Manufacturing culture

1. Manufacturing culture An analogy

2. Manufacturing processes • All manufactured goods represent the outcome of an identifiable set of repetitive processes • There are a number of ‘steps’ that must occur for raw materials to be shaped into commodities offered at ‘point of sale’ • The applicability of traditional manufacturing processes to the means by which cultural artifacts come into being is a debatable

3. Structure • The nature of ‘structures’ that carry out steps in the process is the domain of media organization study • Identifying and relating ‘structures’ and ‘functions’ was the goal of early organizational studies of the media • Even ‘critical’ media studies tended to apply the S-F model

4. Context • The economic, historical, social and cultural context within which media organizations operate will heavily influence their structures and functions • The nature of the products and markets the organizations deal with is also crucial

5. Chain of actions • A series of actions moves ‘raw material’ along a path that ultimately leads to consumption of the ‘product’ • Relatively linear and invariant set of actions • Each step in the chain has implications for others • Early steps constrain later steps • Later steps generate ‘feedback’ that guides new iterations of earlier steps

6. A simple example

7. Raw materials • Discovery, Identification • Selection • Extraction • Production • Quality control • Multiple interactions • Distribution • Exchange

8. Raw materialsDiscovery, Identification

9. Selection

10. Extraction

11. Production

12. Distribution

13. Exchange