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This study explores how second and third generation Muslims in Britain resist calls to become "normal" good Muslims and are less willing to respond to accusations of "clashing civilizations," and instead seek to unapologetically assert their particularized racial and religious difference through cultural expressions of dissatisfaction. I analyze forms of British Muslim cultural production, including visual art, fashion, music, and poetry including a focus on forms particularly expressed on digital platforms. Social media, for example, offers a new discursive landscape where British Muslims are actively using aesthetic driven communities to produce self-expressed visual content. I look at how these forms of sub-cultural expression function as sites of contestation, where Muslim minorities reframe their experiences, challenge dominant messages about their group identity, problematize the essentialism of Muslims, and construct a counter-public--a distinct British Muslim public discourse and cultural narrative specific to Muslims in Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a sample of 28,360 albums identified by an online community devoted to progressive rock, this article examines factors that shape the retrospective consecration of music that operates beyond the mainstream. Drawing on previous work on fields of cultural production, genre trajectories, and creative careers, the article produces findings that both replicate and innovate. As in previous research, critical acclaim greatly enhances the likelihood of consecration; however, it is not mainstream critics but underground critics whose opinions are most influential and most consistent with popular appeal among the progressive rock audience. Likewise, although performers from the "first wave" of progressive rock and from the United Kingdom have an advantage in getting consecrated, a more recent wave of performers in the online era see higher odds of consecration and there is neither a significant advantage for U.S.-based performers nor a significant disadvantage for performers from the margins. Findings suggest that the relationship between different types of legitimation varies across fields and that in progressive rock—a field with a high degree of aesthetic solidarity—some sources of acclaim often thought of as being in competition are actually compatible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses fanzines produced within the United Kingdom in 1976–77 to explore how punk's politics, production and cultural impact were understood by those first enticed by the new wave. It is divided into three principal sections, the first offering some context: a rough survey of who made fanzines and how. The second explores definitions of punk's new wave, looking at how emergent cultures were understood and the rationale applied to any point or purpose. Third, the inherent tensions of punk's cultural formation are teased from fanzine editorials and articles seeking to maintain the momentum of 1976–77 and protect against perceived infiltration or dilution. In each case, choice examples are given and the article is not meant to suggest any definitive reading. Rather, the objective is to test, challenge and confirm recurring punk myths and give voice to those who were there without enabling any conceited subjectivity to transform into universalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to ongoing debates around the cultural production of waste by arguing for a clearer distinction between concepts of 'waste' and 'excess' and by suggesting the benefits of this distinction for tackling the perceived consumer cultural waste 'problem'. Drawing on recent qualitative research with UK adolescents, I consider how a range of (youth/consumer) cultural drivers, social norms and moral imperatives shape young people's everyday material consumption practices in ways that reflect (and produce) varied ways of (de/re-)valuing no-longer-wanted possessions. By exploring the cultural projects within which the young participants and their material possessions were engaged, and by identifying their aims in employing specific keeping and ridding practices, noteworthy differences between 'waste' and 'excess' materialise. I suggest that the drivers of the 'excesses' identified – characterised here in terms of 'outgrowings' and 'hedging' – highlight a set of distinctly cultural challenges to be met if the slippage of materials from 'excess' into 'waste' is to be averted. I contend that acknowledging these challenges, and these conceptual distinctions, may prove beneficial in attempts to address some of the societal challenges (e.g. material novelty as a driver of social status) related to the production of waste. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the aural culture of the Cold War bunker. First by considering the insinuation of nuclear war (and attempts to survive it) into early 1980s UK popular music (and its echo in contemporary – ironic or nostalgic pastiche). Secondly by examining the increasing use of decommissioned bunkers as performance venues, some as decontextualized atmospheric backdrops, others with greater attentiveness to heritage and its interpretation. Lastly, the article considers the experience of my own act of cultural production in making a BBC Radio 4 documentary (Cold Art, broadcast in 2018) by exploring the resonant spaces of three Cold War sites, and the complex attraction these structures hold for artists and musicians. Across the article, these three instances of 'sounds from the bunker' are critically examined in order to explore the notion of the cultural politics of cultural appropriation and memory/trauma re-working, as a creative practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the conditions that led to the rise and fall of British South Asian cultural production. Following a high point in the 1990s when for the first time a South Asian diasporic presence was felt in British popular culture, across television, film, music, literature and theatre, Asians have now returned to the periphery of the cultural industries. But this is not a simple case of British Asians falling in and out of fashion. Rather, as this article explores, British Asian cultural producers were enabled but then ultimately constrained by shifts in cultural policy (and specifically 'creative industries' policy) and, more broadly, by the politics of multiculturalism in the UK and beyond. In particular, it focuses on the moment of New Labour and 'Cool Britannia' as a significant cultural and political moment that led to the rise and subsequent demise of British Asian cultural production. Through such an analysis the article adds to the growing body of work on race and production studies. It demonstrates the value of the historical approach, outlined by the 'cultural industries' tradition of political economy, which is interested in how historical forces come together to produce a particular set of institutional and social arrangements that shape the practices of British Asian creative workers. While the article foregrounds television and film, it explores the field of British Asian cultural production more broadly and, in doing so, marks the ascendency of the 'diversity discourse' that characterises cultural policy in the present day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article identifies and summarises the main findings of the AHRC research project 'Fifty Years of British Music Video, 1966–2016'. It contextualises the history of music video as a film practice within an unspoken cultural hierarchy of screen arts widely shared in universities, policy circles and the British Film Institute. The article documents the main stages in the development of the music video industry and highlights the extent to which the pioneers served as early adopters of new technologies in videotape, telecine and digital film-making. The ACTT consistently lobbied against music video producers, as did the Musicians' Union, and consequently music video producers emerged from the 1980s with virtually no protection of their rights. The ACTT's issue was new video technology which it opposed. It also opposed offline editing on video tape because it would lead to redundancies of film editors and potentially required fewer post-production crew. The MU's issue was royalty payments to session musicians and lip synch. The music video industry has functioned as a crucial R&D sector and incubator for new talent and new technologies in the British film and television industries as a whole, without experiencing any of the financial rewards, cultural status or copyright protections of the more esteemed 'screen arts'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how UK community radio can facilitate and produce alternative articulations of identity and experience, which, in turn, negotiate and challenge normative discursive framings of race which otherwise dominate UK mainstream media. In particular, this article examines ways in which The TalkBackShow on Nottingham community station Kemet FM produces articulations of British Caribbean identity and argues that community radio's remit of inclusivity enables transcultural production in the form of 'accented radio'. Accented modes of production are shaped in radio, by conditions of displacement and marginalization and responses to these experiences. An accented radio programme thus functions at the local level – speaking not only to the community whose members produce it but also to other local (and marginalized) communities – and simultaneously articulates a wider, transnational perspective. This article examines radio content from The TalkBackShow with reference to accented production practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: For Bourdieu, the field of cultural production is comprised of an autonomous and a heteronomous sector. A heteronomous sector is one that is interpenetrated by the commercial field. I discuss an arena that, until recently, was part of the relatively autonomous sector in the field of cultural production – the supported arts sector in the United Kingdom – and argue that it became more heteronomous, due to the penetration by the state. Heteronomy due to the commercial field is present but secondary to, and driven by, the actions of the state. Political parties’ attempts to diffuse and legitimate a particular economic ideology have led to state demands that arts institutions adopt neoliberal business practices in exchange for funding. Government giving to the arts, previously at arm's length, proved to be a Faustian bargain that demanded significant repayment in the form of lost autonomy. Coercive pressures from the state, enacted over time, show how the domination of one field over another can occur, even when the domination is resisted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In its broadest sense, the Toilet Circuit comprises smaller and independent music venues in the UK that launched many now famous artists and bands, alongside supporting many that are locally known, igniting or sustaining all-important local music scenes and their cultural production. Fueled by alcohol, drugs and adrenalin, the turbulent atmosphere of Toilet Circuit venues offer escapism for disaffected youth within the seedy aesthetic environment evocative of a recalcitrant culture. These raucous grime-pits play a vital role in the ecology of Britain's music scene and broader cultural sector. Against a backdrop of closures, this paper seeks to explore the significance of these venues and their future, using three iconic examples in London, Leeds and Kent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inequality has become essential to understanding contemporary society and is at the forefront of media, political and practice discussions of the future of the arts, particularly in the UK. Whilst there is a wealth of work on traditional areas of inequality, such as those associated with income or gender, the relationship between culture, specifically cultural value, and inequality is comparatively under-researched. The article considers inequality and cultural value from two points of view: how cultural value is consumed and how it is produced. The paper argues that these two activities are absolutely essential to understanding the relationship between culture and social inequality, but that the two activities have traditionally been considered separately in both academic research and public policy, despite the importance of culture to British and thus international policy agendas. The article uses the example of higher education in the UK to think through the relationship between cultural consumption and production. In doing, so the article maps out a productive possibility for a new research agenda, by sketching where and how research might link cultural consumption and production to better understand inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Macklin explores the role of music in British fascism's ‘palingenetic’ project for national rebirth. Taking as his starting-point the cultural production and criticism of music emanating from within the British Union of Fascists (BUF), he argues that music played an integral part of the fascist experience, representing far more than mere ‘entertainment’. Macklin examines how the BUF used music to underpin party mobilization strategies, to anchor choreographed set-pieces like meetings and marches, and to reinforce ‘collectives of emotion’ among participants as well as unaligned spectators. Having discussed the integrative mechanisms through which the BUF sought to capitalize on music's emotive appeal, and particularly the ideological content of ‘Fascist songs’, Macklin's article moves to examine the party's reaction to jazz. Not only did it offend British fascism's conservative cultural aesthetic but it served as a cipher for the wider sense of degeneracy British fascists believed had afflicted race and nation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article explores the institutionalized nature of racism in public relations (PR) in the United Kingdom, a situation that originates in the occupation's history and continues to disadvantage PR practitioners from Black, Asian, and other minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds. Drawing on a qualitative study of the experiences of BAME PR practitioners, I consider how institutional racism makes itself felt in their professional lives and the strategies they use to address it. My central argument is that institutional racism operates across the PR industry, potentially affecting their mediation of culture both within and beyond the context of cultural production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the processes supporting agglomeration in the British television broadcasting industry. It compares and contrasts the insights offered by the cultural turn in geography and more conventionally economic approaches. It finds that culture and institutions are fundamental to the constitution of production and exchange relationships and also that they solve fundamental economic problems of coordinating resources under conditions of uncertainty and limited information. Processes at a range of spatial scales are important, from highly local to global, and conventional economics casts some light on which firms are most active and successful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have witnessed increasing interest in both history and stardom within popular music studies. Yet one of the major sites for the production of commercial popular muisc since the 1960s—the UK—still lacks a comprehensive social history of its contribution to this artform. In particular the history of early UK rock and roll and its attendant stardom has been somewhat neglected. This article uses Richard Peterson's production of culture thesis as a means by which to explore both early UK rock and roll stardom and the thesis itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented about the idea of culture in relation to material work of cultivating growth visible in commercial, industrial and military works across land and sea by British writers. It examines the role of British elite on the productive essence of wealth and extended it from agriculture to other sectors. An analysis on the British cultivation of culture is presented.

Anti-aircraft shells exploding at high altitudes scattered shards of red-hot steel across the towns and cities of Britain during the Second World War. For many schoolchildren, collecting and trading this shrapnel became a popular social activity, often recalled today in oral history interviews. Drawing on testimonies collected as part of the People's War project, this article examines these curious and neglected processes of accumulation, exchange and disposal, looking at the aesthetic qualities that gave shrapnel fragments their value and attractiveness. In doing so, it attempts to locate children's shrapnel collections within their social worlds, as well as within broader discussions of material culture and modern conflict. It highlights the significant differences from other more typical forms of collecting, and some of the more subversive uses that children found for their shrapnel. The article also raises the possibility that collecting these violent objects may have been a way for children to cope with the upheaval and brutality of total war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a brief overview of current UK policy and practice in the area of the creative industries and economic development and aims to raise concerns about what I see as the problems arising in the implementation of these policies. It argues that the desire to use 'creative industries' as a single weapon with which to turn around economically depressed regions risks creating polarized and unsustainable economic development. Creative industries developments, if they are to succeed, cannot be disconnected from the cultural policies that nurtured them and the social policies that can help to sustain them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the British dance music industry and assesses claims that it offers a powerful alternative to the `mainstream' music business. Two unusual features of the sector are identified. Whereas the recording industry as a whole is marked by concentration and centralization, the UK dance music industry is relatively decentralized and is made up of large numbers of `independent' companies. Reasons for the success of small, local companies are offered, in particular the emphasis amongst dance audiences on genre, rather than on performer identity; and the low promotional costs enabled by negative press coverage of `acid house' in the late 1980s. But the article argues that a number of features of the British dance music industry work against a view of the sector as a radical challenge to prevailing cultural-industry practices. These are as follows: firstly, the reliance of dance music companies on crossover hits and compilation albums; secondly, close ties between the independents and corporate partners; and thirdly, the pressures placed upon small companies to follow the standard ways of dealing with risk in the recording industry - in particular, the development of a star system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the nature and status of B films in Great Britain. According to the author, British B films never acquired the respected place that a good many Hollywood B films did. The British B film has existed in a very obscure corner of the field of cultural production. The maker of such film is not likely to find his work subjected to those processes of legitimation and consecration which confer prestige on certain productions. The British B film has received virtually no critical analysis and considered as a program-filler, made cheaply in the expectation of modest profit and of critical neglect.

The article considers the impact of information technology (IT) on the future of television broadcasting in Great Britain. It challenges the view that the market is superior to public service as a mode of cultural production and consumption by concentrating upon the technical potentialities rather than upon the social relations. According to the author, the refusal to face the reality of scarcity is the greatest general weakness of the socialist movement, and the field of media policy is one sub-set of this more general problem.