NEO‐LIBERALISM,CULTURE AND POLICY

This article looks at the hegemonic process of neo‐liberal globalisation and its implications for culture in general and cultural policy in particular from a critical perspective. A consideration of its ideological features is a necessary supplement to the economic analysis of neo‐liberal globalisation. Ideology mediates economics and culture. As it is used here, the concept of “ideology” refers to how dominant power relations and inequalities are legitimised by distorted representations of reality at various levels. While these include abstract theory and professional expertise, it is argued that everyday language and “common sense” exemplify the operations of ideology most profoundly in securing consent to prevailing and otherwise questionable arrangements. Culture is now saturated with a market‐oriented mentality that closes out alternative ways of thinking and imagining. The general argument is illustrated with several examples drawn from across the range of lived experience and institutionalised structures, especially in the arts and broadcasting. The logic of the annual European Capital of Culture competition is also discussed with reference to the neo‐liberal framework for urban regeneration. Specifically, the experience of Glasgow 1990 and the plans for Liverpool 2008 are addressed in this regard.     

Doing a Florida thing: the creative class thesis and cultural policy

In this paper, we discuss the screen media businesses and production milieu that has developed in the predominantly rural region of the Northern Rivers, Australia, over the past 20 years. Spread across a number of towns and small cities each at some distance from each other, this screen milieu would seem to go against the prevailing logic for screen media to concentrate in globally connected cities. Taking up Allen J. Scott’s suggestion that the new capitalism of the twenty-first century is producing restructuring effects in many of the interstitial spaces between large cities, this article examines the spatial assemblages of the screen media and related creative industries sectors in one such space. We demonstrate how screen media actors in this rural region are participating in the wider cultural economy and explore its cultural policy implications.     

Notes on Names of the Thorn

CROW TEXTS. Collected, translated, and edited by ROBERT H. LOWIE, University of California Press and Cambridge U.P., 1960. Pp. xiii, 550. Price 52s. Reviewed by Geoffrey Turner.

STORIES FROM UIST, TOLD BY ANGUS MACLELLAN. Translated by J. G. CAMPBELL. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1961. Pp. xxix, 254, 1 photograph. Reviewed by Ellen Ettlinger.

THE EVERLASTING CIRCLE. English Traditional Verse from the MSS of S. Baring-Gould, H. E. D. Hammond and George B. Gardiner, By James Reeves. Heinemann, London. Pp. 303, 5 illus. Price 25s. net. Reviewed by H. J. Rose.

THE TIGER'S WHISKER, AND OTHER TALES AND LEGENDS FROM ASIA AND THE PACIFIC. Collected by HAROLD COURLANDER. Methuen &; Co. 12s. 6d. Reviewed by K. M. Briggs.

GREEK CALENDAR CUSTOMS. By GEORGE A. MEGAS. Press and Information Department, Prime Minister's Office, Athens, 1958. Pp. 159 + 24 plates. Reviewed by Wilfrid Bonser.

HIGHLAND FOLK WAYS. By I. F. GRANT. Routledge &; Kegan Paul, London, 1961. Pp. xiii, 377, 77 text illustrations. Reviewed by Ellen Ettlinger.

THE PSYCHOANALYTICAL STUDY OF SOCIETY. Vol, I. International Universities Press, Inc., New York, 1961. Reviewed by E. Baker.

SEASONAL FEASTS AND FESTIVALS. By E. O. JAMES. Thames and Hudson, 1961. 35s. Reviewed by E. P. Baker.

JOURNAL OF THE ENGLISH FOLK DANCE AND SONG SOCIETY. Vol. 9, No. 1, December 1960. Reviewed by W.B.

ANCIENT BALLADS TRADITIONALLY SUNG IN NEW ENGLAND, Vol. I, University of Pennsylvania Press. Reviewed by C. H.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE. Reviewed by Christina Hole.     

Snow Fences: Then and Now

Snow fences are an increasingly widespread cultural feature in the great east-west “snow belt” of the northern hemisphere. They are there not only to protect railroads, highways and buildings from the hazards of blowing snow, but also whole towns subject to the ravages of avalanches. Although their origin is unknown, their construction and use have been advanced and improved greatly by many experimenters of more than a dozen nationalities since the middle of the 19th century.

A modern example of snow fence use is analyzed for a locally named section of Interstate 80 between Laramie and Rawlins in southern Wyoming known as the “Sno Chi Minh Trail.” Here big systems of mostly 12 feet high snow fences line more than half of the western side of the highway for 50 miles. They have reduced accidents and plowing costs by significantly improving visibility in “ground blizzards” of fast-blowing snow.