ABSTRACT
Some of the most promising research developments in the study of the production and consumption of popular culture have been the attempts to use the tools of industrial and organizational sociology (see Lewis, 1978). This research attempts to answer the following types of questions. What sort of constraints do systems of production and consumption place upon one another? How do these systems affect the content and reception of popular culture? What is the relationship between culture industries and the larger societal institutions? This focus on ‘culture industries’ serves as a timely reminder that the mass media are first and foremost work organizations that depend upon the labour of workers, technicians, engineers and managers at a variety of levels of skill. This fact is often submerged below the otherwise exciting self-image the media projects of itself in various forms of ‘infotainment’.
