Introduction: A Changing Master-Narrative of Cultural Production

Abstract

Written today, this maxim might also include the novels, soap operas and movies of a nation, but the point would still be well made. The cultural industries attract more sociological and political attention than their financially measured size would otherwise justify. This is because their primary concern is the production of social meaning. They can simultaneously reinforce and disrupt our perceptions of reality: of what is good and bad; right and wrong; relevant and irrelevant; fair and unfair. Compared with the clearer functional aims of most other industries, they have a greater influence on the interpretations of our complex and contested world, and on how we should engage with it. In this way, their impact on behaviour can be deeper and more subtle than that achieved through laws and regulations.

Let me make the songs of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws.

(Plato)¹