The Importance of the Dialectic

Culture is said to be one of the two or three most complex words in the English language.

Literary theorist Terry Eagleton starts his book The Idea of Culture with the loaded premise of the difficulty to define the concept of culture. In the etymological sense, as mentioned in by Kramer and Bredekamp in Culture, Technology, Cultural Techniques – Moving Beyond Text, culture derives from nature, meaning that it centers around the idea of cultivation. However, culture can no longer be seen as just a form of cultivation. Developments in technology and with it the conception of new art forms has led culture to move beyond the etymological meaning.  But the defining of culture beyond the literal meaning has proven to be challenging. Where theorists such as Raymond Williams and Terry Eagleton tried to define different structures within the realm of culture, Kramer and Bredekamp are more interested in defining culture in a textual context, not necessarily taking in account the different structures of culture. Kramer and Bredekamp outline the movement of culture beyond the textual boundaries, creating a fluid mobility that moves “into our everyday practices with objects, symbols, instruments and machines.” A dialectic approach towards culture is important to understand the complexity. Moreover, a dialectic approach can be applied to the creative industries and its theorization to form a complete framework that includes all stakeholders. This essay will briefly look at different theoretical frameworks concerning culture and the creative industries and will try to demonstrate that a dialectic approach towards these theories offers the most complete framework.

Traditionally academics have tried to define the media industry through either a political-economical approach or a cultural approach. In the article Critical Media Industry Studies the writers outline the political-economical approach, which, according to them, fails to provide complete “explanations of the role human agents in interpreting, focusing, and redirecting economic forces that provide for complexity and contradiction within media industries.” Moreover this approach looks at the Frankfurt School notion that the media industry is “yet another form of commodified culture operating only according to the interests of capital,” which suggests culture is only produced for commercial gain. Natalie Fenton, in Bridging the Mythical Divide: Political Economy and Cultural Studies Approaches to the Analysis of the Media, discusses both the political-economical approach on media studies as well as those theories situated within the realm of cultural studies. Similarly to the writers of the critical media theory, Fenton describes the political-economical as concerned with the influence of cultural production and financing on the discourse and representations related to consumption. Fenton critiques the political-economical approach upon the fact that this approach “[…] paints a picture of a culture industry which monolithic corporations rule supreme, manipulating consumers and infiltrating our consciousness to the extent that they could almost be considered totalitarian in their aims reach and impact” (Fenton 15).

Whereas political-economical theorists concern themselves with the influence of economical factors upon the cultural industries, especially access to cultural products, the representation and meaning making, cultural theorists are more interested in analyzing popular cultural practices – and the human agency related to these cultural practices. Fenton argues that the cultural approach suggests that mass media produces “citizens of the media”. Media enables individuals to “manipulate imagery and information for their own ends, to build their own identities and local politics from the vast array of mediated bits and pieces they have at their disposal” (Fenton 8). Cultural studies also heavily draws on the role of societal influences on (the production of) culture. Moreover, cultural studies views audiences as active consumers of culture. Individuals are able to interpret culture and find the hidden meaning.

        Both Fenton and the writers of the critical media approach end up suggesting a dialectic approach towards the creative industries. Fenton stresses the importance of attending “to the dialectical relationship between agency and structure, cultural production and consumption,” (Fenton 21) suggesting that cultural theories cannot paint a black-and-white picture of what is right and what is wrong when approaching culture. Fenton discusses recent studies that look at both of the abovementioned approaches and “attempt [both] to account for the social totality of production, content and reception of the media” (Fenton 18).  These studies acknowledge that ideological forces play a part in individual interpretation of culture but also uses the political-economical notion that authors of cultural texts can frame audience reception. Culture is thus highly denotative in nature. Fenton refers to the holistic approach towards culture, which establishes “that interrogating the role of the media in society does not start or stop with the interpretation of it by audiences or the analysis of it as a text” (Fenton 21).

The critical media theory dismisses the Marxist notion that power is situated with those that control the means of production. Rather, it examines “the micropolitics of institutional operation and production practices” (Havens 238). The writers of the critical media theory coined the dialectic within the theory as a ‘helicopter’ view to review all interconnected operations within the cultural industries. It uses Gramsci’s idea of “ideological struggle for cultural hegemony” and Foucault’s theory of “fluidity of determination” to suggest a dialectic (helicopter view) within audience reception and cultural production. It moreover stresses the importance of a “reconsideration of the relationships between cultural production and industrial practices in an increasingly interconnected world proved integral to contemporary media studies” (Havens 240). It reviews culture as both cultural and economical and critically assesses all forms of culture and all stakeholders involved.

        When looking within the practical sphere of cultural production, distribution, and consumption one can also find the importance of using a dialectic approach. In the article There is No Music Industry, Jonathan Sterne remarks that the definition of the music industry creates a tremendous limitation. Generally one thinks of those matters that concern themselves directly with and artist or an album. One can find similar definitions when looking at other fields within the media industry; these industries are centered around a core product, e.g. film, music, or theater, but often do not look beyond those stakeholders directly involved. Sterne remarks that “we miss a lot by focusing everything around the musicians-audiences-recordings nexus and we miss even more when we limit our understanding of music as a social practice to the objects sold as “music” in its wake” (Sterne 52). Sterne, drawing upon Christopher Small, argues that one should consider multiple industries as being involved in the field of music, rather than pinpointing everything on direct involvement in the musicians-audiences-recordings realm. As with the academic research within creative industries one should acknowledge the dialectic relationship between the core-products and the industries involved.

       Research and theories concerning the creative industries have been subjected to variables from the start. It has proven to be difficult to define an industry that is so unpredictable due to constant change in material matters, such as technology, but also due to the fact that media, with its pivotal role as meaning maker, is highly individual. Society generally engages in the consumption of media on a mass scale, but meaning is partially created on an individual level and is therefore hard to define. It is crucial to step away from an absolutist theory and consider a dialectic approach to deal with the research on cultural practices.

Discussion Idea: "By changing the way we study media, we might be able to grasp the way it affects our society as a whole."

Works Cited

Fenton, Natalie. "Bridging the Mythical Divide: Political Economy and Cultural Studies Approaches to the Analysis of the Media." Media Studies: Key Issues and Debates. Ed. Eoin Devereux. London: SAGE, 2007. 7-31. Print.

Havens, Timothy, Amanda D. Lotz, and Serra Tinic. "Critical Media Industry Studies: A Research Approach." Communication, Culture & Critique 2.2 (2009): 234-53. Web. 6 Sept. 2015.

Kramer, S., and H. Bredekamp. "Culture, Technology, Cultural Techniques - Moving Beyond Text." Theory, Culture & Society 30.6 (2013): 20-29. Web. 6 Sept. 2015.

Sterne, Jonathan. "There Is No Music Industry." Media Industries Journal 1.1 (2014): 50-55. Web.

6 Sept. 2015.

Authors: DL, EH, NS, LD, KH