popular culture is different then conventional merchandise. The basic nature of a cultural product is to communicate ideas, emotions. The values of a cultural product is mostly in its symbolic or representational content not physical. A product that is experienced rather than consumed. Creators are driven by motives not purely profit seeking. Cultural products involve in expensive, time-consuming one time process of creation. Film industry, creates intellectual property embodied in the master copy that can be duplicated, delivered, stored. Ordinary commodity is produced in many copies and significant capital resources required to produce each unit, consuming amount of raw material.
