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INTRODuCTIGN

Introduction The chapters in this book all deal, in their different ways, with the question of cultural production. This is one of the central processes and practices through which meaning is made and a key moment in what-has been termed 'the circuit of culture' (see du Gay, 11: 2.11 et al., 1997). But what does production, industry, and the economic more generally, have to do with • culture? What is the connection between them, and how are we to understand and conceive of this relation?

Economy and culture If you were asked to list some of the key thernes that had come to dominate discussion about wealth creation and successful business organization in the last decade or so, what would spring to mind? Terms like 'efficiency' and 'economy', almost certainly, 'flexibility' and `de-regulation', quite probably, but what about 'culture'? If this suggestion leaves you somewhat confused, try taking a quic,‹ flick through some of those popular management texts that seern to appear with such alarrning regularity. Chances are a brief examination of their contents would soon revea' the primacy accorded to 'culture' in the battle to make enterprises more successful. In this literature, 'culture' is allotted such importance because it is seen to structure the way people think, feel and act in organizations. 'Culture' has thus come to be seen as a crucial means of ensuring organizacional success because it is held that if you can effectively manage `meaning' at work, so that people come to conceive of and conduct themselves in such a way as to maximize their involvement in, and hence their contribution to, the organization for which they work, you are more likely to have a profitable, effective and successful firm. Perhaps one reason why we are somewhat surprised to hear that 'culture' has emerged as a crucial concept in the world of business organization is because we have come to think of thes é' two terms — 'business' and 'culture' — as somehow mutually incompatible. Certainly there is a powerful tradition of thought which holds that 'culture' — and this ñormally means 'high' culture — is an autonomous realm of existence dedicated to the pursuit of particular values 'beauty', 'authenticity' and 'truth' which are the very antithesis of those assumed to hold sway in the banal world of the economy — the rational pursuit of profit, unbounded 'instrumentalism' and so on. Seen from this position any blurring of the boundaries between these two spheres is held to be potentially dangerous. The presumed 'higher' values of 'culture' are bound to be tainted if they come into contact with the brutal rationalities of the economic.

* A reference in bold indicates another book. or another chapter in another book. in the series.

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PRODUCTION OF CULTURE/CULTURES OF PRODUCTION

You are probably aware of the basic tropes of this argument. They are invariably deployed when, for example, the government announces reductions in state funding for the arts and demands that arts organizations become more enterprising in their search for alternativa sources of finance. In a somewhat different context, similar trames of reference are utilized when fans accuse 'indie' pop and rock bands of `selling out' when they sign to major record labels. What these two examples share is a belief that `economv' . and 'culture' are absolutely autonomous entities and any merging of them is bound to demean and debase the latter. A rather different approach to the relationship between 'culture' and `economy', but one which nonetheless establishes an absolute hierarchv of values in which one term is privileged over the other, can be found within certain materialist and economistic traditions of thought within the social and human sciences. In these approaches, the language of the 'economy' is heid to provide us with the possibility of 'hard', 'objective' knowledge of the world because it deals with seemingly `transparent', 'factual' material processes. In contrast, the language of 'culture' is seen to deal with the 'soft', seemingly less tangible elements of life meanings, representations and values, for example — and these are assumed to be incapable of generating unambiguous,and hence 'true'‹knowledge: For a long time. these approaches tended to view the 'cultural' dimensions of life as largely 'superstructuraP phenomena -- that is, as `second order' processes and practices dependent 'upon and reflective of the material base. In this sense, the economy was assumed to completely domínate and determine the cultural domain. These two approaches have come in for considerable criticism over time and it is fair to say thatfew people espouse the of simple 'ideal typical' versions outlined abo ye. Nonetheless, it is also fair to say that traces of both continue to haunt contemporary academic debates about the relationship between 'economy' and 'culture* as well as everyday discussions concerning the relativo merits of different cultural preferences and products. This book is centrally coricerned with exploring and analysing the relationship between economy and culture in the present. However, it attempts to sidestep posítions which assume either an essential opposition between these twó spheres of existence or an essentially deterministic relationship between them, where one side completely dominates the other. Instbd, the contributors to this volume all acknowledge the mutually constitutive relationship between 'culture' and 'economy'. In their different ways and in relationship to different objects of analvsis they argue that in late modern societies such as our own the 'economic' and the 'cultural' are irrevocably 'hybrid' categories; that what we think of as purely 'economic' processes and practices are, in an important sense, 'cultural' phenornena — managers of business enterprises, as we sa • earlier, are busv attempting to create appropriate organizational 'cultures' because

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they have come to see the very stuff of culture — meanings, norms and values -- as crucial elements of economic success. Similarly, contemporary material culture is predominantly `manufactured'. After all, what films would we watch, what televisions would we view them on, what music would we listen to and so forth, if we were determined to enforce an absolute division between culture and economy? Our everyday cultural lives are bound up with mass-produced material cultural artefacts to such an extent that a principled opposition between the economic and industrial, on the one hand, and the cultural, on the other, is simply untenable. If such principled'oppositions have little practical or theoretical utility then the question arises as to how we can more productively conceptualize the relationship between the economic and the cultural in the present dav. In this book, an attempt at reconstruction is conducted through the notion of `cultural economy'

`Cultural economy' This phrase — cultural economy may strike you as a little strange. So what does it mean; what is it meant to signify? One of the main reasons for using this term is to suggest both continuity and rupture with deterministic On the one hand, there are echoes approaches to the study of 'economic in this phrase of the approach to analysing economic. life commonly termed `political economy', particularly in relation to the latter's opposition to the ahistoric and asocial tenets of neo-classical economics and its emphasis on a multi-paradigm analysis of the economy. On the other hand, 'cultural economy' is also meant to signify a break with `political economy' in one ke y respect — concerning the importance allocated to meaning in the cónduct of economic life. For whereas 'political economy' has tended to emphasize features such as the distribution of income, patterns of corporate ownership and control, the dynamic nature of market econornies, capital accumulation and the generation and uses of económic surplus, it has had rather less to say about the meanings these processes come to have for those involved in them. Because political economy approaches tend to represent economic processes and practices as `things in themselves' — with certain 'objective' meanings — people are seen mainly as the 'bearers' of these. As a result of this process of 'objectification', the `cultural' dimensions of economic activities — the meanings and values these activities hold for people — are evacuated. As Stuart Hall has argued, however, 'culture is involved in all those practices which carry meaning and value for us. which need to be meaningfully interpreted by others, or which depend on meaning for their effective operation. Culture, in this sense, permeates all of society' (Hall, 1997, p. 3). The economic is a crucial domain of existence in modern societies, and it

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PRODUCTION OF CULTURE/CULTURES OF PRODUCTION

too is thoroughly saturated with culture. Indeed, this is precisely what the term 'cultural economy' is meant to signify. 'Economic' processes and practices — in all their plurality, whether we refer to management techniques for re-organizing the conduct of business, contemporary stritegies for advertising goods and services, or everyday interactions between service employees and their customers — depend on meaning for their effects and have particular cultural 'conditions of existence'. Meaning is produced at `economic' sites (at work, in shops) and circulated through economic processes and practices (through economists' models of how 'economies' or `organizations' work, through adverts, marketing materials and the very design of products) no less than in other domains of existence in modem societies. A crucial feature of this book, then, is the way it treats economic processes and practices as cultural phenomena, as depending on meaning for their effective operation. Just think, for a moment, about the entity we refer to as `the economy'. How do we go about managing this entity? Well, one of the first things we need to do is to build a clear picture of what an economy looks like. We need to ask ourselves what its main cornponents are, and how they work. In other words, before one can even seek to manage something called an 'economy', it is first necessary to conceptualize or represent a set of processes and relations as an 'economy' which is amenable to management. We need, in other words, a discourse of the economy, and this discourse, like any other, will depend on a particular mode of representation: the elaboration of a language for conceiving of and hence constructing an object in a certain way so that that object can then be deliberated about and acted upon. In this way, economics can be seen to be a cultural phenomenon because it works through language and representation. Discourses of the economy, like those of sexuality, `race' or nationality, carry meaning.

In the same vein, processes of production and sy-stems of organization can be seen to be more than simply 'objective' structures that people inhabit and reproduce. Through a cultural lens they become assemblages of meaningful practices that construct certain ways for people to conceive of and conduct themselves at work. As indicated abo y e, businesses have spent enormous time and money in recent years trying consciously and deliberately to change their organizational 'cultures'. Through the introduction of seemingly banal mechanisrns and practices such as cost centres, performance appraisal and team-working, employers have sought to create new meanings for the work people do and thus to construct new forms of work-based identity amongst employees. In so doing they have indicated precisely how working practices are 'cultural' phenomena — how they are `meaningful'. Organizational practices carry particular meanings and construct certain forms of conduct amongst people subjected to them. The most important point to note about our term economy' is therefore the crucial importance it allots to language, representation and

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INTRODUCTION

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meaning — to 'culture' — for understanding the conduct of economic life and the construction of economic identities. However. the explanatory reach of the term does not end there, for 'cultural economy' carnes another register of meaning. It doesn't simply suggest that economic phenomena are inherently 'cultural', that economic processes and practices are always meaningful practices; it also indicates something about the contemporary nature of economic life, namely that , we live in an era 1:1 which the economic has become thoroughly 'culturailied'. So what does in mean to talk about a 'cultural economy' in this latter sense? In this second manifestation, 'cultural economy' refers:to the increasing importance of 'culture' to doing business in the contemporary would. Thisls evidenced at a number of differen.t levels. First, and perhaps most obviously, by the wayin which global entertainment corporations, such as Sony, TimeWarner, Bertelsmann,.Disney and News Corporation, whose business is the production and distribution of 'culturar,hardware and software — such as music, film, television, print media and computer games — have become amongst the most powerful economic actors in the world. Today, 'culture' is a truly global business. Secondly, more and more of the goods and services produced for consumers across a range of sectors can be conceived of as 'cultural' goods, in that they are deliberately inscribed with particular meanings and associations as they are produced and circulated in a conscious attempt to generate desire for them amongst end users. The growing aestheticization or lashioning' of seemingly banal products — from instara coffee to bank accounts whereby these are sold to consumers in ter= of particular clusters of meaning indicates-the increased importance of `culture' to the prod.uction and circulation of a multitude of goods and services. This process has been accompanied by the increased ifilluence of what are often termed the cultural intermediary occupations ofdvertising, design and marketing (see section 3 of du Gay, Hall et al., ág Z). These practitioners play a pivotal role in articulating production with conSUMption by attempting to associate.goods and services with particular cultural meanings and to address these values to prospective buyers. In other words, they are concerned to create an identification between producers and consumers through their expertise in certain signifying practices. The increased influence of these signifying practices to processes of production is closely linked to significant changes in manufacturing techniques. In contrast to mass production techniques, where particular products were manufactured in large batches on assembly lines that required great investment in inflexible plant, novel forms of flexible, electronics-based automation technologies, often referred to as 'flexible specialization technologies', make small batch production possible. So whereas in the past a company like Sony would produce one model of the Walkman, nowadays Sony uses computer-based technologies and a functionally flexible labour

force to produce many different versions of the Walkman, each designed and marketed or lifestyled — with a particular niche consumer grouping in mirad (see du Gay, Hall et al., 1997, section 3). In other words, flexible specialization and the increased culturalization of products go hand in hand. They are, in effect, mutually constitutive. Finally, the growing importance accorded to signification in doing business is not only evident in the production, design and marketing of goods and services, for as we have already seen, the internal life of organizations is also the subject of cultural reconstruction. The turn to 'culture' within the world of business and oiganization is premised in part upon the belief that, in order to compete effectively in the turbulent. increasingly global markets of the present, a foremost necessity for organizations is to change they way they conduct their business and the ways people conduct themselves within organizations. 'Culture' is deemed to be crucial here because it is seen to structure the way people think, feel and act in organizations. The aim of inanaging organizational culture is to prdduce new sets of meanings through which people will come to identify with their employing organization in a way which enables them to make the right and necessary contribution to its success. This focus on 'culture' as a means of changing the way people conceive of and relate to the work they perforrn and to their own sense of self indicates that its deployment as a managerial technique is intimately bound up with questions of identity.' In this second sense of the term, then, 'cultural economy' refers to the increasing 'culturalization' of economic life. From 'macro' level processes of `economic globalization' to 'micro' level processes of individual work-based identity-formation, cultural practices have come to play a crucial role in the conduct ofmany different forms of economic life in the modern world.

The structure of the book As we have indicated, this book is structured by the notion of 'cultural economy'. Given the antipathy that has been held to exist between the terms `culture' and 'economics', the notion of 'cultural economy' is designed to strike you as a little strange. However, we hope by now that you have begun to see why we are attaching such importance to it. It is worth quickly re-capping the main themes and issues which we are gathering together under the rubric of 'cultural economy' before moving on to look at the content of each individual chapter. The first thing to note is that the term draws attention to the ways in which forms of economic life are cultural phenomena; they depend on `meaning' for their effects and have particular discursive conditions of existence.

Secondly, the term suggests that the production of 'cultural' artefacts in their contemporary manifestations cannot be divorced from economic processes and forms of organization. At the same time as making this point, however, culture we have also been keen to indicate that the production of culture cannot be reduced to a question of 'economics' alone. Processes of production are themselves cultural phenomena in that they are assemblages of meariingful practices that construct certain ways for people to conceive of and conduct themselves in an organizational context. Theie are the cultures of oduction production referred to in the títle of this book. Thirdly, it indicates the growing importance of 'culture' to doing business in the contemporary world. As we have seen, increasing numbers of goods and services across a range of sectors are 'cultural' goods in that they are inscribed with particular meanings and associations in the process of their production and circulation, in a deliberate attempt to generate desire for them amongst consumers. The growing importance of culture doesn't end here, though, as we have seen, for the internal life of organizations and their members is increasingly the subject of cultural reconstruction as well. While each of the individual chapters in the vblume focuses on different elements of 'cultural ebonomy' they combine to present a distinctive analysis of the relationship between 'the economic' and 'the cultural' in the present day. The chapters are also ordered in a particular way to assist in this endeavour. Beginning with a macro-level focus on questions oLcultural globalization and the emergence of global cultural industries, they move. steadily towards a more micro-level focus at the end of the book where the cultural reconstruction of organizational life and the experience and identitv of work are the main topics of analysis. In Chapter 1, 'What in the world's going on?', Kevin Robins explores the relationship between culture and economy in the context of increasing globalization.. He begins by considering the economic expressions of global change, focusing on the emergence of a 'global economy', on the nature of global corporations and on the significance of global markets. In analysing the forces and relations shaping the emerging global economic order, Robins is particularly concerned with the growing significance of media, communications, information, and cultural products and markets. Throughout the chapter he indicates how economic and cultural aspects of globalization interact with one another. Economic developments, he argues, provide the basis for many of the key developments in global culture, opening up certain cultural possibilities, and closing off others. At the same time, he also sees cultural forces as setting the conditions and limits of possibility for global economic and business developments. Robins shows how this interplay between economic and cultural logics gives rise to a globalizing process that is complex, uneven and uncertain. In Chapter 2, 'The production of culture', Keith Negus picks up on Robins' analysis of the complex interplay between economic and cultural logics of globalization to explore the wavs in which culture is produced in global

times. In studying the production of culture, he argues, it is necessary to understand not only the technical processes and economic . pattems of manuf4cturing, organization and distribution but also to understand the culture — the ways of life through and within which music, films and other forms of cultáral software and hardware are made and given meaning. In developing this argument, Negus draws attention to an important shift in approaches to how culture is produced: from earlier attempts to understand the impact of specific forms of industrial production on cultural artefacts (by applying notions of 'industry' to ` culture'), towards a perspective which approaches 'culture' not simply as a thing which is produced but as a meaningful 'forra of life' (by applying theories of 'culture' to 'industry'). In particular, Negus indicates how the activities of staff working in the cultural industries are informed by a particular set of values, meanings and working practices — a 'culture of production' — which has a significant impact on the `production of culture'. This idea that there are 'cultural' limas to conceiving of production as a i purely' economic phenomenon is developed by Peter Braham in Chapter 3, 'Fashion: unpacking a cultural production'. Through a 'case study' of one particular cultural industry — fashion Braham indicates how practiges of cultural production are not only shaped by an industry's 'internar culture of production but also in relationship to the seemingly `externar activities of cultural consumption. He argues that a comprehensive understanding of fashion in clothing can only be approached through an exploration of the mutually constitutive rhythms of production and consumption. In seeking to map the multiple worlds where the meaning of fashion is produced, Braham exposes the links that exist between production, distribution and retailing, on the one hand, and image, advertising, lifestyle and consumption, on the other. Focusing on the global fashion corporation, Benetton, the chapter shows how this particular producer and retailer of fashion clothing is involved in a constant attempt simultaneously to track and shape the cultural tastes and predispositions of consumers. The question of how consumers are drawn into and implicated in the practices of cultural production also forr....s the central focus of Sean Nixon's Chapter 4, 'Circulating culture'. In this chapter, Nixon is concerned with exploring the increasing influence of the 'cultural intermediaries' of design, marketing and advertising, and with analysing their role in adding cultural value to an increasingly greater range of goods and services. He argues that `cultural intermediaries' play a pivotal role in articulating production with consumption through their `symbolic expertise' in making goods and services `meaningful'. He notes that this 'culturalizing role' has increased considerably in recent years and links this to wider economic shifts associated with the transition from an era dominated by mass production and mass consumption to an emergent era of flexible specialization and market differentiation. Nixon notes that the intensified role o cultural intermediaries in contemporary economic life is not simply reflective of more fundamental shifts in manufacturing systems. Rather, he argues that

shifts in production methods have been, in important ways, marketing-led. He suggests that both the dynamics of contemporary consumer culture and the emerging organizational forms of flexible specialization ensure an increased prominence for the expertise of the cultural intermediaries of design, marketing and advertising. Through their strategic location at the point of circulation between production and consumption — these forms of symbolic expertise are able to affect the constitution both of processes of cultural production and of practices of cultural consumption. In Chapter 5, `Culturing production', Graeme Salaman argues that it is not simply goods and services that have been increasingly tülturalized, for the processes and practices of organization and production llave also become the subject of cultural change and reconstruction. Salamarnalyses the ways which senior managers of organizations increasingly sponsor attempts to define, for their employees, the meaning of employment, and the relationship they should have with their employing organization. They attempt to do this, hwargues, because they are convinced that changing the 'culture' of organizations is an effective way of improving organizational performance — in terms of managers' objectives. These efforts (which Salaman refers to under the heading of 'Corporate Culture') arise from, and are encouraged by, man.agerial discourses developed by a particular sort of cultural intermediary — the management consultant. These discourses offer a way of thinking about how organizations work, what affects their performance, and how performance can be improved. However, as the chapter demonstrates, while 'Corporate Culture' discourse insists upon the essential reality of organizational consensus and harmony, this representation of organizational life is often contested and challenged by the very people at whom it is aimed ernployees. In the final Chapter 6, `Organizing identity: making up people at work', Paul du Gay explores the ways in which attempts to change the culture of organizations impact upon and reconstruct economic i4entities, not only those of employees — whether workers or managers — but,also those of consumers. Du Gay examines how contemporary changIs in ways of representing and intervening in — what he tercos ‘goverring" organizational life creaté new ways for people to conduct themselves, at work. In particular, he focuses upon the ways in which coLtemporary discourses of organizational change blur some established differences between the spheres of production and consumption, work and leisure, creating certain similarities in the forms of conduct and modes of self-presentation required of people across a range of different domains. Through an examination of contemporary organizational change in the service sector of the economy, where economic success is perhaps most visibly premised upon the production of meaning, du Gay delineates the emergente of novel 'hybrid' work identities. By the term 'hybrid work identities' he refers to the ways in which employees in contemporary service work are encouraged to tale on both the role of worker and that of customer in the workplace. Throughout the chapter, he indicates the pitfalls of attempting to allocate an essential

meaning te work and instead suggests that the experience and identity of work are historically and culturally constructed. What it means to be a `worker', 'manager', or any other form of economic actor, varíes across time and context in. relationship to prevailing wavs of governing economic life. Where is meaning produced? Our 'circuit of culture' suggests that, in fact, meanings are produced at several different sites and circulated through several different processes and practices (the cultural circuit). This volume is primarily concerned with exploring the wavs in which cultural meanings are made in production. However, while production, as we have seen, has its own particular 'forms of life', it is not wholly separe from other sites on our circuit. In discussing the production of culture we have not been able to avoid talking about consumption, representation or identity, for example. This suggests that meaning-making processes operating in nny one site are always partially dependent upon the meaning-making processes and practicés operating in other sites for their effect. In other words, meaning is not simpl • sent from one autonomous sphere — production, say — und received in another autonomous sphere consumption. Meaning-making finctions less in terms of such a ‘transmission' flow model, and more like the model of a dialogue. It is an ongoing process. It rarely ends at a preordained place. No doubt the producers of cultural goods and services wish it did and that they could permanently establish its boundaries! Why and how such an ambition remains forever thwarted is explored by each of the contributors to this volume.

Notes 1 . This term is borrowed from John Allen.

References DU GAY. P.. HALL, S., JANES, L., MACKAY, H. and NEGUS, K. (1997)

Doing Cultural Studies: the storv of the Sony Walkman, London, Sage/The Open University (Book 1 in this series). HALL. S. (1997)

'Introduction' in Hall, S. (ed.)

Representation: cultural

representations and signifying practices, London, Sage/The Open University (Book 2 in this series).

WHAT IN THE WORLD'S GOING ON? Kevin Robins

Contenta INTRODUCTION



2 GLOBAL CHANGE

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2.1 Encountering globalization

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2.2 Complexities of globalization

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3 ECONOMIC GLOBALIZATION

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3.1 The new world information economy 3.2 The global local nexus 4 CULTURAL GLOBALIZATION 4.1 New spaces of global media 4.2 A world of difference 5 CONCLUSION REFERENCES

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23 28 32 33 38 43 45

READINGS FOR CHAPTER ONE READING A: Ulf Hannerz, `Varieties of transnational experience'

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READING B: lan Angel!, 'Winners and losers in the Information Age'

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READING C: Marc Levinson, 'It's an MTV world'

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READING D: Marc Levinson, 'Gut, Gut, Alles Super Gut!'

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READING E: Richard Wilk, 'The local and the global in the political economy of beauty'

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