8

Maximizing Value

Economic and Cultural Synergies

Nathan Vaughan

This chapter presents an analysis of synergistic processes within Hollywood production and circulation. Drawing on Janet Wasko’s (1994) distinction between economic and cultural synergy, the chapter proposes an argument concerning the homology and interaction of these modes and how they have developed from an intensive to an extensive form.

The analysis combines theoretical perspectives from the political economy of culture and cultural analysis with film studies. It also notes how the study of the synergistic process has been somewhat neglected within management theory as well as in media studies more generally.

A typology is proposed that conceptualizes how synergy is organized and deployed variously within cultural production and circulation. Economic synergy, it is argued, operates both at the level of the firm and at the level of the industry. In addition to synergy at the level of the firm via flexible business networks and interfirm networking, Hollywood functions holistically as an industry and increasingly in co-ordination with cultural industries in general. In effect, such economic synergy is both intensive – that is, at the level of the firm – and extensive – that is, at the level of the industry and interindustry relations.

Additionally, there is a discernible homology between economic synergy and cultural synergy insofar as the meanings of cultural properties are exploited intensively and extensively. Intertextuality is produced at the level of the firm across various platforms and also much more diffusely across the cultural field in general at the level of the industry.

Conceptualizing Synergy

Because of the unpredictable nature of producing cultural properties, Hollywood (along with other sectors of the cultural industries) has devised new organizational and business strategies to help overcome the risky, and often costly, process of making money from creative labor. Through these strategies, Hollywood has increasingly pursued diversification of production by turning properties into products. The creation of these additional markets in order to produce merchandising or other means of maximizing revenue has contributed to Hollywood’s current dominance within world markets.

This process of diversification and corporate co-ordination has a name: “synergy.” While many introductory film and media textbooks make a passing mention of this process, such as David Hesmondhalgh’s (2007) The Cultural Industries, these texts all contain a common feature in failing to provide a detailed and critical understanding of how it actually operates. Given that the synergistic process has become the foundation upon which today’s large media conglomerates are built, it is timely that a deeper examination is provided into how this process affects the mechanics of the Hollywood culture industry. Such an understanding will provide clearer insights into how film texts, genres, and audiences are used in the development of business strategies from a more “economic, political, and social context” (Wasko 2003, 1).

Janet Wasko, in her 1994 book, Hollywood in the Information Age, is perhaps the only person to offer any satisfactory critical insight into the synergistic process. Here she argues that the process of synergy can be considered to have two main parts: economic and cultural. However, the central argument in this chapter departs in one significant respect from Wasko’s original analysis, and that is in the extended development of synergistic strategies. This idea proposes that the process of synergy has evolved from an intensive to a more extensive mode of exploitation.

At its most basic level, Wasko’s economic synergy means the integration and co-ordination of various functions within a company. Such a definition concretizes the idea that synergy is a process that operates at the level of the firm. However, within the organizational dynamics of how Hollywood operates today, compared with its more historical forms of Fordist production, there clearly exists a co-ordination of various functions and strategies outside the co-ordinating firm.

The construction of these flexible networks spreads both the economic risk inherent in producing cultural properties across other companies, as well as sharing talent, marketing, and the costs of research and development. It is through considering the multiple logics that exist within Hollywood business that the process of synergy can be argued to work at the level of the industry and not just at the level of the firm.

Wasko’s point concerning “cultural” synergy describes the process as the multiple exploitation of an intellectual (textual) property to enhance profitability. While Wasko accounts for the various ways in which this can be achieved, most of these (such as theme parks, television, and so forth) can be argued to operate at the level of the firm once again. In her discussion of Hollywood business, Wasko talks of cultural synergy as “overlapping cultural images and ideas” (1994, 217). Such a definition seems to indicate that cultural synergy is not confined to the property itself. The argument would appear symmetrical with the earlier point that there is a level of economic synergy that exists beyond the discrete corporation.

Table 8.1 Typology of synergy

While Wasko does not develop this idea in her definition of cultural synergy, such a proposal would seem to suggest that there may also be a level of cultural synergy that operates beyond the property (at the level of the industry). This moves the concept into issues of diffuse intertextuality. Such an extended notion of cultural synergy is consistent with the way Hollywood properties are produced and marketed. For example, extensive forms of cultural synergy can be seen to operate through the appropriation of myth structures (e.g., Star Wars and Lord of the Rings), diverse marketing strategies (such as tourism), and the recreation of nostalgia through retrobranding (e.g., prequels and special editions).

The typology in Table 8.1 identifies two axes on which the arguments and definitions proposed in this chapter can be summarized. This provides a clearer conceptualization of synergy that seeks to concretize and clarify the broader and more complex theorization of the process which this chapter discusses.

The process of synergy uses Wasko’s original definition as comprising two separate, but nonetheless interconnecting, parts: “economic” and “cultural.” Set against this is the intellectual property that is to be produced and marketed. This proposes that the property is both a commodity and a text. The reason for this is twofold. First, intellectual properties that are produced in the market for consumption are commodities. However, as cultural products these commodities also have “textual” meanings or “signification.” By interrelating them in this manner, the suggestion is made that the study of production also has an effect on the study of texts.

When crosshatched, the four cells within the typology produce four general forms for how the synergistic process operates. Clearly, the need to produce such a typology as this lies in the desire to create a general framework for both exploring and understanding the highly complex way in which synergy operates.

The typology shows that economic synergy operating at the level of the co-ordinating firm (or corporation) acts intensively on the exploitative marketing of commodities when devising cultural synergistic strategies. These can include spinoffs (television, music), theme parks, and so forth. On the other hand, economic synergy operating at the level of the industry acts intensively on the commodity text. Such strategies contain a range of different firms and businesses “downstream” producing further examples of merchandising (toys, computer games, etc.) under license from the co-ordinating firm and through product placement. In addition, it also creates extensive meaning through forms of diffuse intertextuality whereby different texts may be combined (or at least their themes and styles) to create something (apparently) new and original. While this latter example sustains constant forms of recycling that Wasko (1994) fears may lead to an unoriginal culture, it does help to sustain the interests of Hollywood as a whole, and perpetuate the extensive nature of the American film industry. It is through such a process that when issues of film are discussed, people generally think of Hollywood rather than other countries such as France or even Britain.

Let us now turn to discussing this conceptualization of the synergistic process in more detail.

Economic Synergy: At the Level of the Firm and the Industry

Understanding the concept of synergy is not as straightforward as it may seem. The term is often used freely within discussions of cultural production and business media, usually at the level of the firm, without examining in sufficient detail how the process actually operates (e.g., Olson 1999, Wolf 1999, Croteau and Hoynes 2001, Branston and Stafford 2003, Hesmondhalgh 2007).

Such discussions are mostly to be found in introductory film and media/business texts for students. Here, commentators and market analysts tend to use a very basic definition of synergy as a “process that brings together the various divisions/departments of a corporation to maximize profits.” An example of Disney’s approach to this is briefly examined later in this section.

As previously outlined, economic synergy from Wasko’s perspective takes place at the level of the firm through the co-ordination and integration of functions/departments within a corporation. However, this chapter has already proposed that it also operates at the level of the industry in an “extended” form. Arguably, this can take place in two ways. The first is through the formation of networks and partnerships with companies outside the co-ordinating corporation. The second level will be discussed in the next section.This achieves diversification of production for the purposes of cost-cutting and enhanced profitability. This form of economic synergy at the level of the industry witnesses a new form of organization that is suitably adapted to the flexible production system of post-Fordism. Companies that come together to form production networks for the duration of a film project operate under the control of a co-ordinating corporation that remains at the center of the production network.

Interestingly, it could be argued that this is still a form of synergy operating at the level of the firm. However, post-Fordism is not about ownership, but rather a flexible approach to production and circulation by sharing risk with other companies. Economic synergy at the level of the firm is, to return to Wasko’s definition, the integration of functions within a corporation. Clearly, what is important in distinguishing between economic synergy at the level of the firm or the industry in this respect is the way that production is shared and circulated along a network of different companies that represent the totality of the American film industry as a whole. Furthermore, in the creation of cultural synergistic strategies (discussed below), some of these companies may even be from different industries altogether. These companies may be co-ordinated by the controlling corporation, but they are not owned by them. This form of production replaces the vertical integration and co-ordination of departments within the same corporation that comprises Wasko’s definition of economic synergy working at the level of the firm.

However, it is also much more than this. In isolation, the argument of economic synergy taking place solely through the co-operation of different companies misses the totality of “Hollywood” as a field of practices that has always been promoted by the American government. The argument that this can be seen as economic synergy operating at the level of the industry helps us to a better understanding of issues behind Hollywood’s global strength. It accounts for, and provides an examination of, the relationship that exists between Hollywood and Los Angeles, unions, banks, and the organization of labor more generally.

Economic synergy at the level of Hollywood is achieved by the industry’s lobbying activities and the support it receives from the US government. The latter can be seen in the way the government has supported Hollywood exports in global markets. Furthermore, it tries to protect the industry via the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) from international treaty negotiations (NAFTA, GATT, WTO) that seek to reduce its export quotas, or concerns over runaway production. The government also provides “the clout to back up threats by the industry when countries don’t cooperate by opening up their markets” (Wasko 2003, 181).

The way Hollywood uses the MPAA to encourage the American government to protect its interests not only shows the central part the American film industry plays in today’s global media marketplace, but the way in which it can impose its standards (technical, aesthetic, etc.) on the industry. Additionally, both this and the way in which Hollywood and its studios have forged new (synergistic) relations among various national police forces and local governments in order to control the distribution of pirated material over the Internet (Goldstein 1994, 197), is a further example of how synergy can work at the level of the industry.

At the level of the firm then, economic synergy is played out through various strategies so that the corporation determines the “general ways it deploys its productive resources” (Murdock 1982, 122) across all the departments, or divisions that comprise it. Such a process is consistent with Murdock’s “allocative” form of control. Here, economic synergistic strategies are further mobilized in the decisions of whether the firm should expand or merge, and the best way to achieve this. Economic synergy at the level of the firm includes “the formulation of overall policy and strategy” (Murdock 1982, 118) that determines how that firm operates. Such policies would also contain a range of measures from allocating share interests, through to determining how profits earned from the various divisions of the firm are to be distributed.

One such example of how economic synergy at the level of the firm works can be seen when Disney decided to acquire the animated film production company, Pixar, for $7 billion (Chaffin and Politi 2006). Such a strategy was decided by a board of directors at Disney, and resulted in Pixar becoming part of the Disney Company. The acquisition reinvigorated Disney’s flagging animation department through an infusion of new, specialized talent, while providing the company with characters that it could intensively exploit via cultural synergistic strategies (see next section) across its numerous divisions of consumer products, theme parks, and other ancillary businesses.

However, at the level of the industry, economic synergy is achieved by the closer association that Disney now has with Apple Computers. Steve Jobs is both Pixar’s and Apple’s chief executive. A merger between Pixar and Disney placed Jobs on the Disney board in 2006. Such an appointment helped in creating potential networks between the two companies that, for example, could allow Disney to navigate new digital consumer technologies.

Such economic synergistic strategies at the level of the industry are necessary in today’s marketplace, in which media companies are increasingly co-ordinating to make their content available on a number of new devices such as cell phones and the iPod, which is made by Apple.

Such economic strategies were tested when Disney’s ABC network agreed to sell its television programs Desperate Housewives and Lost for download through Apple’s iTunes service (Chaffin and Politi 2006). Clearly, there is much potential for companies in forming such synergistic networks at the level of the industry. In the case of Disney and Apple, one of the world’s premier content companies “comes together” synergistically with one of the world’s most innovative technology companies.

The ability to form synergistic networks between “linked” firms at the level of the industry makes economic sense. The cost of producing and marketing cultural products today has increased exponentially; meaning that the decision for firms to pool their resources not only to share costs, but also to spread their risks over a range of different firms – instead of just one taking all the responsibility – becomes a key business strategy. Such a strategy, then, sees the process of economic synergy working at the level of the industry by linking firms together in a network.

As Rifkin (2000) argues, sharing the losses in a failed venture provides a type of collective insurance. Network relationships are much more flexible than those based around hierarchical organizations. He considers this flexibility to be much better suited to the unpredictable nature of the cultural industries, as co-operation and team work allow for companies to respond more quickly to changes in audience tastes and desires. Of all the different sectors of production, Rifkin considers the Hollywood culture industries to have had the most experience in networked-based business approaches. For this reason, he sees Hollywood as the prototype for the reorganization of other types of production based upon networking principles.

Flexible specialization has the ability to offset risk across a range of companies, while allowing cultural workers a level of autonomy that they had not experienced under Fordist conditions. The flip side though to obtaining this freedom is that companies increasingly create competition for cheaper services. This allows studios to move production to those countries where significant savings can be made in order to exploit the talent of poorer countries via what Toby Miller and his colleagues (Miller et al. 2005, Miller and Yudice 2002) have referred to as the “New International Division of Cultural Labor” (NICL). This has resulted in making employment more fragmented. Cultural workers are now increasingly employed on a freelance, ad hoc, basis, where they find themselves competing for a decreasing number of positions. This means that many people now find themselves unemployed for longer periods of time. The use of flexible networks has arguably fragmented the American film workforce.

Hollywood’s exploitation of the NICL has had a significant impact on local American economies and labor markets that depend on Hollywood production for their livelihoods, not to mention those local economies and labor markets that are now being used as sources of cheap labor for film production. Such arguments further illustrate the process of economic synergy working at the level of Hollywood as a whole.

Other geographical implications of developing synergistic networks with independent producers at the level of the industry has led to the re-agglomeration of production in and around Los Angeles. Such a point is consistent with Christopherson and Storper’s (1986) examination of Hollywood. Arguably, it was the constant pursuit of economic synergistic strategies that were responsible for this. As Janet Harbord notes:

the re-assembly of the entertainment industry necessitated a spatial proximity of companies trading among each other, leading once again to a centralised core of production, and a powerful nexus of economic, cultural and social interaction. What appears on the surface as an unraveling spool, on closer inspection is revealed as a tight-knit fabric of integrated working relationships, practices and technologies [that comprise “Hollywood” as an industry]. (Harbord 2002, 98)

It is clear that the pursuit of such networking strategies at the level of the industry has had significant geographic implications for restructuring key sites around Los Angeles and the world. It must be emphasized though that the independents are not in any position to challenge the major studios owing to the significant levels of control the majors still have of the overall production and distribution process. In addition to this, the characterization of the high-concept film (see below) eliminates “the possibility of smaller production units competing in the same market” (Harbord 2002, 101), illustrating another way in which the major studios can retain their power over independents. Christopherson and Storper underplay these issues in their analysis of flexible specialization and organizational change within Hollywood.

Cultural Synergy

From intensive to extensive

Christopherson and Storper’s account of the developments within Hollywood, and the flexible specialization thesis in general, offer insights into how organizational change has redeveloped film production in the US. Yet many commentators, particularly Wasko (1994), have questioned their claims of vertical disintegration within Hollywood. For Wasko, “rather than disintegration, the US film industry has experienced a process of reintegration in the late eighties” (1994, 16).

The real issue that is at stake here is whether vertical reintegration should be addressed at the level of the industry as well as the firm. This is important also for the concept of synergy which also poses the same question, as the reintegration of Hollywood is related to synergy.

Hollywood at the level of the firm is vertically integrated across a group of companies that operate at different levels within the production and circulation network. These exist either as contractors supplying direct labor for the production of the film, or to provide various services such as special effects, catering, transportation, and so forth. However, at the level of the industry as a whole there exists a collective body of corporations who co-ordinate production and distribution – such as theatrical, home video, DVD, cable, and television releases as well as merchandising tie-ins – to achieve diversification of product and expand sales.

The potential profit that exists in turning properties into products through cultural synergistic strategies has led to a period of mergers, with film studios becoming incorporated within larger media conglomerates. Known as “horizontal integration,” this sees new media giants such as Disney and Viacom owning multiple forms of distribution that range from film and publishing to radio and television. Horizontal integration is central to the development and exploitation of cultural synergy.

From this, it would appear that there is a strong argument for studying the process of cultural synergy as working at the level of the industry, and not just exclusively at the level of the firm/corporation. Without the co-operation of other industries, principally advertising, Hollywood would not exist in anywhere near the form it does today. It is clear that the vast majority of Hollywood products are dependent on other industries for their existence and eventual success. As McGuigan (1996, 94) points out, “production is dependent not only upon advertising finance and effective marketing but also upon the representational discourses and audiovisual formats of commercial speech.” Other types of industry, not just those connected solely within Hollywood, are brought together in a synergistic manner throughout the cultural circuit.

Many forms of industry are used to promote films, including newspapers, cinema chains (trailers), the Internet, food manufacturers, soft drink companies, airlines, and so forth. While none of these companies are involved directly in the production of the film, they are essential as a channel of distribution to promote the film to as wide an audience as possible. It sees different types of industry, from transport to food, to clothing and entertainment outlets, coming together in a synergistic way in order to promote a film in anticipation of some of the spin-off interest that the film will hopefully generate being rubbed off onto them. This can be mainly achieved by product placement techniques (Wasko et al. 1993) which allow manufacturers to connect mass market goods to certain films by paying to “place” their products within the film’s narrative. Films that lend themselves to this global marketing strategy have been termed “high-concept” (Wyatt 1994, see below).

For Wasko, this saturation and repetition of images from media properties across a wide range of distribution and marketing channels is of great concern. For her, the way in which the persistent stream of images, themes, and characters based on movie franchises (such as Star Wars and Lord of the Rings) penetrate into all facets of daily life, limits the expression of society’s ideas, values, and general original creativity, or what Eileen Meehan (1986) has termed “the cultural fund.” Wasko has taken this concept slightly further. For her, the principle of economic synergy can also be extended into popular culture. It is here that Wasko proposes her other dimension to the process of synergy, the cultural dimension.

Miller et al. (2005, 264) point out how Justin Wyatt in his 1994 book, High Concept, outlines all the various ways that “marketable film content flows from film texts to marketing texts.” Arguably, these occur through a range of intensive cultural synergistic strategies. However, as these strategies become more widely spread through domestic and global marketing, they form what Gary Hoppenstand (1998: 232) calls a “film environment” outside the film. It is the externalization of these “extracted” features of a film property that form the basis of cultural synergistic strategies. However, they also “serve more than just economic functions, for when these [marketable elements] penetrate public space they also affect the aesthetic experience of film-going” (Miller et al. 2005, 264). By borrowing and recombining these elements in different ways and means, then the process of exploiting cultural synergy extensively creates an accompanying intertextuality that exists beyond the original property.

The financial logic behind the concept of cultural synergy makes economic sense. Once the idea for a textual property is developed, there obviously exist numerous advantages to using it for a range of products. However, Wasko fears the erosion of diversity and originality as a result of deploying such extensive strategies. Clearly, it can be seen within contemporary Hollywood production and marketing the disadvantage in deploying such cultural synergistic strategies extensively. While characters, stories, themes, and so forth are exploited across a range of products, more often than not we witness a cluster of similar products but across different types of media. The worry is that although the number of media platforms and distribution systems has increased, the content has in fact stayed the same. Wasko’s primary concern “that our culture may not be actually evolving, but merely recycling” (1994, 252) is perhaps more prevalent today than at any other time.

Deploying extensive strategies

Wasko’s worries are rooted in the extensive deployment of cultural synergistic strategies that exist at the level of the industry. However, Wasko does not develop this extended notion of synergy within her own examination of the process. Here, intertextuality is created through the existence of a recombinant culture, whereby “anything can be juxtaposed with anything else” (Gitlin 1989, 350). Attempts to “(re)construct” seemingly new properties from the recombination of old ones provide not only a safer way of producing cultural properties (i.e., if it worked before, it will work again), but it also creates strong feelings of nostalgia in older audiences/consumers that may then be capitalized upon through various marketing strategies.

George Lucas’s Star Wars special editions cleverly positioned the first trilogy so that it introduced new audiences to the saga while luring them into the franchise. They skillfully demonstrated the use of retro branding within the intertextual use of connected products that characterizes today’s entertainment economy. These intertextual “connections” are then extensively exploited through cultural synergistic strategies at the level of the industry. The concept of intertextuality can be argued to work on several different levels. First, the relationship that exists between texts, either separately or connected within a franchise; second, the relationship between text and marketing strategies; and finally the relationship between the text and the systems of production in which it was created (political, social, and cultural).

The intertextual style of exploiting cultural synergy extensively is very similar to Fredric Jameson’s idea of the cultural style of late capitalism. For Jameson this is characterized, among other things, by the desire for nostalgia, whereby history is the object not of representations but of stylistic connotation. This is exemplified by both the Disney theme parks, and how the special editions of the original Star Wars trilogy were used as a nostalgic “lure” for the new prequels. What this recycling of cultural symbols, themes, and styles achieves is a sense of the “already said.” The extensive exploitation of cultural synergistic strategies at the level of the industry constructs a sense that one cannot invent anything new, but merely play with the already existent. Such observations uphold Wasko’s fears of a static and recycled culture.

With regard to extensive cultural synergistic strategies, one particularly salient area concerns tourism. This can be seen in the way the Lord of the Rings films were marketed when tourism companies within New Zealand quickly began to develop various marketing strategies in order to take advantage of the publicity created by the films. Such an example provides a further way to illustrate the process of cultural synergy not only working, extensively, at the level of the industry, but also between industries. However, the benefits of such extensive synergistic networks are not confined solely to Lord of the Rings, but are increasingly becoming characteristic of blockbuster properties more generally. Such examples include The Da Vinci Code (2006), Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006), and The Chronicles of Narnia (2006) – the last of which was also, interestingly, filmed in New Zealand.

Meehan’s (2004) argument of “redeployment” is also relevant in the extensive development of cultural synergistic strategies. Here products take the form of merchandise that can either be linked directly to the original property or to a number of associated products that are connected to it. This type of strategy can be seen in the array of Star Wars novels and computer games that have been produced to provide an “expanded universe” to the narratives contained in the original films.

However, George Lucas was not the first to exploit cultural synergy extensively. Walt Disney was already developing extensive strategies in relation to his 1937 animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Apart from creating a range of associated products by granting licenses to other companies “downstream” to produce merchandise, Disney strengthened his brand awareness for both the animated film and his company’s range of characters through intertextual recycling. Here an “expanded universe” was created by featuring the characters in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in a variety of books and magazines that appeared after the film had finished. Often these products also contained other Disney characters and, through this cross-pollinating of the company’s best-known characters, readers would not only be familiar with Disney’s repertoire, but these “expanded” properties would have a ready-made audience.

However, today the most significant types of film that sustain this form of cultural synergy are arguably the “high-concept” movie, described as a film that has a straightforward, easily pitched and comprehensible story. Many directors of such films (e.g., Jaws, Top Gun) often highlight the uniqueness of the film’s central idea. However, Wyatt (1994) argues that the concept can be explained as “the look, the hook, and the book.” More often than not, these films rely on the same combination and replication of themes, genres, and images, which is an inherent characteristic of extensively exploiting cultural synergy at the level of the industry. For Wyatt, this form of “postgeneric” filmmaking is highly dependent on a simplification of character and narrative that, coupled with an intense interaction between the film and its soundtrack, results in sequences that are ideally reconfigured for a range of different products (i.e., soundtrack, computer games, comics, etc.).

What is essential to make Wyatt’s high concept work is that while marketing strategies will try to make any film stand out as a “differentiated product,” audiences must understand the role that marketing plays in connecting a film’s likeness to other films in order to reduce the uncertainty of its appeal at the box office. Such a process of borrowing and recycling themes and stylistic conventions is central to how the extended notion of cultural synergy operates. The genre system, for example, is of importance in creating a culturally defined referencing system that provides core characteristics that can be used as shorthand in marketing strategies (Miller et al. 2005).

As previously discussed, the role of marketing creates a range of intertextual influences that “spill over” into an area of competing interpretations that exist outside, or beyond, a film’s narrative. Through the intertextual recombination of genres, styles, and themes, the notion of an extended form of cultural synergy beyond a single property can be seen. For example, the 2003 Disney film Pirates of the Caribbean can be seen as The Buccaneer meets Mutiny on the Bounty, while the 2004 release of Alien vs. Predator saw these past two science-fiction franchises literally coming together. They serve as an effective way of repackaging previously successful ingredients into a new film, making marketing that much easier (Hoskins et al. 1997).

Olson provides a further example of this intertextual recombination in his examination of the 1996 film Independence Day:

its plot line, characters, and sets are a veritable catalogue of science fiction films, including gooey antagonists (from Alien, 1979), surprise side effects of alien surgery (from The Thing, 1982), a gung-ho kamikaze American (from Dr. Strangelove, 1963), space-age aerial dogfights (from Star Wars, 1977), friendly and trouble-making computer software (from 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968) and human victory thanks to unforeseen infection [albeit a computer virus] (from War of the Worlds, 1953), with characters from non-genre films, such as An American President (1995), thrown in for those with shorter memories or other generic tastes. (Olson 1999, 78)

These observations closely follow Bernard Miège (1987, 276–7). While Miège was concerned specifically with the “flow” production of broadcasting to fill in large areas of new content schedules, this seems to contain certain parallels to the concept of cultural synergy. The properties of a flow culture tend to be characterized largely as uninterrupted, which the constant recycling of images also allows. Hollywood’s properties today are offered as a constant stream of releases, most of which are nothing more than a combination of previous themes, mainly to fill schedules. In fact, Miège’s flow culture today is a highly commodified one as properties are available for a succession of realizations, achieved through the process of synergy. In this sense, “flow” is a much industrialized concept which mirrors that of Fordist, or rather neo-Fordist production. So it perhaps also makes sense to talk about cultural synergy as an extension to Miège’s flow logic of broadcasting.

For Miège (1989) however, this still does not overcome the uncertainty of cultural use values, no matter how much Hollywood relies on market research and pretesting. For him, the spreading of risk is much more effective by offering a list of films, as the cultural producer always has great difficulty determining the conditions of valorization for its properties. Such arguments can be used to explain the constant release of Hollywood films, the shortening of the film distribution period in general, and the fact that many films are only in cinemas for a short period. Such observations have significant parallels with Wyatt’s “high concept,” whose underlying strategy is that by throwing as many different films at the consumer as possible, a few may find appeal, with one or two appealing in a very large way.

Developing extensive cultural synergistic strategies at the level of the industry can also be viewed as being hyperreal. Jean Baudrillard’s (1983) position on this has been well documented. For him, media culture in general has created an environment that is saturated with signification. In truth, all this creates is a sensation that meaning has imploded in on itself so that signs only signify other signs. There exists no way of ever being able to connect to the real or the original. For Baudrillard, the hyperreal has become more real than reality. It was, of course, Italian philosopher Umberto Eco (1987) who, along with Baudrillard, popularized the term “hyperreality,” and further provided us with the analysis of “faith in fakes.”

For Eco, Disneyland is the most prevalent example of hyperreality. For him, Disney’s theme parks exude a sense of reality that makes us believe absolutely that what is being seen is actual “reality,” rather than simply a representation. They are a form of environmental simulacra, what Olson (1999) argues to be environments that are hyperreal, enabling fantasy to take on a physical form and surround the consumer. Eco’s “faith in fakes” is most commonly seen in the audioanimatronics of attractions such as “Pirates of the Caribbean” or “the Haunted Mansion,” which Eco interprets as producing “iconic reassurance,” a factor which Wasko is too quick to dismiss in her analysis of Disney.

Synergy as a Transindustrial Process

Based on the previous arguments and examination, it is also possible to illustrate how the deployment of synergistic strategies can not only work at the level of the industry, but also between industries.

For example, what sets the Lord of the Rings films apart from those such as Star Wars in terms of its development of cultural synergistic strategies is not just the way in which the Internet played a more dynamic role, but also the relationship that existed between the films and the New Zealand tourist industry. Clearly, this is evidence of the way synergy can also operate between industries.

The New Zealand Government was quick to recognize the potential that the films would give to the country in terms of increasing the profile and awareness of New Zealand as a destination. Lord of the Rings has a distinct advantage over Star Wars in the sense that its locations are generally more “real.” For Star Wars, most of the action takes place either in space, studio sets, or in a computer-generated scene. While this also is the case for Lord of the Rings, many areas that were used for filming outdoor scenes can be visited and enjoyed.

Tourism plays a central part in the New Zealand economy (Jones and Smith 2005, 936). In various ways it contributes almost 10 percent of New Zealand’s GDP, while supporting one in ten jobs (Jones and Smith 2005). Owing to the way in which cultural synergistic strategies generally keep recycling cultural properties, and commodifying key aspects of the narrative in particular, repeat viewing is strongly encouraged. Apart from trying to persuade audiences to “buy” into the franchise brand, it further serves to help “reinforce connections between a film and its location as a tourist destination” (Tooke and Baker 1996, cited in Jones and Smith 2005, 936). Such arguments further concretize the observation that synergy can also work at the level of the economy.

For Lord of the Rings, the development of cultural synergistic strategies by the US film studio New Line has been extremely useful for Tourism New Zealand (TNZ) and the national tourist promotion board. In addition, further economic networks between New Line, the media, and individual enterprises have been forged to exploit these potential cultural synergistic benefits further. As Jones and Smith (2005, 936) add, “the linkages are obvious from the outset of a visit to TNZ’s website which directs the visitor to The Home of Middle Earth website and into an interactive discovery of the “country behind Lord of the Rings.”

Further examples of synergy working at the level of the industry can be seen in the role that the 2002 Academy Awards played. Following the ceremony, print campaigns in the US advertised New Zealand as “best supporting country in a motion picture” (Jones and Smith 2005). Such strategies develop the notion that identifiable “icons” within films attract viewers to a given location as visitors (Riley et al. 1998, 924). These can be “linked to the film’s symbolic content, a single event, a favorite performer, a location’s physical features, or a storyline theme; icons, abstract or tangible, become the focal point for visitation and the associated location is tangible evidence of the icon” (Riley et al. 1998, 924). Clearly the use of wide panoramic shots of New Zealand in the Fellowship of the Ring (for example), provides iconic status to the New Zealand landscape, while additionally reinforcing the connection that exists between the fictional Middle-earth and New Zealand. By exploiting these connections through cultural synergistic strategies that exist between various industries, not only is New Zealand promoted as “the” tourist destination for fans of Lord of the Rings, but it also adds to the legitimacy of the films as being an authentic New Zealand project (Jones and Smith 2005).

Tourism companies within New Zealand have quickly developed various other marketing strategies in response to the opportunities created by the films. A range of themed packages and attractions based around Lord of the Rings have been devised. Such strategies further feed into the official promotional rhetoric of New Line that visitors to New Zealand will receive a “genuine,” “real,” and “authentic” experience of Lord of the Rings (Timothy and Boyd 2003, cited in Smith and Jones 2005, 938–9). Such “experiences” are further strengthened by tour operators through the “status of their guides as ‘fans’, whose claims to authenticity are further enhanced by their personal involvement in the filming process, as extras or as suppliers, for example transporting the cases and daily rushes” (Smith and Jones 2005, 939).

New Line, in their official promotional strategies of the films, showed members of the casts and crew enjoying various parts of New Zealand. While this strengthened the idea that New Zealand was “fun” and “enjoyable,” Air New Zealand themed two of its airplanes for Lord of the Rings as the centerpiece of its global promotional campaign. While this took the connection between the films and New Zealand around the world, it was also used to promote Air New Zealand as the company that could take you to “Middle-earth” (Jones and Smith, 2005). Such examples are once again an excellent way to see the process of synergy working both at the level of the industry; and also between industries – in the same ways as corporate sponsorship and licensing agreements operate (Wasko et al. 1993) from downstream businesses.

Conclusion

In conclusion, there is a need to emphasize once again the enormous complexity of the synergistic process. To this end, two distinct dimensions, or types, of synergy have been explored: “economic” and “cultural.” These provide different lenses for analyzing and evaluating the development and effect of synergy within cultural production. Economic synergy has been identified as a process that can either operate at the level of the firm or the industry. At its most basic, economic synergy means the integration and coordination of various functions within a firm. However, what is especially significant today is determining production from the point of consumption. As stressed earlier, this is concerned with making what audiences are said to want. The role of marketing, along with issues of consumer “sovereignty,” has grown in importance. It is through exploiting factors such as these by forging “networks” that the first form of economic synergy can be argued to work at the level of the industry. Such arguments can be extended into considering how synergistic strategies are mobilized at the level of Hollywood through US government protection. This is another way in which economic synergistic strategies can be seen to function at the level of the American film industry as a whole.

Economic synergy has a homologous relation to “cultural” synergy. This suggests that “characters, stories and ideas are made into products for different outlets” (Wasko 1994, 252). Cultural synergy originates from economic synergy, and as a result both terms are interrelated. The concept can be succinctly defined as: the multiple exploitation of (an) intellectual property. Synergistic strategies of this type that occur at the level of the firm are intensively exploited across the co-ordinating corporation’s diverse division of companies. This can take many forms, and includes spin-off merchandising, theme parks, and other forms of media (e.g., television, cable, DVD).

At the level of the industry, such cultural synergistic strategies are deployed extensively across a broad range of different companies that come together in order to promote the film in a number of different ways. Such a conceptualization is consistent with Wasko (1994, 6), who argues that “Hollywood does not merely represent the film industry, but crosses over traditional boundaries and engages in transindustrial activities.”

It has also been proposed that because of the extensive way in which cultural synergistic strategies are exploited, an accompanying extensive intertextuality is also created, suggesting that a form of cultural synergy exists beyond a single property. Such an idea is symmetrical with the argument that there is a level of economic synergy beyond the discrete corporation. What makes this possible is the “recombinant culture” of postmodernism that typically characterizes contemporary cultural production. Such a feature is a distinct characteristic of cultural synergy, particularly in Hollywood, which is marked by the constant recycling of successful formulae coupled with the remaking of older ones. In addition, the desire to further reduce risk by combining successful properties strengthens the argument of intertextual “borrowing” that largely characterizes Hollywood today.

Synergy as an overall process is a product of changing organizational structures that combine the power to control resources and the flexibility to respond quickly to changing markets and consumer taste. This chapter has attempted to unravel the complexities of synergy as a means of helping to illuminate the intricacies of cultural production within Hollywood. It must be remembered that there exist particular logics at work within the cultural industries that must be accounted for. What has been provided here is a typology that seeks to address such issues.

Note

I would like to express my thanks to the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) for providing the funding for my doctoral research. Additionally, I would also like to thank Jim McGuigan and Alan Bryman for helping me to clarify my thoughts on the synergistic process.

References

Baudrillard, J. (1983) Simulations. Semiotext(e), New York.

Branston, G. and Stafford, R. (2003) The Media Student’s Handbook, 3rd edn. Routledge, London.

Chaffin, J. and Politi, J. (2006) Disney board contemplates buying Pixar. The Financial Times, January 24.

Christopherson, S. and Storper, M. (1986) The city as studio; the world as back lot: The impact of vertical disintegration on the location of the motion picture industry. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 4(3), 305–20.

Croteau, D. and Hoynes, W. (2001) The Business of Media: Corporate Media and the Public Interest. Pine Forge Press, Thousand Oaks, CA.

Eco, U. (1987) Travels in Hyperreality. Picador, London.

Gitlin, T. (1989) Postmodernism – roots and politics. In: Angus, I. and Jhally, S. (eds), Cultural Politics in Contemporary America. Routledge, New York, pp. 347–60.

Goldstein, P. (1994) Copyright’s Highway: The Law and Lore of Copyright from Gutenberg to the Celestial Jukebox. Hill and Wang, New York.

Harbord, J. (2002) Film Cultures. Sage, London.

Hesmondhalgh, D. (2007) The Cultural Industries, 2nd edn. Sage, London.

Hoppenstand, G. (1998) Hollywood and the business of making movies: The relationship between film content and economic factors. In: Litman, B. R. (ed.), The Motion Picture Mega-Industry. Allyn and Bacon, Boston, pp. 222–42.

Hoskins, C., McFadyen, S., and Finn, A. (1997) Global Television and Film. Oxford University Press, New York.

Jones, D. and Smith, K. (2005) Middle-Earth meets New Zealand: Authenticity and location in the making of The Lord of the Rings. Journal of Management Studies, 42(5), 923–45.

McGuigan, J. (1996) Culture and the Public Sphere. Routledge, New York.

Meehan, E. (1986) Conceptualizing culture as commodity: The problem of television. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 3, 448–57.

Meehan, E. (2004) Marketization and corporate synergy. Paper presented at the International Association for Media and Communication Research Conference on Communication and Democracy, Porto Alegre, Brazil, July 25–30.

Miège, B. (1987) The logics at work in the new cultural industries. Media, Culture & Society, 9(3), 273–89.

Miège, B. (1989) The Capitalization of Cultural Production. International General, New York.

Miller, T., Govil, N., McMurria, J., Maxwell, R., and Wang, T. (2005) Global Hollywood 2. British Film Institute, London.

Miller, T. and Yudice, G. (2002) Cultural Policy. Sage, London.

Murdock, G. (1982) Large corporations and the control of the communications industries. In: Gurevitch, M. et al. (eds), Culture, Society and the Media. Methuen, London, pp. 1–15.

Olson, S. R. (1999) Hollywood Planet: Global Media and the Competitive Advantage of Narrative Transparency. Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ.

Rifkin, J. (2000) The Age of Access: How the Shift from Ownership to Access is Transforming Capitalism. Penguin, London.

Riley, R., Baker, D., and Van Doren, C. S. (1998) Movie-induced tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 25(4), 919–35.

Timothy, D. J. and Boyd, S. W. (2003) Heritage Tourism. Pearson Education, Harlow, UK.

Tooke, N. and Baker, M. (1996) Seeing is believing: The effect of film on visitor numbers to screened locations. Tourism Management, 17(2), 87–94.

Wasko, J. (1994) Hollywood in the Information Age. Polity Press, Cambridge, UK.

Wasko, J. (2003) How Hollywood Works. Sage, London.

Wasko, J., Phillips, M., and Purdie, C. (1993) Hollywood meets Madison Avenue: The commercialization of US films. Media, Culture & Society, 15, 271–93.

Wyatt, J. (1994) High Concept: Movies and Marketing in Hollywood. University of Texas Press, Austin.

Wolf, M. J. (1999) The Entertainment Economy: the Mega-Media Forces That are Reshaping Our Lives. Penguin Putnam, New York.