Cultural Identity Politics in the (Post-)Transitional Societies

Culture of hits vs. culture of niches - cultural industries and processes of cultural identification in Croatia
to the quota of an obligatory 20% of domestic music according to the Electronic Media
Act (NN 153/09). Nevertheless, it is hard to assess music consumption, as piracy in
the music sector is quite high in Croatia. But, unlike other countries from the region
(Bulgaria, Montenegro, Greece, Romania and Serbia), where the percentage of piracy
of domestic music is over 50%, data show that in Croatia this percentage is lower – 25-
50% in the year 2004 (Primorac and Jurlin, 2008: 80). This situation influences the sales
of CDs and digital files, but it must also be added that the drop of sales is evident at the
global level. The influence of peer-to-peer exchange is also important here, although it
is hard to assess due to the difficulties in gathering data. Like other artists on the global
scale who are influenced by the drop in sales of CDs and digital files, artists in Croatia
are also forced to orient themselves to performances/concerts as sources of income. This
practice can prove to be very problematic, as it demands constant touring. It can be said
that in this way the artists are going back to the times of the troubadours, or, to be in line
with current trends, to “youtubeadours”.
As concerns the entrance of Croatian music production into other markets, primarily
we are speaking about the regional market of the countries of the former Yugoslavia.
When we speak about flowing to the global markets, it has to be noted that this occurs
mainly through the niches. For example, here we would like to mention the group
Bambi Molesters, who entered the global market through the niche of surfer rock.
Music trajectories from niches to the global cultural industry are characteristic for hiphop
producers from Croatia who sell their beats on the foreign market, or for artists
such as Tamara Obrovac, who has achieved success in the world music scene. One has
to stress that it is communicative deterritorialization that is of crucial importance for
these examples.
Concluding remarks
New features/attributes in Croatian culture are resulting from an increasingly large
influence of global communication processes and, thus, from an opening up to the global
cultural industry. Cultural products and services of this industry are heavily present in
the Croatian cultural market. In this sense we can speak about the entrance of global
cultural objects into these fields that are an important element of the global culture
of hits. We can decipher such trends in cultural production through the localized and
hybridized content of the global cultural industry. It is interesting to note different
trends in cultural consumption, according to selected fields. In the film industry, for
example, most of the films in distribution are of foreign, namely American, production.
Domestic titles do not reach their audiences due to weak or non-existent distribution
policies. Global cultural industry hits are present in film distribution, as well as in the
content of television shows and in the book industry. Thus, as regards the publishing
sector, as demonstrated by selected consumption data on books, the audience is oriented
mainly to books by foreign authors, primarily English-speaking, while domestic authors
are less popular. On the other hand, music consumption is oriented towards domestic
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