rant and Wood discuss the “nobody knows rule”: each cultural product is unique and
creates its own market. This contrasts with other commodities – food, cars, mattresses –
which are sold into a predictable marketplace. Each cultural product is judged in the act of consumption, and thus it is difficult to know whether a given product will succeed. That is,
we know what to expect from a bar of soap or a toaster-oven; we don’t know in advance
whether we would like a Keanu Reeves movie.
(v) the product cycle
In non-cultural markets, product demand is relatively constant and a consumer resumes the
product cycle soon after (i.e., we buy a bar of soap, use it, then buy another). Cultural
products are subject to far more rapid turnover than other goods. That is, we have a huge
appetite for TV shows, movies, books, CDs, etc., but can only eat so much or drive so many
cars. A given cultural product cannot assume relatively constant demand (e.g., a star or an
author may fall out of favour), and if a product doesn’t capture consumers’ interest at the
beginning of the product cycle, demands quickly disappears (e.g., how a movie that is doing
poor box office – “Aeon Flux” -- disappears from the theatres within a week or two).
(vi) who determines demand?
In conventional markets, the consumer has significant sovereignty with respect to the nature
of the consumer choice, e.g., we rely on past experience, family or friend’s advice, or an ad
to guide out 英语论文网 【http://www.51lunwen.org】purchase. By contrast, in cultural markets, we are less “free” because cultural
gatekeepers or “tastemakers” have a lot of influence over our choices, e.g., book and movie
reviews, TV critics, blurbs, and these lead us to favour certain cultural products and not
others.
(vii) pricing and copyright
The low marginal cost of cultural goods means that producers have a lot of “price
discrimination” (that is, the power to price goods differently in different markets). For
example, Hollywood dumps TV programs and movies in the developing world, offering them
at a far cheaper rate to networks and cinemas than North American outlets would pay.
Cultural markets are highly “segregated,” meaning that a given product can be repackaged
and sold in different forms: e.g., a movie can make money in an initial theatrical release; be
rented in video stores; be sold to network or cable TV for broadcast; be re-released as a
“director’s cut”; be brand-extended and a cereal, comic book, or T-shirt sold with the
characters on it.
Copyright gives the producer of the cultural good enormous control over the price, since it
gives the producer effective monopoly control over the good in question, e.g., George Lucas
and his control of the Star Wars empire. Cultural producers can create “orderly markets”
(i.e., markets in which producers can ensure profitability and demand) through their ability to
segregate markets, differentiate prices in those markets, establis
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