Page 195 - Critical Political Economy of the Media

174 Critical investigations in political economy

between capital and labour have been facilitated by transportation and ICTs.
Miller et al. (2005) propose a New International Division of Cultural Labour,
adapted from the concept of a New International Division of Labour (NIDL).
They examine how Hollywood has reorganised production to take advantage of
labour costs and resource efficiencies. Hollywood’s proportion of productions
shot overseas increased from 7 to 27 per cent in the decade to 2000 (Miller et al.
2005: 137). Production is disaggregated across space, and labour is organised
across a world centre (Hollywood), intermediate zones (Western Europe, North
America, Australia) with outlying regions of labour subordinate to the centre (the
rest of the world).
There is a diminishing need for co-location of aspects of production and post-
production. So firms can take advantage of lower studio costs in Eastern Europe
and Mexico, high tech but lower costs post-production in India, tax incentives in
Europe, and so on. The result has been to depress labour costs and unevenly
deskill workers, whilst boosting jobs in lower-wage economies. The development
of digital technologies and global transportation are factors, but Miller et al.
(2005: 131) highlight corporate efforts to weaken organised labour and boost
capital accumulation; ‘Hollywood’s hegemony is built upon and sustained by the
internal suppression of worker rights, the exploitation of a global division of
labour and the impact of colonialism on language’. The international division of
cultural labour depends on a range of factors determining capital outlay including
favourable exchange rates and tax regimes, the weakness of organised labour,
specialist skills requirements, through which Hollywood investors seek to minimise
costs and maximise revenue in the organisation of film production, manufacturing
and services distributed around the globe. This approach engages a ‘political
and ethical regard for labour and its alienation into a model of citizens and
consumers that allows us to question the role of states and markets in extending
or stemming global Hollywood’ (Miller et al. 2005: 350–51). It also contributes to
necessary synthesising of political economic and culturalist studies. By examining
the ‘global infrastructure of textual exchange’, the authors invite examination of
the kinds of texts that get produced and circulate, the patterns of (unequal)
exchange, and their consequences.

Formats
The importance of integrating political economic and cultural analysis is also
illustrated by formats. To understand the growing market in formats we need to
examine the capital accumulation logics, the relationships between capitalist (and
PSM) firms, the trading and management of intellectual property rights as well
as the drives to various forms of localisation, adaption and cultural hybridisation.
While the US remains the world’s leading exporter of audiovisual programmes,
the UK has become the leading exporter of TV formats. In 2004 the UK
exported sixty-four formats, France fifty-six, Germany fifty, the US forty-six and
the Netherlands forty-six (Ofcom 2006: 118). The format for Who Wants to be a