The role of globalization in cultural industries: The case of commemoration

The three main links that constitute the cultural industry chain are production, promotion and consumption. These links represent the culture triangle needed to energise an industry whose aesthetic nature and artistic values mirror the essence of human Western civilization. The act of commemorating; an observance designed to honour the memory of some person or event. The proposal is intended to examine the intersections of commemoration and modernity, while examining experiences and memories of the Holocaust in the cultural industries in a global perspective.

The central interest is the (re)construction of a sensitive memory of the Holocaust and other genocides through the drawing of boundaries defined in national, regional, social, racial or cultural terms. The assumption is that the network (trans-)national and regional images and narratives that derives from the remembrance of Holocaust had long lasting effects on the memory culture of a globalized world in general and the relations of nation and regions in particular. The second hypothesis is that the concepts of universal virtues and values are entirely useful as a scientific concept in conveying Holocaust.

In the context of Holocaust commemoration, the concept of cultural industries seems quite problematic. The expression of “Holocaust industries” establishes a connection between cultural industries and Holocaust commemoration. The term “cultural industry” as shaped by Adorno and Horkheimer may cultivate false desire; that is, desire created and satisfied by capitalism. According the emergence of global modernity changes, expressed by a shift towards Asia, especially in the economic sector, in the context of Holocaust and genocide commemoration it seems doubly difficult to take a shift of Western values to Asian values in account.