Cultural Rights

Technology, Legality and Personality

Celia Lury

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• eBook ISBN: 9781134865864
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Cultural Rights aims to combine sociology of culture and cultural studies approaches to provide an innovative interpretation of contemporary culture. It develops Walter Benjamin's arguments on the effects of mechanical reproduction by seeing what has happened to originality and authenticity in postmodern culture. One aspect of this culture is that reproduction and simulation have become listless, so that distinguishing what is real from what is fabricated is a problem of daily life for everyone. Celia Lury establishes a clear framework for studying these matters by comparing a regime of cultural rights ordered by copyright, authorship and originality with one defined by trademark, branding and simulation. This move is illustrated through concise and accessible histories of three major cultural technologies - print, broadcasting and information technology - and the presentation of research into the contemporary culture industry. The gendered dimensions of this transformation are explored by looking at the significance of the category of women in the process of cultural reproduction.

1
INTRODUCTION

There has been much debate in recent years about the significance and impact of cultural studies (Hall, 1987; Turner, 1990; Franklin et al., 1991; Grossberg et al., 1992): its prospects, its potential relation to the academy and to politics are all uncertain. Whatever its future as a free-standing field of intellectual enquiry, however, there is little doubt that its emergence in Britain in the 1970s contributed to a radical rethinking of approaches to the study of culture in a range of disciplines. This book seeks to develop a conceptual framework within what might be called the sociology of culture, but a sociology which has been disturbed by the insights offered by cultural studies. It thus draws on both institutional analyses of the culture industry (DiMaggio, 1977; Coser et al., 1982; Garnham, 1979; Wolff, 1990) and cultural studies (Hall and Jefferson, 1976; Johnson, 1983; CCCS, 1982a; CCCS, 1982b; Women’s Studies Group, 1978).

This hybrid framework employs a number of terms which have been chosen to avoid a priori privileging of particular processes, including ‘cultural value’ which is used to refer to meaning or symbolic content. The model of value implied is not a representational one: value here is not intrinsically a derivative or metonymic property; it is not finite, determinate or distributable. Rather value is seen as a regulative medium of preference (Fekete, 1987); and the organisation of value is explicated as a function of the force field of value, a network of strategic evaluations, or a circulation process of a collective system of value relations and practices. Rather than seeking to develop a ‘grand’ theory of value then, as might have been the aim of some sociologies of culture, the intention here is to investigate some of the ways in which what Fekete calls the medium of ‘alternativity’ has historically been realised in variable forms in social life.

Perhaps the most important term in this exploration is that of reproduction or, more specifically, the processes of cultural reproduction. It is a term which is used widely in cultural and social theory, and its everyday meanings are diverse, ranging from procreation through propagation and multiplication to making a copy, or simply a copy itself. Its significance for a sociology of culture has been lucidly captured by Raymond Williams, whose book Culture (1981) and other writings have been an inspiration for this work. In a chapter in Culture, Williams points out that reproduction is inherent in the very concept of culture. However, he also notes that while reproduction shows up the temporal dimension of culture, in the sense of continuity in the transmission of meaning, its use has not always been historical; furthermore, as a term it can obscure the processes of change, struggle and competition. However, it is in these two respects, most particularly, that the attention within cultural studies to the specificity of the processes of meaning making has been particularly illuminating.

Bearing these problems in mind, this introduction will provide a preliminary outline of the meanings of the term reproduction as it is used in this book. At an abstract level, it refers to the complex cycle of the production, distribution and reception of cultural works, that is, works (objects, performances or services) whose primary purpose is the making of meaning. However, it is the relations between these moments in a cycle or mode of reproduction which are of particular concern here (Johnson, 1983); the advantages of such an approach having been thrown into relief in the light of the recent pendulum swing from an emphasis on text to audience in cultural studies. Clearly, however, these relations are not fixed at an abstract level, but, rather, are historically specific: each moment in a cycle is both variously determined, and stands in various relations of determination to each other. Such modes of reproduction can be seen in terms of power, or as fields of forces, and the relations between each moment are subject to change.

The concept of reproduction can be used to analyse such changes in the cycle of production, distribution and reception in (at least) two inter-related senses. The first concerns the ways in which this cycle involves, literally, some form of reproduction or copying as part of the moment of production. As Williams notes, reproduction in this sense operates along a continuum from the uniform, in the sense of the production of exact, accurate copies, to the generative, that is, the creation of intrinsically variable individual examples of a type. Walter Benjamin, in his well-known essay, ‘The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction’ (1970), identified the significance of technologies of culture for changes in the functioning of this continuum within cultural practice through an investigation of the impact and implications of what he called mechanical (or technical) reproduction.

As Chapter 2 suggests, one of the strengths of Benjamin’s analysis in this respect is that he does not take a narrow, technically determinist view of the role of technology, but rather explores the conditions in which a technology is realised as a cultural apparatus. This book takes up this approach, and extends the historical range of Benjamin’s analysis through a consideration of not only mechanical, but also electronic and micro-electronic technologies of culture, and explores their implications for the regimes of copying which characterise particular modes of cultural reproduction. In each case, the aim is not only to explore a key moment in the historical emergence of a particular technology, but also to look at their characteristic modes of address, cultural forms and accessibility.

The introduction of these technologies of culture made possible the separation of cultural works from their context of production, resulting in a new mobility for cultural goods. This is seen to produce a decisive transformation in cultural reproduction, described in Chapter 2 as a shift from a mode of repetition to one of replication, terms which refer to different kinds of copying or reproduction in this first sense. It is argued that it is only with the emergence of the mode of replication that the asymmetry or divergence between cultural and social reproduction associated with the modernisation process arises (Williams, 1981; Lash, 1990).

Linked with this sense of reproduction as copying, the first section of the book (Chapters 2, 3 and 4) adopts a framework to explore the rights of copying existing in relation to cultural works. At the heart of the argument in this section is the view that the modern technologies of culture provided the potential for unlimited copying of cultural works, and that this potential has been regulated (that is, both realised and limited, or rather given a social shape) through specific regimes of rights of copying. While these regimes are codified in law, it is suggested that their operation is not solely juridically determined, but is, rather, the outcome of economic, political and cultural struggles between the participants in cycles of cultural reproduction. The two principal regimes associated with replication as a mode of cultural reproduction identified here are those of copyright and trademark; such regimes constitute cultural works as intellectual property, and define the terms under which such property may be copied and distributed for reception. As such, the analysis of such regimes of rights provides one means of investigating the distribution of power within cycles of cultural reproduction.

A further concern in the chapters in this first section is the analysis of the administration or regulation of cultural production; a particular concern is the regulation of innovation within cultural production, and the author function (Foucault, 1979), supported by copyright, is identified as a key mechanism in the recognition of innovation as originality. This example of the strategic manipulation of innovation in high culture formations is contrasted with the invention of novelty within the iterated or serial production which characterises popular culture. However, novelty itself is seen to be being gradually subsumed within a more general process of branding in contemporary culture, defined, in simple terms, as a set of techniques attempting to link image and perception. It is a term taken from the advertising industry; in this context, the function of the creation of a brand, as Baudrillard notes, is,

to signal the product; its secondary function is to mobilise connotations of affect.… The psychological restructuration of the consumer is performed through a single word— Philips, Olida, General Motors—a word capable of summing up both the diversity of objects and a host of diffuse meanings.… In effect this is the only language in which the object speaks to us, the only one it has invented.

(Baudrillard, 1988:17)¹

In relation to the culture industry, it is used here to refer to the creation of cultural works which signal or advertise themselves. This is seen to be achieved through the simulation of innovation or the strategic manipulation of exhibition value (Benjamin, 1970). Associated with the development of branding is the emergence of a new regime of rights associated with trademark law, in which the commercial operation of branding not only within but also outside the culture industry is protected.

The second major understanding of reproduction that is employed here refers to the ways in which the moment of the production of cultural works is, to the extent to which it can be seen in terms of the process of communication, inextricably tied to the moment of reception and an audience. The usefulness of the term reproduction is thus that it indicates the ways in which production is always oriented towards the moment of reception, and cannot be analysed in isolation from this moment in a cycle of production, distribution and reception. Modern technologies of culture can be seen to have had an enormous impact on reproduction in this sense too; they enable reception in multiple ways, across diverse spatial and temporal dimensions, and with various degrees and types of accessibility.

Perhaps the most significant innovation within technologies of culture from this point of view has been the development of techniques which make possible the separability of the cultural work from its context of production; such techniques instituted a radical split, or ‘deep contradiction’ in Williams’ phrase, between production and reception, and made cultural works mobile, cutting them loose from the ties of convention and ritual. It must be stressed that this split, and the associated mobility of cultural works, does not render redundant the second understanding of reproduction advanced here; but it does indicate the complexity of the processes through which modern cultural production is organised for and in relation to reception and the audience.

As John Thompson (1990) argues, the institution of a fundamental break between production and reception of cultural works provided the focus for the specialised development of media as productive forces; cultural works came to be, literally, mediated by the technical media in which they were fixed and transmitted in a largely one-way flow of messages from the producer to the recipient. It is on this basis that the media have been seen to challenge, at a very fundamental level, the nature of the exchange between producers and audiences; indeed, it has been suggested that they fabricate communication by making impossible the reciprocity of speech and response which underpins its definition in ideal terms. Baudrillard writes,

To understand properly the term response, one must appreciate it in a meaning at once strong, symbolic, and primitive: power belongs to him [sic] who gives and to whom no return can be made. To give it and to do it in such a way that no return can be made, is to break exchange to one’s own profit and to institute a monopoly: the social process is out of balance.

(Baudrillard, 1988:208)

Thompson further argues that one consequence of this development is that the moments of production and distribution in modern modes of cultural reproduction are characterised by a distinctive form of indeterminacy, in that producers are deprived of a direct and continuous monitoring of audiences’ responses. It is argued in the second section (Chapters 5, 6, 7 and 8) that one response made by producers to this indeterminacy has been the internalisation of some notion of the audience. This process of internalisation includes the invocation of particular audiences, with specific trainings and dispositions; the major types of internalisation discussed here will be the invocation of the audience as public, as market, and as consumers.

This process of internalisation is seen as one of the principal mechanisms which enable production personnel to reduce the indeterminacy stemming from the break between production and reception. As such, it is obviously particularly significant for the economic valorisation of cultural goods, since the commercial success of cultural production is crucially dependent upon the nature and extent of reception; as Jody Berland writes,

the profitable dissemination of entertainment commodities …[relies] on the ability of producers to make reception— requiring more refined knowledge of audiences’ situation and location as well as their taste and interpretive response— part of the productive apparatus.

(Berland, 1992:40)

However, internalisation is also an issue for those concerned with political and social valorisation. This process should not, though, be seen as an external requirement on cultural production; although clearly socially organised, it is recognisable as a particular, historically specific, form of the more general process described above as cultural reproduction, that is, production organised for and in relation to reception. Moreover, this process of internalisation is by no means always or entirely successful; on the contrary, it is commonly unsuccessful: that is, the internalised audience does not often correspond with the actual recipients and their concrete activity. These activities are described here in terms of reactivation, another term taken from Benjamin, and referring to the diverse activities in which cultural works are put to use in their recipients’ everyday life.

Nevertheless, it is argued that this process of internalisation has been one of the central mechanisms through which cultural reproduction has been linked to social reproduction. More particularly, it is suggested that the process of internalisation, consisting in the (implicit or explicit) adoption of a particular conception of the audience and an implied activity of reception, has contributed, directly, to the development of particular cultural forms, and, indirectly, to the formation, identity and influence of particular social groups defined through the implied activity of cultural reception. In this way, culture is considered as an aspect of the increasing governmentality of social life (Bennett, 1992). As was suggested earlier, it must be stressed that the process of internalisation does not operate in the abstract, but is historically variable, and the second section of the book is concerned with the ways in which this process of internalisation has operated in practice. For this reason, Chapters 5, 6 and 7 take as their focus the emergence of the distinctive internalisations of the audience associated with the development of three particular technologies of culture: print, broadcasting and communication.

The penultimate chapter, Chapter 8, is also concerned with the relations between cultural and social reproduction, and, in line with the immediately preceding chapters, presents an account of the ways in which the internalisation of specific conceptions of the audience has shaped the processes of cultural and social reproduction. More particularly, however, it is concerned with the gender differentiation which marks this process of internalisation, and seeks to establish the social and political implications of the gendered process of internalisation, defined as the differential inclusion and exclusion of male and female recipients. This chapter thus employs a conception of technology as a set of techniques to look at both how the processes of cultural production inform the changing constitution of the category of women, and the ways in which definitions of femininity shape the course of the development of cultural production.

The relations between producers and audiences, including this process of internalisation, can be analysed in terms of the framework of regimes of rights of copying introduced earlier. Such regimes provide one set of conditions structuring these relations within a cycle of reproduction. So, for example, the legal framework of copyright adjudicates between the need to secure the free circulation of ideas, a process which is commonly accepted to be integral to the functioning of the public sphere, and the commercial demand for monopoly rights in copying and the associated creation of markets in cultural commodities. Through this process of adjudication, copyright has helped to structure relations between producers and audiences in the modes of cultural reproduction associated with print, broadcasting and communication technologies. Regimes of rights can thus be considered in terms of ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• Part I Regimes of Rights
• Part II Technologies of Reproduction
• Bibliography