How Wal-Mart is Changing American Culture

NY Times - Music executives say the chains have helped turn country performers like the Dixie Chicks, Toby Keith and Faith Hill into superstars. And major book publishers say the growth of the mass merchandisers has helped produce a string of best sellers by conservative authors like Bernard Goldberg, Ann Coulter, Michael Savage and Bill O'Reilly.

The growing clout of Wal-Mart and the other big discount chains — they now often account for more than 50 percent of the sales of a best-selling album, more than 40 percent for a best-selling book, and more than 60 percent for a best-selling DVD — has bent American popular culture toward the tastes of their relatively traditionalist customers.

"They have obviously reached the Bush-red audience in a big way," said Laurence J. Kirshbaum, chairman of AOL Time Warner's books unit, referring to the color coding used on television news reports to denote states voting for President George W. Bush during the last election. "It has been a seismic shift in the business, and to some of us in publishing it has been a revelation."

But with the chains' power has come criticism from authors, musicians and civil liberties groups who argue that the stores are in effect censoring and homogenizing popular culture.