DIGITAL IST KULTUR CULTURE IS DIGITAL – DIGITAL IS CULTURE

Michael Söndermann
Founder and Director Büro für Kulturwirtschaftsforschung (Office
for Culture Industries Research)/ Member of the Management
Board of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS)
KEY RESULTS
“UPDATING AND UPGRADING THE STATISTICAL
GUIDELINES OF THE GERMAN CONFERENCE OF
ECONOMIC MINISTERS TO SURVEY CULTURAL
AND CREATIVE INDUSTRIES”
(IN SHORT: GUIDELINES)
In general, the Guidelines are considered to be a meaningful
tool. At the beginning of the workshop, the participants
identify terms to universally legitimise the Guidelines:
The Guidelines
• offer orientation for politics and administration.
• promote understanding for the industry.
• can open up new paths to different areas (other sectors,
banks, the professional public).
• support academic training and serves as an orientation
model in fields of research.
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF THE GUIDING CON-
CEPT OF CULTURAL AND CREATIVE INDUSTRIES
The participants have different views regarding the guiding
concept: The guiding concept
• can be misunderstood and seen as an interference with
cultural politics.
• is not suitable to describe the industry because players
in the industry cannot identify with it.
• is considered as somewhat cumbersome and should be
better integrated.
• appears as an academic construct rather – as if designed
for science and administration.
• describes an economic process, but not economic products
– which is why it will fail in public.
• The term Cultural and Creative Industries seems worn
out and is not stunning enough.
• A few still consider the combination of the terms cultural
industry and creative industry to be rather unfortunate,
because it is too close to the British notion of
creative industries.
THE GUIDELINES ARE DESIGNED TO PERFORM A
CONTROL FUNCTION – BUT FOR WHOM?
The question of control raises contrasting assessments
among the participants:
• Is the aim of the Guidelines to trigger a “control phantasy”
for politics?
• Can all 16 federal states benefit from it, e.g. present
themselves as winners even though the Guidelines are
a measuring device to differentiate between winners
and losers?
• The Guidelines have to have a social function as well:
How can they be used to do politics? Or: According to
the Guidelines, where can you for example find new
job profiles that are important for a certain topic and
for politics?
• If the Guidelines can emphasise the image factor of
the Cultural and Creative Industries more strongly,
then public awareness could be seen as a benchmark
for success in the Cultural and Creative Industries.
• The Guidelines are not supposed to support politics,
but to establish “solid banks”.
• “Control phantasies” are not welcome.
THE GUIDELINES OFFER NEW GUIDING
CONCEPTS
As expected, the participants were particularly interested
in new guiding concepts:
• Cultural professions: Which professions will be eliminated
due to digitalisation? Which new professions
will emerge in this context? How can “old” statistical
methods be applied to the change?
• Innovation: How can the Cultural and Creative Industries
provide innovative effects without linking
them to the routine structures of well-established industries?
Or in other words: How can we prevent the
legitimisation of already existing economic routines
through Cultural and Creative Industries?
• Impact measurement: Do we have to develop new
statistics for the different fields of innovation? To this
end, a restructured impact measurement could be useful:
Which segments of the Cultural and Creative Industries
have an influence on which social segments?
• Digitalisation: As digitalisation will shape the main
debate in the near future, the Cultural and Creative
Industries need to demonstrate their digital potential.
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