A Book Review About the Global Culture Industry: The Mediation of Things.

BY

Rashid Maalim Khamis, Phd student, at Communication University of China.

Summary

This book, which has been methodologically labeled as “objectual”, describes how

objects of cultural industry have changed into objects of global cultural industry. It

conceptualizes understanding of cultural industries in the context of globalization.

The authors Scott Lash and Celia Lury selected seven cultural objects to describe their

life cycle that cultural objects in their life, passed through different stages while every

stage carries different meanings. Therefore, these objects then become globalized and

gain the status of cultural symbols which met people’s needs and interests. Ultimately,

cultural objects loved and used globally to boost sale of products and services.

Key words: Brand, Global, Comodication, Culture, Thingification, cultural

industries.

In Global Culture Industry, Scott Lash and Celia Lury suggest seven cultural objects

as they travel and get transformed and transform themselves through space-time. The

products they chose to study vary from global media phenomena such as the films

Trainspotting and Toy Story to the current global products of brands such as Nike.

This book mostly emphases on the matter of transformation.

The methodological approach used in this book is objectual. The primary sources in

this book were interviews from various experts while the secondary sources were

magazine and trades.

First, the book focuses both the transformation of media products into “thing-like”

(objects) and on the way in which thing-events (objects) become mediated.

The authors mean that media products transformed into “thing-like” objects

associated with films become more noticeable and popular than the original cultural

objects with which they are associated, hence the way in which “thing-events,”

objects become mediated such as Nike’s logos today means that many brands like

Nike) are still dependent on labor-intensive production of goods in the first place.

Also the book tells the readers how football match becomes an event and then a brand

where big world companies linked together for marketing and branding purposes. The

Euro football Championship 1996 and other world cup championships such as

France’s 1998 World Cup were exemplified in 3rd Chapter by the authors. Therefore,

by drawing the history and geography of art objects writers help the audience

understand how art affects our lives.

Furthermore, there are not many books of contemporary cultural theory that take

animation as a starting point, model, metaphorical resource and object of study.

However, this one does. Animation appears here, in various shapes, as a way of

thinking through present-day changes in cultural production, consumption and

distribution. Authors claim that animation is a force that seizes all contemporary

cultural 'texts'. That which was previously fixed in the flat uniqueness of

representation becomes animated, alive. Therefore, In the Globe cultural industry,

things come alive; take on a life of their own. They assume objects are indeed like

people. Objects have biographies, life histories and lifecycles from production to
consumption. For instance the Nike swoosh, Swatch watches, the film Trainspotting

(1996), the conceptualism of Young British Art, global sporting event management.

Moreover, the authors alert us that media content is now a brand which is consumed

by the audience or consumer like other branded products as it was narrowed to the

text only in the past.

Again Lash and Lury make deep elaboration about the two consumer brands Nike and

Swatch. According to authors, as elaborated in the Chapter 6, Nike and Swatch not

only used for brand differentiation and uniqueness, but also to satisfy consumer needs

and interests. Hence brands then used to boost sales all around the world due to the

fact that producer of these brands employs the services of some top players to

advertise their brand to attract potential buyers.

Moreover, Chapter 8 of the book shows a contrast comparison of cultural industry in

Brazil and Europe. Lash and Lury assert that the culture industry of Latin America is

much different from Anglo Saxon and media organization of Europe in terms of

ownership.

My point of view from the book:

Scott Lash and Celia Lury have succeeded to tell us the reality about New Capitalism

operation all around the globe. For instance, previously, especially in the first half of

the twentieth century, cultural objects such as products of factory labor were a

commodity as written on the Theodor Adorno’s the “culture industry”. However now

things have changed, material objects such as watches and sportswear as the capitalist

related products have become powerful cultural symbols, in the form of globally
recognized brands. As we know that, the main goal of capitalism is to maximize profit,

therefore, currently the major capitalist companies worldwide jointly use sport related

events as cultural material objects and products to earn a lot of money.

Also Lash and Lary through Global Culture Industry have provided an empirically

and theoretically rich examination of the ways in which material objects move across

national borders.

I was impressed by the discussion of how the things have been given the status of

human beings. In other words, things have been crated as characters that are alive.

This is witnessed in (chapter 5) where Wallace and Gromit as animated characters

become part of the “thingification of media”.

However, I was surprised by the authors when they use some objects such as

Trainspotting from Britain and that from Brazil. Trainspotting in United Kingdom is

not the same entity as in Brazil. It enters into a different context of reception, is

marketed differently, and crosses differently with existing cultures. This is because the

culture of Europe is quite different from Latin America.

Moreover, the way the authors created characters in this book, cannot be understood

easily, it needs high exposure and experience of reading to grasp the essence of the

book.

Despite the limitations mentioned above, this book very useful for current and next

generation on how capitalism operates worldwide and its impact to the whole world.