Nothing Gold Can Stay: Labor, Political Economy, and the Birmingham Legacy of the Culture Industries Debate

• Main Author: Sean Andrews
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cultural Studies Association 2012-05-01
• Series: Lateral
• Subjects: culture industries; labor; political economy; birmingham; cultural studies
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.25158/L1.1.3

Over the course of the last 150 years or so, we can see three distinct phases of the culture industry. More specifically, there have been (at least) three eras marked by different configurations of the relationship between culture, politics, the dominant mode of production and the commodification of culture. Cultural Studies emerged from the second era, whose contours I'll explore here; and we are now in a liminal phase brought on by the uncertain conflagration between the neoliberalism, convergence culture, and nascent popular uprisings under the banner (and hashtag) occupyeverywhere. This third phase, or conjuncture, once again reconfigures these relations, making it important to revise the theoretical assumptions and political strategies that were adhered to in an earlier era of 'the culture industry.' I will outline the direction I think this points to both in our understanding of the culture industries and in terms of political and theoretical strategy going forward.