Making and Selling Culture by Richard Ohmann

Making and Selling Culture by Richard Ohmann

To what extent do moviemakers, television and radio producers, advertising executives, and marketers merely reflect trends, beliefs, and desires that already exist in our culture, and to what extent do they consciously shape our culture to their own ends? In-depth interviews with ten executives from the "culture industry" and five scholarly analyses examine that question, and address the issues of power and authority, meaning and identity, that arise when cultural producers define and react to audiences. In their own words, leaders from companies like Twentieth-Century Fox, National Public Radio, and Warner Bros. Television describe their perception of the sometimes paradoxical relationship between culture and what influences it. For example, while the former president of Coca-Cola North America claims the company has never tried to create a trend, he notes that"we market in more countries than belong to the United Nations [a product that] has insinuated itself into the lives of the people to a point where it has become-you know, it's there." These reflections by key players provide an unprecedented view, as editor Richard Ohmann writes, "into the ways cultural producers imagine or know markets and how such knowledge figures in their decisions about what events, experiences, and products to make."

RICHARD OHMANN is Professor of English at Wesleyan University and author of Politics of Letters (1987) and Shaw: The Style and the Man (1962). GERALD GRAFF is George M. Pullman Professor of English and Education, University of Chicago, and author of Beyond the Culture Wars (1992).

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780819553010
ISBN 10	0819553018
Title	Making and Selling Culture
Author	Richard Ohmann
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Wesleyan University Press
Year published	1996-12-25
Number of pages	278
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.