Media, Information and Technoculture 2100F/G Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Commodification, Cultural Economics, Class Conflict

• School: Western University
• Department: Media, Information and Technoculture
• Course: Media, Information and Technoculture 2100F/G
• Professor: Nick Dyer- Witheford

Document Summary

To understand what political economy of media is, and its different branches and debates, we have to take a historical view and see where it came from. Where people grow or make most of what they need to live. Markets (barter, buying and selling) exist but not central to life. Communities are materially poor, and local in scope. Landowners and church extract wealth by force, fear, & tradition. Poets, painters, musicians and other cultural producers considered skilled craftspeople or artisans. Would produce work under the patronage or sponsorship of aristocrats or churches. Then, 3 or 4 centuries ago in europe, a market economy, based on the buying and selling of goods being to emerge. Rise of a class of property owners who make wealth by buying and selling. More and more goods produced as to be sold. To buy these, people work for a wage (sell their own time as commodity) Commodity= a good or service created for sale.