Blockbusters and Trade Wars: Popular Culture in a Globalized World (2004)
Written with co-author Chris Wood, this book focuses on the economics of popular culture, the efforts to provide diversity of expression around the world and the impact of technology and trade law on the dissemination of cultural products.
The unparalleled global distribution of books, television programs and other cultural products would seem to augur well for the diversity of ideas and creative expression. Yet ever more of this flow is concentrated in the hands of fewer giant corporations, significantly American controlled, whose agenda is not pluralism but profit. This book focuses upon the market dynamics that drive ever-greater audiences to "blockbuster" films, TV programs, books and recording artists—at the expense of independent, alternative and increasingly necessary national voices.
This is the first book from a Canadian perspective to investigate the facts about where and how cultural artifacts are created, why they are so different from other manufactured products, and why they must be treated differently. Peter Grant and Chris Wood examine how much the nature and size of a cultural industry’s owner(s) matters; what "national" really means; how content quotas, expenditure rules and government subsidies help and hinder cultural industries; and why a new international vision must prevail. At the same time, they take a look at competition law and how it can promote diversity while examining how freedom of expression and cultural diversity are inextricably linked.
Critical reviews:
“This fascinating book, chock full of statistics and figures from around the world, is the most ambitious of its kind to be written in Canada. Grant, in particular, has been one of our leading experts on cultural policy for more than 20 years… [This] book belongs on the shelf of everyone interested in the future of Canadian cultural industries.” -- Morley Walker in the Winnipeg Free Press
“There are more regulatory analyses, anecdotes, arguments, sources and conclusions in this work than can be found in any other Canadian book on popular culture I know of, making this an indispensable reference tool for any government policy advisor, academic, lawyer or cultural industry executive in the fields of filmed entertainment, broadcasting, book and magazine publishing or recorded music.” --Ron Atkey in the Literary Review of Canada
“What’s most refreshing about Blockbusters and Trade Wars, aside from the cornucopia of factual surprises revealed by its research, is its sense that culture is neither as fragile as alarmists believe nor effete in the way globalists inevitably characterize it.” - Brian Fawcett in The Globe and Mail
“brilliant and sweeping", David Crane in the Toronto Star.
“Blockbusters and Trade Wars is an ambitious and impressively exhaustive work… This book confirms Peter Grant's status as an unofficial board member of Canadian Culture Inc.” -- Matthew Fraser in the National Post
“This book will be of particular value to academics and students working on any aspect of global media, cultural trade and international cultural policy-making.” Ben Goldsmith, Arts, Media and Culture, Griffith University