The Production of Culture, Band 1

How does the media shape and frame culture? How does media entertainment vary under different conditions of production and consumption? What types of meanings and ideologies do these modes of production convey and how do they change over time? How does media culture differ from other forms of recorded culture produced in nonindustrial settings? In The Production of Culture, the inaugural volume in the new Foundations of Popular Culture, Diana Crane argues that these are the kinds of questions with which social scientists should be concerned. She contends that recorded cultures simply cannot be understood apart from the contexts in which they are produced and consumed. A review and synthesis of the current media literature, Crane's work examines both the popular and elite levels of media production. This investigation allows readers to understand how the notion of production can change depending on the size of the audience and or the structure of the cultural industry.