Four models of the creative industries

What is the dynamic value of the creative industries from the economic perspective? This paper seeks to answer this question by proposing four models of the relationship between the creative industries and the whole economy, then examining the evidence for each. We find that growth models fit the data well, but not everywhere. We discuss the methodological and empirical basis for this finding and its implications for economic and cultural policy.     

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.     

区域经济增长的文化产业驱动效应研究——基于省级面板数据的分析

本文采用中国31个省份1996-2013年的面板数据,对中国文化产业与经济发展的内在驱动效应展开研究。研究发现:第一,文化产业投入和产出规模扩张对地区GDP和人均GDP增长具有显著作用,两者间的交互效应会加大其对经济发展的推动力;第二,文化产业有助于带动旅游业和整个第三产业发展,促进地区经济增长;第三,中国文化产业对经济发展的带动效应存在显著的地区差异,西部地区文化产业对经济发展的提升作用最大,中部和东部地区效应相对不足。因此,进一步加大对文化产业发展的政策支持,实现文化产业的合理布局,不仅能够促进整体经济增长,而且可以实现区域平衡发展。     

城市文化产业园区建设的区位因素分析

随着文化产业在我国的发展,城市文化产业园区的建设在各地日益兴起。本文在探讨文化产业园的概念、内涵、类型及目前我国发展现状的基础上,对城市文化产业园区在建设过程中的区位因素进行了探讨分析。认为现阶段影响我国城市文化产业园区建设的主要区位因素为:文化资源禀赋、制度因素、信息技术、人才智力资源。最后讨论了城市文化产业园区区位选址中应注意的问题。     

Cultural Economy: Achievements,Divergences, Future Prospects

This paper reflects on two decades' scholarship in geography on cultural economy, assessing strides made against some of the expectations of early proponents. Cultural economy continues to be a polysemic term. In some quarters, it refers to a type of economic geography into which matters of ‘culture’ are absorbed. This work frequently focuses on the empirics of the so‐called ‘cultural and creative industries’. Others see cultural economic research as an opportunity to move beyond the epistemological constraints of ‘culture’ and ‘economy’, questioning their status as foundational categories. This latter approach has been used in a broader set of empirical projects encompassing technology, knowledge, and society. Contrasting threads of cultural economic research have helpfully moved geographical scholarship beyond paradigmatic limitations, but jostle somewhat uncomfortably within existing (and increasingly specialised) disciplinary and subdisciplinary fields. The risk is that by questioning the categorical underpinnings of much specialised research, cultural economy struggles to ‘belong’ in the increasingly coded and compartmentalised university setting. I conclude with a discussion of future prospects. Some measure of vitality could be achieved through incorporation of a cultural economy perspective into the pressing issues of climate change, human sustenance, and urban infrastructure planning. These are issues for which the polysemy of cultural economy could prove constructive, transcending technocentric market ‘fixes’ and bland assumptions about how best to ‘green’ our cities – promoting instead ethnographic interrogations of how humans access, use, exchange, and value financial and material resources as moral and social beings.     

新时期文化产业建设考察

文化与文化生产、文化产业是不同性质、不同层次的概念。新中国对文化事业和文化产业的理解既受到经济发展水平的限制,也受到意识形态观念的影响。从单一的文化建设向文化事业与文化产业并举的转变反映了新时期理论界、文化界对社会主义文化建设理论的大胆探索和积极实践。群众文化作为意识形态的一部分,因其具有广泛的大众娱乐消费基础以及与传统文化和民间文化的紧密联系,成为催生文化产业最丰饶的沃土。文化经济正崛起为21世纪我国新的经济增长点,文化产业处于大发展时期。而文化产品作为文化的载体,其生产与传播方式的变革必然会对文化的传承与发展产生巨大的影响。文化的核心是价值观,文化传统必定持续地存在并显现于文化生活和文化产品中。在繁荣文化经济的同时,如何处理当代文化与传统文化、民族文化与外来文化的关系,是发展繁荣社会主义文化必须面对的课题。     

Valuing the Arts: Theorising and Realising Cultural Capital in an Australian City

For those who make and admire artistic works, there is no question of their value. However, for others interested in economic development, the value of the arts is often more tangential, contested and questionable. While the post‐modern world of consumption and spectacle suggests to some academics and governments that the arts and cultural industries are the way of the future, others remain sceptical about their social and economic value. This is a theoretical as well as a practical issue this paper explores by offering a reconceptualisation of Pierre Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital as a way of re‐assessing the value of the arts. The paper then applies this framework to quantify and qualify the value of the arts in one regional city in Australia – Geelong in Victoria – focusing on the work of two artists. The aim is to describe the interconnected processes by which the arts generate cultural capital in the form of confidence, image, individual well‐being, social cohesion and economic viability. The analysis also highlights the ongoing power relations which prescribe artistic production, circulation and valuation. The implications of such a rethinking and application go well beyond one city and region to other places grappling with the relationship between artistic production and urban well being. By focusing on the broad‐ranging process by which artistic value is created for individuals, groups, professionals, communities and governments, a model becomes available for other places to use in realising their cultural capital.     

Brave new world

This article asks if China can develop a truly creative economy and follow the lead of South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore. If the benefits flowing from the creative economy (and creative industries) are so strategic to government, we need to ask what impact this re‐evaluation of creativity will have on a country often identified as having an overly regulated cultural sector. While there is ample evidence to support the idea of a dormant and often parasitic cultural sector, this article points to some areas where creativity is emerging as inputs into production, distribution and consumption.     

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。     

文化创意在博物馆中的运用

当今时代,随着我国经济的快速发展,生活水平不断提高,人们已不再满足于物质生活,提高文化生活需求的呼声已越来越高。作为文化产业的重要部门,博物馆已逐渐强调其开放性与多样性,增加观众的参与和互动。将其与文化创意相融合已成为文化部门当下最主要的任务和挑战,从而使得博物馆对我国的发展起到更加多元化的社会作用。     

Cultural diversity and free trade: the case of the EU-Canada agreement

This article examines the role assigned to culture in general and to cultural industries and diversity in particular by the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA). Although it pursues further economic liberalization, the arrangement is about much more than trade: its preamble, for instance, contains a reference to the 2005 UNESCO Convention on the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. Nevertheless, the text lacks a general exception clause protecting culture. This paper examines the consolidated CETA text from the perspective of political economy to clarify to what extent this is an opportunity to reconcile rules of free trade with cultural policies aiming to protect and promote the diversity of cultural expressions, especially when the latter derive from cultural industries in both analogue and digital scenarios.     

Trade and culture: the United States

ABSTRACT

The US government has long held that cultural goods and services represent an economic sector like any other and should be liberalized. The American cultural and digital industries enjoy a strong competitive advantage and constitute a leading export sector. This US stance has antagonized many countries pursuing cultural policies. This has led the US government to soften its trade strategy and accept financial measures, as well as a broader array of ‘traditional’ cultural regulatory instruments. At the same time, the United States insists on the absence of restrictions in digital networks, through which cultural contents are to be increasingly distributed and accessed. Under the negative-list negotiating approach, whereby everything is liberalized save for specific exceptions, states parties to US trade agreements have secured a varying array of measures. However, only a handful, essentially industrial countries, have secured digital exceptions, the latter coupled with conditions raising questions concerning their applicability.     

西方地理学界关于文化产业研究述评

20世纪80年代到90年代中期,属于西方地理学界对文化产业研究的萌芽阶段,其研究只限于少数实证。20世纪90年代中期以来则是其发展阶段,这一阶段的研究主要涉及文化产业就业的地域特征、文化产业对区域与城市的作用、全球化与文化产业发展、文化产业集聚体/集群实证、文化产业的发展机制、信息技术对文化产业的影响、文化产业管治等七个方面。今后还需展开的研究领域,主要包括:文化产业就业的微观属性,文化产业发行、消费环节,产业集聚体/集群多类型的实证,文化产业低效/无效管治的实证等方面。     

Three arguments against ‘soft innovation’: towards a richer understanding of cultural innovation

This paper critiques recent research on innovation in the cultural and creative industries. In particular, this paper examines Paul Stoneman’s idea of ‘soft innovation’ as a jumping off point for discussing theories of cultural innovation more broadly. Three critiques are advanced. Firstly, soft innovation is a theoretical perspective that has developed from neoclassical economics, and is therefore vulnerable to criticisms levelled at neoclassical explanations of economic behaviour. Secondly, the theory of soft innovation can be criticised for being contingently inaccurate: the observed reality of cultural industries and marketplaces may not reflect the theory’s premises. Thirdly, because soft innovation defines the significance of an innovation in terms of marketplace success, it implies that only high-selling cultural products are significant, a difficult claim to substantiate. This paper concludes by arguing that our understanding of innovation in the cultural sphere can benefit from a multi-disciplinary approach grounded in the full gamut of human creativity.     

Cultural Heritage and Ecosystem Services: A Literature Review

During the last decade, we have witnessed an increased interest in Ecosystem Services (ES), including the so-called ‘cultural ecosystem services’ and its subcategory of ‘cultural heritage’. In this article, a review of academic literature of ES and cultural heritage is carried out. ES has primarily been developed by scholars from the ecological and economic disciplines, and in this article, we discuss how this impacts the way in which cultural heritage is used and conceptualised in ES literature. Based on the conceptual review, we initiate a discussion of what the implications for cultural heritage management could be if the heritage sector adopts the rationales in the ES framework.     

Creating a niche,building a community: a case study of young small-scale creative workers in Daegu,South Korea

The global trend of garnering the innovative potential of creative economy has also accelerated in South Korea where ‘creativity’ has recently become a nationwide buzz word. While economic instrumentality underpins the global proliferation of creativity discourse, it has been argued that the contemporary cultural sector is affected by neoliberal norms and hyper-competitive individualism. Notwithstanding such disciplining of creativity, this paper attempts to look into the complexity of cultural work which cannot be solely explained by the ascendant neoliberal ethos. To this end, the paper draws upon interviews carried out in 2016 with youth cultural workers, particularly who commit to independent, small scale creative work, in the city of Daegu. Based on an exploration of their locally oriented moral motivations and how they describe and practice their own work, the paper aims to discuss the ways in which they contribute to local cultural ecologies through their socially engaged creative work.     

The UNESCO Convention on the Diversity of Cultural Expressions as a coordination framework to promote regulatory coherence in the creative economy

The present article aims to inquire about business convergence in creative industries from the perspective of cultural diversity. It is based on the premise that the recognition of the creative and innovative component of the so-called ‘creative industries’ or the ‘creative economy’ confirms the need for non-economic factors and particularly cultural concerns to be taken into account in regulatory efforts addressing those industries. It examines the way new technologies and business convergence may affect the ‘trade and culture debate’ vis-à-vis the World Trade Organization (WTO), and how the 2005 UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (CDCE) may respond in a relevant manner to challenges brought therefrom. Despite its weakly binding language, the CDCE contains principles, objectives and rules that set a comprehensive framework for policy ‘related to the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions’ at the national, regional and international levels. A fundamental piece in such an approach is the explicit integration of cultural concerns into the concept of sustainable development. This article argues that the material and economic perspective adopted in the CDCE, based on the production and consumption of cultural goods and services, remains relevant and pertinent in the creative economy, despite business convergence. By prioritizing policy and regulatory coordination, it maintains that the main elements enshrined in the CDCE should be employed to contribute to greater coherence in view of the objective of promoting cultural diversity, including vis-à-vis the WTO and other international organizations, and puts forward potential paths for such coordination.     

Cultural governance and creative industries in Singapore

Singapore, a leading country in the Asia‐Pacific region, is currently attempting to transform its cultural industry into creative economy. Creative economies capitalise on how knowledge can be marketed by merging arts, technology and business. They ensure a nation's competitiveness within an integrated global economy. This paper critically examines Singapore's recent cultural policy developments in tourism, broadcasting and new media. It argues that new creative industries have produced new consumption patterns and identities that harness the place‐branding of “New Asia” as a form of cultural capital and a strategy of regional dominance. Cybernetics is proposed as an approach to frame creative cultural governance and consumption in Singapore.     

BOOK REVIEW

This article examines the transition from cultural industries to creative industries policies in the English regions between 1980 and 2010. It argues that audio-visual policy in this period is best understood as a trajectory: the gradual, differentiated, contested, but overall coherent development of a policy discourse and corresponding institutional structure. This trajectory can be mapped onto the wider political economy of the period: the transition from social-democratic reformism to neo-liberalism at the end of the 1970s and up to the present. This process has resulted in audio-visual policy being determined to a large degree by the perceived needs of commercial interests, up to the point where regional cultural policy is virtually indistinguishable from economic policy. The transition from cultural to creative industries reflects the development of the neo-liberal state in which cultural policy has been instrumentalised within the larger project of the privatisation of public assets and the shift of relative power from labour to capital.     

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.