The Circular Element of John Fiske's "Culture Industry" Model

       In Understanding Popular Culture, John Fiske presents a diagrammed model that illustrates his view of how immaterial culture industries might function.  The model is divided into two different economies: the "financial economy" (which has two subsystems) and the "cultural economy."  His discussion that accompanies this diagram details how he sees a commodity travelling through this system until it reaches an audience; and Fiske is careful to note that the commodity, upon reaching an audience (and once that audience produces some kind of meaning or pleasure through it), becomes a text that can no longer be recommodified.  I would argue, though, that while it may be true that this "producerly" text (as he later calls it) cannot be recommodified within the realm of popular culture, it can, nevertheless, be done so by sending the new text, now recommodified through an articulation of the original commodity, back through the culture industry.  Since producers of commodities in these capitalist arenas are themselves always members of various audiences, and since a popular text (one that has "relevance" for a variety of people) will sometimes be relevant to these producers as well, it would seem as  texts stand a rather good chance of being recommodified.  If we thus embellish Fiske's model to create a circular system, we can now take a look at how these culture industries might be operating as such systems.

       First, a brief explanation of Fiske's model.  An immaterial commodity (a television program or musical recording) is created in the first subsystem of the financial economy by an initial producer; it is then sold to a distributor.  In the second subsystem the program or album becomes a producer, creating an audience as a commodity which is then sold to an advertiser.  Finally, in the cultural economy, the commodity becomes a text, and the audience, using this text, becomes a producer of meanings and pleasures.  Again, Fiske notes that here these meanings and pleasures can only be "produced, reproduced, and circulated. . . .  With very few and very marginal exceptions, people cannot and do not produce their own commodities" (26-7).

       While it is certainly true that few audience members are afforded the chance to become initial producers of new commodities, initial producers, in these industries, are nonetheless audience members themselves.  Television programs, films, music albums, and other commodities are, after all, not created in a hegemonic vacuum.  Indeed, many artists/producers/writers often tell of various influences that have shaped their own work, influences that, undoubtedly, were born out of readings of cultural texts.  So, once an audience derives meanings from a text, once pleasures are found through cultural readings of it, those members of that audience who acquire the ability to be producers rebegin that culture industry cycle by commodifying their own readings.  The new commodity, however, is always changed slightly, and we might say that the new commodity is an articulation (to use Stuart Hall's term) of the previous commodity or commodities.  Various copyright laws, of course, insure that articulations will be different, but the similarities between various products of cultural systems cannot be ignored here.  Certain eras in the histories of music, film, and television (punk, post-Star Wars, and urban sitcom, to name a few, respectively) suggest that articulations of existing popular texts are the driving force behind such movements. 

       I want to turn, then, to some specific types of examples that demonstrate this new, circular model for these culture industries.  The first (and most apparent) type would be any text that is recommodified as a "remake" (in the film or television industries) or a "cover" (in music industry).  The recent release of The Jimi Hendrix Set, an album featuring covers of Jimi Hendrix songs performed by various artists; the second remake (suggesting three industry cycles) of the film "Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman," recently produced by the cable channel Comedy Central; or singer Daniel Dax's cover of "Tomorrow Never Knows," a Beatles song, all serve as examples of this type of articulation of existing texts.  Such articulations are usually called "versions."

       Next, let us take a look at a second type of recommodification, a musical one, that seems to utilize a different form of articulation: sampling.  Even though the new commodity here becomes one of entirely new ownership, we can still easily plot two cycles of the culture industry with an adequate example.  Rick James's song "Superfreak," for instance, made its way through the culture industry of music in the 1970's; as Fiske would suggest, once this commodified song became a text in the cultural economy, its audience was able to derive meaning and pleasure from it.  Included in this audience was M. C. Hammer, who eventually digitally sampled "Superfreak" for his own song, a new commodity, "You Can't Touch This."  Subsequently, this new commodity also traveled through the culture industry, taking an articulation of "Superfreak" with it.  The above two types of articulation, however, are much easier to trace than the third type.  In a way, what Hammer does with James's music might be analogous to quoting another writer within a new piece of written work, as opposed to paraphrasing that writer's words (or merely being influenced by their ideas or style).  Next, then, I would like to turn to discovering cycles of culture industries that function more within paraphrasing parameters.  Although these are more difficult to establish than ones involving remakes or sampling, we might look at sets of commodities that seem very similar: there is little doubt that "King Solomon's Mines," a film starring Richard Chamberlain released in the early 1980's, heavily articulated Spielberg's "Raiders of the Lost Ark"; or that Lenny Kravitz's influences  might include Jimi Hendrix and Prince, since much of his music almost seems to be songs that weren't written by these artists; or that Madonna's commodified image often bears a resemblance to Marilyn Monroe's; or, finally, that, were this paper to be published, it would be a commodity that articulates any number of theories, from metaphysical to psychological, that have influenced me.  At their worst, these types of articulations are called "rip-offs"; but often, the audience member experiencing the initial text merely thinks to him or herself, "Hmmmm.  I like that.  I can use that," or "Hey, I can do that."

       This embellishment of Fiske's model is, of course, most relevant to these industries where audience members can also be producers, and such instances are more uncommon in other industries; while an occasional entrepreneur will found a company and likely articulate the ideas of a predecessor or predecessors (as might be the case with William Gates's company, Microsoft), by and large, many industries do not offer audience members such opportunities.  It might be noted that even though Fiske also restricts his model to ones entailing immaterial products, he does so for a different reason: material commodities are not sent through a second financial economy, he says (26), implying that in these industries the manufacturer and advertiser are one in the same, and that an audience is not commodified (although this might be debated).  Fiske suggests, however, in the first chapter of his book, that all industries give people some degree of power.  He says that industries (his example is companies that  manufacture jeans) allow (and must allow) their products to be used in a variety of ways, for a plurality of purposes, and that industries, while they will always be behind, attempt to keep abreast of how individuals are using their products.  Within systems that circulate material commodities, then, there is not so much a cycle as there might be a network where meanings and pleasures are more indirectly commodified, without direct agency on the part of the part of the meaning-makers.  In any case, the industries that form the basis for Fiske's model can be revealed as cyclical if we assume that direct recommodification, through dual roles of producer/audience member, is possible.

Works Cited

Fiske, John. Understanding Popular Culture.  New York: Routledge, 1991.