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Article
When You Care Enough to Defend the Very Best: How the Greeting Card Industry Manages Cultural Criticism
Media, Culture & Society (2007)
  • Emily West, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Abstract

The American greeting card industry, in particular industry leader Hallmark Cards, makes substantial efforts to deflect cultural critiques in its communications with the public, demonstrating how culture industries actively manage their negative associations with mass culture as well as the public’s fears of an advancing ‘commodity frontier’ (Hochschild, 2003: 30). Hallmark frames its cultural production as creative while de-emphasizing its industrial nature, and whenever possible, aligns itself with the legitimating cultural categories of art and the folk to counter the idea that greeting cards are false, manufactured sentiment. Hallmark also argues that the consumer is sovereign in order to contradict critics’ claims that it imposes its mass-produced cards on the public. The way the greeting card industry seeks to manage cultural anxiety about industrialized culture is discussed, as well as the limits of their response.

Keywords
  • Cultural Production,
  • Authenticity,
  • Public Relations,
  • Commodity Frontier,
  • Consumers
Publication Date
March, 2007
Publisher Statement
This post-print version of the article appears here with permission of the copyright holder Sage Publications. The final published version can be found in Media, Culture & Society, 29(2) (March 2007): 241-261, and in an online database at: http://mcs.sagepub.com.silk.library.umass.edu:2048/cgi/reprint/29/2/241
Citation Information
Emily West. "When You Care Enough to Defend the Very Best: How the Greeting Card Industry Manages Cultural Criticism" Media, Culture & Society Vol. 29 Iss. 2 (2007)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/emily_west/5/