Assignment 1-3 Jounal Article Analysis

of

"Popular Culture and the Economy authored by Don Cusic and Greggory K. Faulk.

Popular culture generates a huge amount of business to the American economy. According to an article titled, “Popular Culture and the Economy by Don Cusic and Gregory K. Faulk, popular culture, good and services contributed five hundred sixty five billion dollars to the U.S. economy (BEA, 2004). This pop culture journal article by Cusic, & Gregory in 2009, summarized all the categories that make up the total consideration of pop culture’s monetary value in terms of GDP in the United States.

The audience for the article may include popular culture enthusiast, business groups, marketing groups and industry conglomerates. These groups have a vested interest in the popular culture economic data the article illustrates. Moreover, the pop culture industry is measured by the United States Department of Commerce-Bureau of Economic Analysis. The data arranged is tabulated by system design named the North American Classification System or (NAICS). The categories are defined as, “Cultural products are those that directly express attitudes, opinions, ideas, values, artistic creativity, provide entertainment or offer information concerning past or present (United States Census Bureau, 2002).” There are several areas in which pop culture may be defined by economic indicators or groups.

First, the BEA places popular culture into the “information economy,” which includes an array of popular culture good and services. The information economy includes cultural products such as arts, entertainment and recreation to include books, poetry, literary works and vintage records. According to the BEA, the information economy’s pop culture products are divided as follows, (1) entities or organization that produce and distribute product, (2) instrument or systems that broadcast or transmit these products and lastly (3) data storage or archival operations (Cusic & Gregory, 2009). These popular culture products are processed in the information economy, which begin in the form of movies, television, online newspapers, book publishers, radio and recorded programming etc. A current BEA report as of 2007 shows these categories to be 4% of the GDP equating total of 622 billion in Information sector; which includes publishing, motion picture, broadcasting, and data processing (Cusic & Gregory, 2009).

Second, the popular culture industry is largely comprised of the arts, entertainment and recreation sectors as the article states. According the United States Census Bureau, this category contributed one hundred eighty billion in year 2004 to the U.S. economy. A current BEA report as of 2007 shows these arts and entertainment categories to be 1% of the GDP equating 140 billion dollars in total. These sectors are broken down into the following categories according to the United States Census Bureau as: (1) entities that promote or produce live shoes or event in public forum, (2) entities that archive, store and display historical, cultural and academic assets, and lastly, management organization that provide public use of parks, recreational areas, and amusement venues (Cusic & Gregory, 2009). The arts and entertainment industry is know by industry names such as G.E, NBC TV, ESPN, ABC, CNBC, CNN, FOX Network and Disney.

Third, the article details the popular culture economy to include the film, broadcasting, and sound recording industry. To begin, the film industry produces and distributes many cultural film products through brand industry names. These industry leaders are known as United Artist, Edwards Theaters, Lowes Cineplex, Sony, Redstone, Carmike, Cinemark etc (Cusic & Gregory, 2009).

Next, is the radio and television broadcasting industry which contributes about 52 billion to the U.S. economy equating to 13% of the information sector popular culture output. These industries that transmit pop culture products are known by names such as, Clear Channel Communication, Citadel Broadcasting, American Family Association and Cumulus Broadcasting (Cusic & Gregory, 2009).

Next, in this group is the sound recording industry which contributes roughly 14 billion dollars t the information sector in popular culture products. These companies are named Sony/BMG, Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group, EMI, Vivendi, and other smaller groups (Cusic & Gregory, 2009).

Fourth, in the information sector’s popular culture economy is comprised of news paper print, periodical, and books publishers. The article provided the industry details as well. The newspaper industries are comprised of $50 billion in industry total (BEA, 2004). Periodical publishes account for $41 billion and book publisher about $27 billion in total (BEA, 2004). Some industry names in newspapers are Boston Globe, The Tribune Company, McClatchy Company, etc. Periodical publishers you may be aware in this sector as published by Hurst are, Good Housekeeping, Esquire, Washington Post, and Newsweek etc. The Time Warner Company publishes People, Sports Illustrated, Fortune, and Entertainment Weekly. Also, Advance Companies publishes The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Conde Naste Traveler, and Parade. Book publishers are large companies like Pearson which own other brand names like, Time Warner, Simon Shuster, Little Brown, CBS and Penguin. Also, to mention are McGraw-Hill companies and John Wiley & Sons who publish educational texts mainly.

Finally, the key idea to note is that the popular culture economy as stated in the article contributes $565 billion or 2.9% of the United States Economy. Compared to current 2008, BEA report, the Information sectors contribute a total of $622 billion dollars with the Arts and Entertainment sector equaling $140 billion dollars which excludes gambling operations. Overall, the popular culture, information economy reflects a large spending and business trend with significant growth potential in the future.

References

Cusic, D., & Faulk, G. (2009, June). Popular culture and the economy.
Journal of Popular Culture, 42(3), 458-479. Retrieved June 12, 2009,
doi:10.1111/j.1540-5931.2009.00690.x

Bureau of Economic Analysis. (2009) Gross domestic product. Retrieved June 12, 2009 from http://www.bea.gov/national/index.htm#gdp