Mapping the arts: industry concentrations,distribution, and change in the US, 1980–2010

This paper studies arts industries in all 366 US metropolitan statistical areas between 1980 and 2010. Our analysis provides evidence that the arts are an important component of many regional economies, but also highlights their volatility. After radical growth and diffusion between 1980 and 2000, in the last decade, the arts industries are defined more by shrinkage and reconcentration in fewer metropolitan areas. Further, we find that the vast majority of metros have strengths in particular sets of arts industries. As we discuss in the conclusion, these conditions present challenges and opportunities for urban cultural policy that goes beyond the current focus on the arts as consumption amenities.     

Politics of the ‘creative industries’ discourse and its variants

The existing academic debate on creative industries can be summarised as ‘Trojan horse or Rorschach blot’: creative industries working as a neoliberal discourse or producing different effects depending on local context. Arguing that these are two sides of the same coin, this article looks closely at the discourse’s depoliticising and encompassing forces and their interplay on the discourse’s intersection to the broader new economy narrative. The article’s focus is South Korean variants of creative industries discourse. First, the country’s ‘content industries’ discourse served as a Trojan horse for the depoliticising narrative of knowledge economy while boosting the cultural sector discursively and financially. Second, ‘creative economy’ has very recently emerged as the current conservative government’s master economic narrative. This discourse allows the government’s neoliberal economic policies to be further justified while making cultural policy unable to persuasively claim that creativity belongs in the culture’s domain.     

Putting the “art” back into arts policy making: how arts policy has been “captured” by the economists and the marketers

Abstract: This paper explores the current discourse about arts policy and funding and its placement within an economic paradigm. The models of “cultural industry” and “creative industry” are explored and how they affect arts funding discourse. Similarly the impact of the introduction of the language of industry and business to the arts sector is considered. If bottom-line arguments are used by funders, governments and critics to argue the merits or otherwise of arts activity, how does this affect arts practice? In recent times arts funding agencies have been restructured to reflect a market-driven agenda rather than an arts-driven agenda. The impact of all these issues is considered in the context of Australian arts' models in particular, but with reference to examples in the United Kingdom and the United States of America. The paper concludes with suggestions for a reassertion of core cultural values in future discourse.     

Whose cultural value? Representation,power and creative industries

ABSTRACT

The debate around ‘cultural value’ has become increasingly central to policy debates on arts and creative industries policy over the past ten years and has mostly focused on the articulation and measurement of ‘economic value’, at the expense of other forms of value—cultural, social, aesthetic. This paper’s goal is to counter this prevalent over-simplification by focusing on the mechanisms through which ‘value’ is either allocated or denied to cultural forms and practices by certain groups in particular social contexts. We know that different social groups enjoy different access to the power to bestow value and legitimise aesthetic and cultural practices; yet, questions of power, of symbolic violence and misrecognition rarely have any prominence in cultural policy discourse. This article thus makes a distinctive contribution to creative industry scholarship by tackling this neglected question head on: it calls for a commitment to addressing cultural policy’s blind spot over power and misrecognition, and for what McGuigan (2006: 138) refers to as ‘critique in the public interest’. To achieve this, the article discusses findings of an AHRC-funded project that considered questions of cultural value, power, media representation and misrecognition in relation to a participatory arts project involving the Gypsy and Traveller community in Lincolnshire, England.     

文化经济与城市经济发展的关系分析

城市是人类社会经济文化活空间的投影,是经济活动和文化活动最为频繁,文化经济最为发达的地理空间,对城市的文化经济与城市经济发展之间的关系进行分析具有较高的典型性和针对性。本文从文化与经济本质上具有的共生性入手,简单叙述了文化与与经济一体化发展趋势的必然性,进而归纳了文化经济对于城市经济发展的重要意义:促进经济增长,提高经济效益,软化经济基础,优化经济结构,促进经济的协调稳定发展等几个方面,文章第三部分对文化与经济相互融合的状态进行划分并概括为从三个层次,文章最城市是人类社会经济文化活空间的投影,是经济活动和文化活动最为频繁,文化经济最为发达的地理空间,对城市的文化经济与城市经济发展之间的关系进行分析具有较高的典型性和针对性。本文从文化与经济本质上具有的共生性入手,简单叙述了文化与与经济一体化发展趋势的必然性,进而归纳了文化经济对于城市经济发展的重要意义:促进经济增长,提高经济效益,软化经济基础,优化经济结构,促进经济的协调稳定发展等几个方面,文章第三部分对文化与经济相互融合的状态进行划分并概括为从三个层次,文章最后通过解析文化经济与经济发展的相对平衡关系,提出了在发展经济过程中,应不失时机地对文化经济的发展进行必要的引导和规划的观点。     

From culture for the people to culture for profit: the PRC’s journey toward a cultural industries approach

This paper seeks to explore the internal driving forces behind the emergence and prosperity of China’s cultural industries. The paper traces the Chinese Communist Party’s radical transformation from stressing the class stand and ideological nature of culture to concluding with the concept of ‘cultural industries’ so as to expand an orthodox Marxist/Leninist/Maoist notion of culture. The Chinese party-state legalizes ‘cultural industries’ by extending the market mechanism into the cultural arena, and acknowledges the triple statuses of culture as a public service provider, a market profit contributor, and an essential builder of the ‘socialist core value system.’ By doing so, the Chinese Party-state is able to take advantage of the economic power of the market while retaining the ideological control function of culture. As such, cultural industries become a mode of governance for the CCP to maintain cultural security and national identity, and a source of soft power to maneuver.