Apologetic stuff rationalizing the sad accommodation of cultural theorists with big business, especially in Australia. Bennett is seen as a guiding light! A few simple ideas are developed to suggest that there is a mutual interest in collaboration between cultural theorists and businessman. Basically, business operates with a value chain running from production, to commodity to consumer, and the best businesses try to maximise or add value each stage.
Guess what! This looks a bit like other chains known to Cultural Studies, such as author to text to reader. With a bit of luck, you can also adds a chain from pre-modern to modern to contemporary societies. These chains can be added together.
The basic argument is then padded out by talking about the difference between feudal and modern societies. And the former, the priest mediated the word of God to congregation... you can fill in the rest. Same goes with sovereign powers monarchs , nation states and various publics. Hartley wants to talk about the contemporary era as featuring selves, terrorists and civilians (134) There are implications for knowledge and truth, and the methods for arriving at them, and implications for interpretation and creativity. The diagram here runs from exegesis to ritual (pre-modern); criticism to realism (modern) and 'redaction'to reality. Redaction is a neologism referring to the way which meanings are assembled from a variety of sources, or edited. Lots of other three-part distinctions are all worked in, and all comes together in a marvellous table on page 138 -- which I scanned in with a bit of luck.
Naturally, professors of cultural studies are needed to bring academic subjects up to date and to create neologisms, because traditional academics and traditional businessman cannot see what is happening with. Traditional terms have to be redesigned, including 'creativity', which now looks like redaction, interactive technological media products, and 'more formal experiments'like digital storytelling (140). Naturally, we are developing into a knowledge economy through open networks, and the utilisation of all sorts of knowledge not just nasty old scientific stuff. Finally, consumers add value as well -- as'"read and write" literacy' develops (140) [another neologism]. There implications for universities as well since we now have serious competition [and Hartley is about to retire so fuck you]
