SOC202H5 Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Culture Industry, Eviatar Zerubavel, Pierre Bourdieu
Document Summary
The sociological approach to culture maintains that practices or objects that seem natural, even inevitable, are not. Cultural objects are not simply the natural products of some social context but are produced, distributed, marketed, received, and interpreted by a variety of people and organizations. This kind of self-conscious production, marketing, and distribution system applies to ideas as much as tangible cultural objects. The production of culture: the culture industry system. Paul hirsch developed a useful model that he calls the culture industry system -in other words, the organizations that turn out mass culture products, such as records, popular books, and low-budget films. Hirsch pointed out that such cultural objects share a number of features: demand uncertainty, a relatively cheap technology, and an oversupply of would-be cultural creators. In the light of these factors, the culture industry system works to regulate and package innovation and thus to transform creativity into predictable, marketable packages.
