The Cultural Industries

David Hesmondhalgh is Professor of Media, Music and Culture in the School of Media and Communication at the University of Leeds. He is the author of The Cultural Industries (SAGE, 2019); Culture, Economy and Politics: The Case of New Labour (Palgrave, 2015, co-written with Kate Oakley, David Lee and Melissa Nisbett); Why Music Matters (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013); and Creative Labour: Media Work in Three Cultural Industries (Routledge, 2011, co-written with Sarah Baker). He is also editor or co-editor of eight other books or special journal issues on media, music and culture, including a special issue of Popular Communication (co-edited with Anamik Saha) on Race and Cultural Production; The Media and Social Theory (Routledge, co-edited with Jason Toynbee, 2008) and Media and Society, 6th edition (Bloomsbury, co-edited with James Curran, 2019). He was born and raised in Accrington, Lancashire, did his first degree in English Language and Literature at the University of Oxford, and received his PhD from Goldsmiths University of London in 1996. He lives in Yorkshire with his partner, the philosopher Helen Steward, and they have two adult children, Rosa and Joe.

The Cultural Industries is justly celebrated for many reasons, but what I find most compelling is the civic and moral passion that infuses every page. While never polemical, Hesmondhalgh makes clear why the making of culture matters and what’s at stake. With each new much-awaited edition, it is this quality that ensures the book’s timeless relevance.

• Chapter 1: Change and Continuity, Power and CreativityChapter 2: The Cultural Industries Approach: Distinctive Features of Culture-Producing BusinessesChapter 3: Theories of Culture, Theories of Cultural ProductionChapter 4: Cultural Industries in the Twentieth Century: Key FeaturesChapter 5: Why the Cultural Industries Began to Change in the Late Twentieth CenturyChapter 6: Policy Change in Media and Telecommunications: Marketing and CopyrightChapter 7: Cultural Policy: Creative Cities, Creative Industries, Creative EconomiesChapter 8 Ownership (1): Concentration, Conglomeration and Corporate Power, 1980–2010Chapter 9: Ownership (2): Concentration, Conglomeration and Corporate Power, 2010 OnwardsChapter 10: How the Claims of Digital Optimists Were Contradicted by the Rise of Digital CultureChapter 11: The Effects of Digital Networks on Individual Cultural IndustriesChapter 12: Creativity, Commerce and OrganisationChapter 13: Working Conditions and Inequalities in the Cultural IndustriesChapter 14: Internationalisation: Neither Globalisation nor Cultural ImperialismChapter 15: Texts: Diversity, Quality and Social JusticeChapter 16: Conclusions: A New Era in Cultural Production?