Modelling the cultural industries

Alternative definitions of the cultural industries lead to the construction of different models of the cultural production sector of the economy and hence to a different array of specific industries which are contained within the sector. In turn this implies not just differing estimates of the contribution of the cultural industries to output and employment in the economy but also significant differences in the way economic analysis can be applied to the cultural sector as a whole. This paper begins by discussing the way in which an economic approach to interpreting the scope of the creative and cultural industries can lead to a reasonable basis for defining them. It then goes on to examine the content of six distinct models of these industries, asking the question: is it possible to find a common core group of industries on which all of the models agree? The paper then considers the implications of the models for economic analysis of the cultural sector, and finishes with some conclusions for cultural policy.     

Creative industries in a European Capital of Culture

This article examines the articulation of the benefits associated with staging the European Capital of Culture (ECoC) in Liverpool, England in 2008. It is argued that relevant policy documents, and policy discourses more generally, propose a strong influential role for the operations of the ECoC upon the creative industries. Such a strong relationship, however, is difficult to evidence either at a discursive level or from the attitudes expressed by those working within the creative industries locally. The idea that the ECoC can promote broadly ‘creative’ activity is thus posited as being merely one aspect of the ECoC’s major goal of attempted city rebranding, rather than anything more substantive; nevertheless the articulation of ‘success’ of the ECoC in this regard seems entrenched.     

Tourism's labour geographies: Bringing tourism into work and work into tourism

ABSTRACT

Geographers have certainly contributed actively to the extant scholarly literature relating to tourism work and workers. Nevertheless, with few notable exceptions, most of this research has been piecemeal and case-based demonstrating unawareness of broader theoretical discussions and debates within the emerging sub-field of labour geography. For this special issue, a total of eight papers have been selected, most of which deal to varying degrees with labour mobilities, a theme that mainstream labour geographers themselves have largely avoided in the past. Additionally, the thorny issue of setting the intellectual boundaries between what constitutes work and leisure in contexts such as volunteer tourism is taken up in some of the discussions. Our aim with this special issue is to encourage the development of closer intellectual connections between labour geography and the study of tourism work and workers and their everyday mobilities.     

Expected job creation across the cultural industries: a sectoral division and its implications for cultural policy

The cultural industries have come to the forefront as the potential job creators of the future. However, building on the concentric circles model and production system view of the cultural industries, we pose that many young and small organizations in the industries lack the motivation, ability, and opportunity to become job creator. We reason that industry location crucially affects job creation expectations. Evidence from an international sample of early-stage entrepreneurs strongly supports this thesis. We identify a divide between entrepreneurs in the ‘core’ cultural industries vis-à-vis those in the ‘non-core’ cultural industries, where the latter group is indistinguishable from entrepreneurs in non-cultural industries in their job creation expectations. Simultaneously, those in the core cultural industries are distinct from others in their expectations to maintain the same number of jobs, rather than grow. These findings have important implications for cultural policy aimed at promoting employment growth in the cultural industries.     

The social contract of artists in the era of cultural industries

The aim of this paper is to analyse the growing emphasis on the concepts of the experience economy, creative industries, and cultural industries as ways in which the social contract of artists is negotiated. What expectations are directed towards the artistic profession and how is the contribution of artists to society and their work conditions constructed by these concepts? The paper applies the concept of social contract from the sociology of professions which enables a focus on the artistic profession not only in an internal arts world perspective, but also in a broader societal frame. The study presented was carried out in a Norwegian context. Empirically, the paper is based on 28 applied research reports.     

EU media policy and/as cultural policy: economic and cultural tensions in MEDIA 2007

This article is an examination of the cultural and economic tensions that arise in the formulation and implementation of media policy in the European Union. Through an analysis of the MEDIA 2007 MEDIA Desk Germany. 2007. Interview with Aviva Silver, head of the MEDIA Programme, European Commission carried out by MEDIA Desk Germany in preparation of the Programme launch at Berlinale 2007 [online] Available from: http://www.mediadesk.co.uk/usr/images/news_images/interview_with_aviva_on_media_2007.doc [Accessed 17 May 2010] [Google Scholar] program, the authors investigate how the priorities of cultural policy and media policy interact and conflict. EU policy goals from the mid‐2000s onwards have emphasized attention to the economic potential of the creative and cultural industries, which complicates the cultural potential of audiovisual media. MEDIA 2007 MEDIA Desk Germany. 2007. Interview with Aviva Silver, head of the MEDIA Programme, European Commission carried out by MEDIA Desk Germany in preparation of the Programme launch at Berlinale 2007 [online] Available from: http://www.mediadesk.co.uk/usr/images/news_images/interview_with_aviva_on_media_2007.doc [Accessed 17 May 2010] [Google Scholar] in particular demonstrates these tensions, as the design of this policy mechanism emphasized audiovisual media’s potential for European economic growth as a precondition for achieving cultural objectives.     

The creation of cultural policy in the media: a field research of cultural discourses in Germany

In Germany, cultural policy is formally made on the level of municipalities, the Länder (federal states) and the federal government. With approximately eight billion Euros per year, they finance a large percentage of cultural and arts activities: music, theater, dance, museums, libraries, film and the preservation of sites of historic interest. The federal government sets the legal framework in which art can be produced and distributed, and finances it indirectly through tax reductions (VAT reduction), copy right laws, and special health insurance and retirement arrangements for artists (Künstlersozialkasse). Within this institutionalized legal and governmental setting, the discursive dimension of politics is often forgotten, particularly when policy creation is being discussed. This article focuses on the discursive dimensions of politics within the field of classical and contemporary music and offers a discourse analysis of mass media coverage to investigate policy‐making.     

Legitimation work in state cultural organizations: the case of Norway

Finding the balance between the inclusive and exclusive in programming and communication strategies are important for state-funded cultural organizations to master in order to be perceived as relevant by the public and deserving of their privileged position. The organizations have to legitimize themselves to broad audiences, in the last instance all of the nation’s citizens, as well as a narrow audience, the artists and intellectuals. This paper investigates how this legitimation work is mastered by the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet and the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, two Norwegian cultural organizations that receive most of their funding from the government. Through an analysis of the organizations’ annual reports, strategy documents and websites, in addition to interviews conducted with the CEOs, I investigate how the organizations communicate their relevance to the public.     

The effects of protection in cultural industries: the case of the Korean film policies

This paper assesses whether Korean film policies, particularly protectionist ones, have been instrumental in the success of the Korean film industry. The conclusion is, surprisingly at a first glance, that protectionist policies have played an insignificant role. First, the import quota regime (1956–1986) limited the number of films to be imported, but not the number of Korean audience to see these imported films. Furthermore, the import quota system strongly induced Korean filmmakers to produce bad quality movies and theaters to avoid showing Korean films. Second, the screen quota system, from 1966 until present, has not been effective because imposing a mandatory number of days for screening Korean movies does not ensure that the domestic audience will watch these movies. Finally, the subsidy policy was barely noticeable before the late 1990s and is now too late and too limited to be credited for any significant impact on the success of the Korean film industry which began from the early 1990s. The results of this paper are robust enough to suggest to policymakers in other countries to review their own policies that advocate merely protectionism as a way to make a more attractive national culture.     

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.     

Knowledge bases and regional development: collaborations between higher education and cultural creative industries

This paper builds on the assumption that cooperation between higher education institutions (HEIs) and creative and cultural industries (CCIs) stimulates innovation and economic growth at the regional level. It further assumes that HEIs and CCIs hold different perspectives on their intention to cooperate with external actors and, thus, there is a need for joint arenas to develop and integrate knowledge and practices among stakeholders across academia and industry. With this rationale in mind, the paper’s main objective is to discuss how universities’ roles in the establishment and development of locally embedded CCIs change or evolve over time. Taking a process economics perspective and building on a case study from the South of Norway, two questions are addressed: (1) What are the barriers – structural and cognitive-cultural – hindering cooperation between HEIs and CCIs in Southern Norway? and (2) How can long-term win-win cooperative arrangements between HEIs and CCIs be enhanced? Different knowledge bases, combined with lack of knowledge and understanding of the other sector’s expertise or knowledge content, and thus the lack of common language, were found to be the biggest barriers that must be overcome to stimulate strategic cooperation between HEIs and CCIs in Southern Norway. The findings support the need for a diverse and flexible policy where target initiatives are adjusted to CCIs’ needs and academic departments’ fields of knowledge to decrease barriers to cooperation, with the ultimate aim of moving from a situation of ‘lock-in’ towards the creation of new innovative and valuable relationships.     

The neo-developmental cultural industries policy of Korea: rationales and implications of an eclectic policy

ABSTRACT

This article undertakes an explanatory case study of the South Korean cultural industries policy shift instituted under the Kim Dae-Jung and Roh Moo-Hyun governments (1998–2008). This shift can be well positioned within the broader context of the creative turn in national cultural policy around the world, which was initiated by the British New Labour governments (1997–2010). Despite the similarities in the driving discourses and policy methods, the Korean policy shift was significantly distinguished from its British counterpart because of the differing pace and trajectories of industrialisation in the two countries. Adopting the concept of the East Asian developmental state as an entry point, this article explores how and why South Korea went through a cultural industries policy shift in the period following the 1997–98 Asian financial crisis and, additionally, examines what kinds of changes the policy shift brought about. Understanding the rationales and implications of this neo-developmental transformation can provide a unique opportunity to re-think the fashionable creative industries policies among various nations.     

The delocalization of production in labour intensive industries: instances of triangular manufacturing between Germany,Greece and FYROM

The clothing industry, by virtue of its labour intensity and low barriers to entry and exit, is at the forefront of the processes of integration in a global network of production and distribution. During the 1970s and 1980s ‘intermediate’ regimes (such as Greece) benefited from the diffusion in clothing production from advanced industrialized countries (such as Germany); however, this trend was reversed during the 1990s. This is because of the intensification of competition from both developed countries (for high quality products) and less developed countries (for price competitive items), as well as the new threat posed by competitors from post‐socialist economies that are trying to find a role in the ‘Newer’ International Division of Labour. Within this context, this article sets out to analyse to what extent collaborative forms of diffuse manufacture, and particularly triangular manufacturing, may be used in the context of south‐eastern Europe. This article argues that ‘triangular manufacturing’ between the industrialized core of the European Union (EU) (and especially Germany), Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) was the outcome of spontaneous entrepreneurial decision‐making. In the main, it was parent enterprises in Germany and to some extent Greek intermediaries who were the main beneficiaries of the emerging triangular relationships. Enterprises and workers in FYROM remained vulnerable and dependent. However, there were also a handful of instances of ‘good practice’, where relationships were beneficial to all the participating parties. We argue that these examples provide lessons for policy intervention both nationally and locally (in both Greece and FYROM).     

How clothing design and cultural industries refashioned frontier masculinities: a historical geography of Western wear

Gendered subjectivities emerge historically and geographically, not only in situ, within an ‘authentic’ origin period or site, but through later retrospective commodifications and fantastical popular culture depictions. This article traces the masculine identity of the cowboy as commodified and performed through clothing. The cowboy emerged from colonial origins as a model and myth of frontier masculinity: the ‘rugged outdoor type’. But it was then formularized and stylized when subject to popular culture diffusion, and as accompanying clothing design evolved. Through clothing – advertised by metropolitan manufacturers and consumed across America and beyond – an archetypal, sexualized cowboy ‘look’ thus emerged. The author traces a historical geography of cowboy masculinities in clothing design, from early ‘frontier garments for the outdoor man’ to later Western-wear ‘for that long, lean look’. Related constructions of femininity are also considered, after women's Western-wear clothing lines were produced in the 1950s. To illustrate, I draw on archival brochures, catalogs, and advertising materials from the 1920s to 1970s, as well as discuss the material design of the clothes themselves. I focus especially on the Western snap shirt – an apparel item never actually worn on the nineteenth-century colonial frontier, but that became an ‘essential’ element of the cowboy look, and a vehicle for masculine appearance. Western-wear epitomizes how gendered subject positions are visually constituted in relational fashion via bodies, materials, media, and imagined geographies.     

Soft power,global governance of cultural industries and rising powers: the case of China

This article addresses the importance of cultural industries for the strengthening of the soft power of the rising powers and it seeks to understand how the cultural industries allow rising powers to shape the structures of their international environment. More specifically, studying the cases of People’s Republic of China and of the movie industry, my article focuses on the current evolution of the relationship between the Chinese authorities and the film industry, as well as on the development of the domestic film market. I further aim to draw up an inventory of China’s role within the global governance of cultural industries. Finally, I aim to highlight the global cultural competition that China faces, emphasizing the practices of the US administration and Hollywood. I argue that even if China is the current centre of gravity within the world economy, it still has a long way to go in order to shape the distribution of resources within the global governance of cultural industries and to play a crucial role in the international battle of cultural symbols.