political economy, textual analysis and

sociological/ethnographic work.
media political economy - cultural production is
investigated on the macro level as an industry
conditions of production shape cultural content
link cultural outputs to the economic, industrial and
political factors that shape the organisations and
industries which then produce culture.
gathering quantitative data on those industries
costs of production
main revenue sources
costs of production broken down
research and development to distribution, cost
competing organisations -audience share

make inferences about the state of the cultural industry

involved and the possible impacts on the cultural texts
it then produces.
Exemplary Works:
Curran, J. and Seaton, J.
(2003) Power Without Responsibility, London:
Routledge.
Schiller, H. (1989) Culture Inc. The Corporate Takeover
of Public Expression, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Garnham, N. (1990) Capitalism and Communication:

Global Culture and the Economics of Information,

London: Sage.
cultural outputs are in part shaped as a consequence of
political and economic conditions
Laws governing such things as media owner- ship,
cultural content, licensing and levels of taxation are all
likely to have a bearing on cultural outputs
Post- Fordist accounts of the cultural industries
(Christopherson and Storper 1986; Murray 1989) have
observed such things as production outsourcing and
flexible working practices which impact on outputs.
Others have chosen simply to focus on how new
technologies alter aspects of production and
transmission (Downing 1984; Heap et al. 1995).