Watch: Professor David Hesmondhalgh and Professor Anamik Saha in conversation on the Cultural Industries
A conversation marking the fifth edition of Professor Hesmondhalgh’s The Cultural Industries
Earlier this year the School of Media and Communication’s Professor David Hesmondhalgh and Professor Anamik Saha teamed up to examine contemporary debates surrounding the cultural and creative industries.
The event, held at the British Academy in London, marked the publication of the fifth edition of Hesmondhalgh’s influential book The Cultural Industries. The discussion explored long-term historical developments alongside recent transformations shaping the sector in the 2020s, from technological change to evolving questions of power and inequality.
Bringing together two leading scholars in media and cultural studies, the conversation examines how cultural production and distribution continue to evolve across music, media and the wider creative economy. The event also included a Q&A session, enabling audience members to engage directly with the speakers on emerging research and contemporary challenges.
The conversation is now available to watch below and on the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures YouTube channel.
David Hesmondhalgh, Professor of Media, Music and Culture at the University of Leeds, has written extensively on cultural production, creativity and labour. His work has shaped international scholarship on the cultural industries since the first edition of The Cultural Industries was published in 2002.
Anamik Saha, Professor of Race and Media at Leeds, brings a critical perspective on race, representation and inequality in cultural industries. His recent publications, including The Anti-Racist Media Manifesto and Race, Culture and Media, contribute to ongoing debates about diversity and structural change in the sector.
The fifth edition of The Cultural Industries, published in January, offers a substantially revised and updated account of the field, addressing developments such as the growing influence of digital platforms, AI and new forms of cultural labour, while situating these within a longer historical context.
The event and publication form part of the ERC-funded MUSICSTREAM project, which investigates music culture in the age of streaming. The newly available film provides an accessible resource for students, researchers and anyone interested in the past, present and future of the cultural industries.
