The concentric circles model of the cultural industries

This paper examines the assumptions and structure of the concentric circles model of the cultural industries. Empirical data for Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US are used to illustrate the model's key characteristic: the proposition that the cultural content of the output of the cultural industries declines as one moves outwards from the core. The test uses the proportion of creative labour employed in production as a proxy for cultural content. The results confirm the model's validity as a means of depicting the structural characteristics of the cultural industries and also enable some wider features of the cultural workforce in the five countries to be examined.     

Cultural clusters and cultural industries in China

Through examining the development and the nature of the new cultural districts in China, namely, “clusters of Beijing,” this paper attempts to identify the characteristics of, and critically evaluate, the existing models of culture clusters in China. Obviously, these cultural clusters are seen as a united and state effort to assist, develop and boost the so-called cultural industries, including game, animation, comic, software, science and technology and so forth. However, with the clusters of Beijing as a case study, in this paper we argue that in the course of development, the state interests and the authorities' local (e.g. district) interest are often prioritized over the culture or the local interest. There are also tensions and contradictions among various interest groups on different levels of operations of these cultural clusters. In sum, apart from enhancing the private creative industries, developing the national cultural economy, or revitalizing the old industries as in the cluster models of many western countries, economic interests, political powers of the districts and soft power of the nation can be the overriding interests behind the booming cultural clusters in China.     

Transformation and job creation in the cultural and creative industries in South Africa

The cultural and creative industries (CCIs) have been hailed as offering great potential to create jobs and to be socially inclusive. Since artistic success is defined by individual talent, or merit, the CCIs should be one sector that is especially open to, and appreciative of, social diversity in terms of race, class, cultural group and gender. However, as expected, recent studies in both the UK and the US have revealed that employment in the CCIs is heavily dominated by the middle classes, and is not as diverse in terms of other characteristics. Since the advent of democracy in South Africa in 1994, transformation of firm ownership, previously dominated by white people, to include more black, coloured and Indian/Asian-origin South Africans, has been an important part of achieving greater economic equality and social cohesion, as well as being more representative of the cultures of the majority of the population. Using data from a survey of 2400 CCIs firms in South Africa, this paper examines the extent to which the CCIs in South Africa have transformed in terms of ownership and employment. Comparisons are also made across the six UNESCO [(2009). Framework for cultural statistics. UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Retrieved from http://www.uis.unesco.org/culture/Pages/framework-cultural-statistics.aspx] “Cultural Domains” in terms of ownership, average monthly turnover and the number of full-time, part-time and contract employees. Results show some diversity in the industry, but significant differences between the Domains. Statistical analysis demonstrates that CCI funding policy in South Africa is sensitive to advancing the transformation agenda in that more transformed firms were shown to be more likely to have received some form of government grant as part of their income.     

Chained to the grassroots: the music industries and DCMS

The paper analyses the implicit assumptions made by three key DCMS reports about how successful music products are made. I show how the reports divide the music sector into small and large producers, handing responsibility for innovation to small producers and expecting that large producers will exploit these innovations efficiently. I argue that this approach risks ignoring the realities of music production and contradicts the findings contained in the reports themselves. I conclude that a romantic idea of successful products developing from small producers may not only misrepresent and misunderstand small producers in the music industries but constrain them.     

Extending the cultural research infrastructure: The rise of the regional cultural consortiums in England

Two distinguishing features of the New Labour Government have been its focus on regionalism and the establishment of a department of state, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), explicitly dedicated to ‘cultural’ policy. This paper tracks the development of a new set of regional cultural organizations, the Regional Cultural Consortiums (RCCs). These were established to contribute to regional development and to deliver the DCMS's national policy goals. The paper examines the RCCs' remit, challenges, achievements and prospects, and locates these in wider debates about evidence-based policy and continuity and change in cultural and regional policy. Particular consideration is given to the RCCs' research and data collection activities and their role in developing a move towards improved capacity in regional cultural research and data collection.     

The changing shape of the book: From cultural evolution to technological revolution

Electronic media would appear to offer the prime forms of communication for the future. Television, the internet, the mobile phone and any number of other innovations present an apparently overwhelming threat to the continuation of the paper‐based media with which most of the adult community is familiar.

The book, in particular, would seem an anachronism. Its production methods, its distribution systems, the physical entity itself, belong not even to the century just finished but to an earlier era altogether. It finds its provenance in a mediaeval technology, its purpose in a society that could accept a pedestrian form of communication, well suited to sharing the printed word with the few who could read it and afford it.

And yet the market for the conventional book remains buoyant. Statistics indicate decline in neither the number of titles published nor sales revenues.

In fact, the new media are indeed impinging on the book market but more slowly than might be imagined. The technologies which have brought us screen‐based devices and telephonic communication have also brought dramatic improvements in the speed and economics of book manufacturing and are beginning to offer highly competitive solutions to both the production and the distribution of conventional books.

This chapter begins with a look ahead to the alternatives shapes of the book of the future. It then accounts for the continuing presence of the conventional book in this scenario by briefly tracing the development of an ancient craft which has evolved through technological innovation into a sophisticated production process which transformed the economics of production.

These technological and economic changes in conventional book manufacturing are set against the advantages and challenges of new media to show how all future forms of the book have a competing place in the market.     

Escaping to the country: Media,nostalgia, and the new food industries

Over the past decade in the West, television cooking shows have popularized interest in the provenance of food against a backdrop of public concern about the practices of industrial food production. This article explores two series that offer self-sufficiency as a solution to the problem of industrial agriculture. Escape to River Cottage and Gourmet Farmer each centre on a narrative of a city-dweller moving to the country to set up a smallholding. With their nostalgia for an earlier—simultaneously unproblematic and emotionally fulfilling—time of food production, these series imagine a Utopian lifestyle in which audiences are encouraged to choose to produce and consume differently. That it is (middle-class) men who are rediscovering traditional food practices highlights how media discourses surrounding food production can become entangled in gendered representations that give rise to niche food products and experiences designed to ameliorate feelings of risk and uncertainty in contemporary food systems.     

The development of comparable European cultural statistics

UK cultural statistics are far from complete, so the development of comparable European cultural statistics sounds like an ambitious task and one for which clear objectives are needed. One spin‐off from comparing the statistical systems of different countries should be some improvement in national statistics, as best practice is examined and taken up by other countries. However, the essence of the on‐going programme of work described in this chapter is the search for a common statistical language, to be used whenever cross‐country comparisons are wanted or European totals are to be compiled.

Compiling cultural statistics for different countries on a comparable basis sounds like a contradiction: how can the cultures of one country be harmonised with those of another? The key is to identify why the comparison needs to be made. In this chapter, therefore, current developments in European cultural statistics are reviewed by first exploring the needs for pan‐European cultural statistics that flow from policy.

The chapter describes and reviews a European Union project to develop cultural statistics that reported at the end of 1999. The results of this project have been taken into the European statistical system. Hardly any statistical results have yet been published. The chapter questions how far this work will progress beyond the UNESCO framework for cultural statistics. One significant issue is that the UNESCO framework, compiled some 15 years ago, gave relatively little attention to the creative industries. These industries now feature more strongly in policy responses to the wider economic and social challenges facing European countries and the European Union. The new work on cultural statistics gives some recognition to the creative industries but it does not embrace the full extent of the creative industries as defined in the UK.