Creative industries defined

The origin of the creative industries concept is very different from that of the cultural industries.

Creative industries have found their way into academic discussion through policy circles. The first well-publicised instance of the use of the term is from 1997 in the UK as the incoming Blair administration founded the Creative Industries Task Force. In their 1998 Creative Industries Mapping Document creative industries were defined as ―activities which have their origin in individual creativity, skill and talent and which have the potential for wealth and job creation through the generation and exploitation of intellectual property‖ (DCMS 1998). The sectors defined creative included advertising, art and antiques, architecture, crafts, design, designer fashion, film, interactive leisure software, music, performing arts, publishing, software, television and radio. In 2005 DCMS launched the Creative Economy Programme to support the development of the creative industries (The Work Foundation 2007). According to Cunningham (2003), creative industries policies have been undertaken, in addition to the UK, in various countries in Asia, such as Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, also in New Zealand and Australia as well as in the USA. Cunningham (2003) points out that Europe has not been very active in this respect. The recent creative industries reports by the European Commission (2008) and the United Nations (2008) indicate that this is no longer the case.

In the UK the importance of policies favourable to creative industries has been justified with employment figures (Table 8). The problem with these employment figures is that they have been compiled for policy purposes that thus all employees, whether having a creative job or not, are included. The performing arts do not employ 60,000 ballerinas, actors and opera singers, but that figure also includes administrators, janitors, etc. Similarly, the publishing sector employs far fewer writers and editors than the employment of 450,000 people would indicate, as this number includes all inputs from paper manufacturing to magazine and book distribution. The employment figures for 2004 based on The Work Foundation (2007) report are also shown in Table 8. Some of the sectors have been combined, but more importantly, the growth in employment in many of these sectors seems hard to believe.

What, then, is the difference between cultural industries and creative industries? Why has the cultural industries concept not been adopted instead of the creative industries concept? In the 2007 Work Foundation report commissioned by DCMS the creative industries typology was drawn as nested fields. The creative industries are seen as a wider term including the cultural industries.

Firstly, the core creative fields were defined with the label ―commercial outputs possess a high degree of expressive value and invoke copyright protection‖. This was included in cultural industries where ―activities involve mass reproduction of expressive outputs‖ and ―outputs are based on copyright‖. Furthermore, the outer circle of creative industries and activities are characterised by ―the use of expressive value [being] essential to the performance of these sectors‖.

(The Work Foundation 2007, p. 4) There is some sort of consensus over the ‗creative industries

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include the cultural industries‘ approach as it has also been used by European Commission (2008) and United Nations (2008). This is quite a practical solution as it gives flexibility to the discussion, although at the price of lesser conceptual clarity.

Table 8. Employment by the creative industries in the UK according to DCMS (1998) and The Work Foundation (2007).

Sector Employment in 1998 Employment in 2004

Advertising 96 000 200 000

Art and antiques 26 300 25 000

Architecture 30 000 100 000

Crafts 25 000 110 000

Design 20 000

120 000

Designer fashion 11 000

Film 33 000 60 000

Music 90 000

230 000

Performing arts 60 000

Publishing 450 000 270 000

Interactive leisure software 27 000

590 000

Software 272 000

Television and radio 63 000 110 000

Total 1 203 300 1 815 000

It appears that the cultural industries definitions are based on product characteristics and the nature of demand whereas the creative industries definitions are based the characteristics of the production process. Thus, creative industries are defined through the use of individual creativity, skill and talent and the generation and exploitation of intellectual property (DCMS 1998). Such a definition of creative industries is somewhat vague as it applies quite accurately to the R&D functions of many industries. Engineers designing ships as well as scientists working on new medicines rely on their individual creativity, skill and talent and file patents to protect the generated intellectual property. The definitions of cultural and creative industries have also differentiated between the cultural products of pure sign value and the creative products with a mixture of sign and functional value (The Work Foundation 2007, p. 20). This dichotomy, however, is simplistic as many undisputedly cultural products can have functional value as well. A Disney film, for example, is a symbolic product but for the parent it offers 90 minutes of peace and quiet.

In addition to the differences in their definitions, the policy agendas attached to creative and cultural industries are very different. Creative industries are seen as growth industries that can contribute to the national economy and help nations in international competition. The traditional cultural industry policies, dating back before the interest in creative industries, aim at subsidising cultural institutions with artistic merit and at the preservation of local cultures. Girard (1982, p. 24) describes the rationale of cultural policies as democratisation of institutions that have been traditionally preserved for an elite. Towse (2003a, p. 21) adds that such subsidies are aimed at raising the quality of cultural offerings and persuading people to improve their taste for high culture. The assumption behind such goals is that there are benefits associated with cultural productions that are victims of

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market failure (Throsby 2001, p. 140). Baumol (2003, p. 21) points out that such policies run the risk of reversed Robin Hood as tax money is used to subsidise elite pastimes, such and theatre and opera. This discussion is very different from the creative industry policy aims. Indeed, the rhetoric of economic growth and high-wage jobs attached to creative industries is very different from the rhetoric of educating the common man on high culture attached to the cultural industries.

The economic contribution of the creative industries has been assessed in many papers and reports.

The numbers vary, but there is quite a wide consensus on the growth of the employment and income generated by the creative industries. It is always noted that the growth of creative industries is faster than that of other industries. This has been concluded concerning Europe in general (European Commission 2008, p. 1), the UK (DCMS 2008, p. 6) and Sweden (Power 2002¹). The growth of the creative industries has also been noted in Finland, even though the strong heterogeneity among the growth rates of different creative industries in also emphasised (Lindström 2005, p. 20). In the USA the number of jobs has not increased between 1990 and 2006, but at the same time the total wages generated by the creative industries have doubled (Dolfman et al. 2007). Furthermore, United Nations (2008) believes that trade in creative industries is important to the economies of developing countries and that the growth of creative industries in both developed and developing countries is a positive sum game.

In 2001 the European Commission attempted to measure employment in cultural industries in Europe and ran into difficulties with unsuitable statistics. They analysed the numbers from the viewpoint of cultural industries and cultural occupations. The conclusion was that in the EU-15 countries 3.1% of the workforce was employed in the cultural industries and 1.3% worked in cultural occupations. Cultural occupations were found to a large extent also outside the cultural industries. (European Commission 2001)

The creative industries concept has received criticism that can be divided into two distinct arguments. Firstly, the creative industries statistics and growth figures are accused of being crafted for advocacy purposes (Taylor 2006) and to gain political leverage (Tepper 2002, p. 164). Blythe (2001, p. 145) states that the bracketing of high and commercial art together in the creative industries classification creates promotional opportunities as the cultural importance of commercial arts is increased as is also the economic importance of high art. Indeed, the revenue and growth figures that can be reported on the advertising or interactive and leisure software industries are very different from those of crafts or performing arts (ibid.).² Cunningham (2003) also reports the incoherence of the creative industries classification as it mixes inputs and outputs. Secondly, the employment offered by the creative industries has been criticised. Oakley (2006) argues that creative industries rather exacerbate than address patterns of economic inequality. It is typical for creative industries that income is unevenly distributed among creative workers, that working

1 Power (2000) uses the term cultural industries, but the inclusion of sectors like software and furniture brings his classification closer the creative industries classifications.

2 Interestingly, Blythe (2001, p. 145) labels advertising and interactive and leisure software as commercial arts that have been teamed with cultural industries, whereas traditional cultural industries, such as films and music, are seen as non-commercial arts.

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opportunities are communicated through exclusive networks and that ethnic minorities are underrepresented.

From the viewpoint of the research task at hand, the creative industries concept has one clear benefit over the cultural industries concept; there is no disagreement on whether the games industry is included or not. The games industry has been included since the first DCMS (1998) report. Thus, the debate on the cultural content of games is not relevant in the creative industries framework. For the sake of conceptual clarity the industries of interest here are defined through the high degree of non-utilitarian and a generally low but varying degree of utilitarian value of their products. This characteristic has an effect on the supply of and demand for them, the manner of innovation and competition and thus on their industry dynamics.