OECD Culture and Local Development.pdf - PACA

INTRODUCTION
Defining cultural resources, activities and goods
There is no strict definition of cultural activities and goods. New terms crop up
every day to broaden these concepts - they may now being referred to as “creative
industries”, the “new economy”, or even the “cultural economy”.
- If we take the major existing statistical systems as our starting point, the core
of cultural activities consists of a traditional set: the performing arts, the visual
arts, and cultural heritage, with perhaps a nod to the cinema. We often hear speak
of works of art rather than cultural goods, in which case two features predominate.
These artworks are generally consumed on the spot, where they are produced
or exhibited forming the nucleus of a tourist attraction. Their contribution to local
development will then be judged on the basis of the money that tourists and
visitors spend in the territory. Second, these goods are treated as final consumption
goods.
- To this core we may add the now-conventional notion of cultural industries:
audiovisual, records and books. These are also final consumption goods, but
they are no longer consumed on the spot, and they contribute only in part to
the development of the territory where they are produced.
- Finally, cultural products are taking on growing importance today: arts and crafts,
fashion, digital images combine an important aesthetic and symbolic value with
their utilitarian nature. Culture comes into play here both as a source of intermediate
consumption, since the production process uses cultural resources, and as final
consumption, since the demand for these goods reflects in part their cultural
dimension. Like the products of cultural industries, they are consumed everywhere
and they contribute to a territory’s development because they are produced there.
This progress is important, for it is common today to roll all these cultural works,
products and goods into a single approach.
- For the British government, for example, cultural industries are “those that
combine creation, production and marketing of intangible cultural contents. These
contents are subject to intellectual property rights and take the form of goods
and services. This list generally refers to the production of books, records and
films, but it can also include audiovisual and photographic output. Depending
on the country, we may add the areas of design, fashion, musical instruments,
architecture, advertising, etc. This leads to a much broader notion, that of the
creative industries” 3 . A suggested typology is shown in Table 1.1. and 1.2.
- Some analysts, such as Throsby and O’Connor, offer broader definitions (Throsby,
2001; 0’Connor, 1998),. For Throsby, cultural activities or products are those that
20 CULTURE AND LOCAL DEVELOPMENT - ISBN 92-64-00990-6 - © OECD 2005