Creative Economy: A Feasible Development Option

3Analysing the creative economybecause individual creators are increasingly looking to capitalizeon spin-offs from their original creations. On the otherhand, it also has its downside. It raises a number of employment-relatedconcerns. For example, in the publishing industry,technological developments have made it possible to doaway with some of the “motley crew”: whereas typographyand page layout were tasks that only experts could carry out,today anyone with a computer can achieve a professional layoutand desktop publish. Digitization has also heightened therisks of piracy and loss of revenues due to the ease of acquiringdigital content without having paid for it.3.5.1 Changing consumption patternsNaturally, the creative economy includes consumers,whose demands ultimately determine what is produced andhow it is distributed. Changing demographics 25 and new consumptiontechnologies are combining to cause significantshifts in patterns of cultural consumption around the world indeveloped and developing countries alike. As populations age,the elderly acquire more time and more accumulated incometo spend on cultural consumption of various sorts. At theother end of the demographic scale, young people are significantplayers in the markets for creative goods and services.They tend to be the quickest group to take up new technologiesfor accessing audiovisual products, and their demands,channelled through innovative means of cultural consumptionand participation, are influencing production patterns withinthe creative industries in a number of countries.Consumers also influence the creative economy inother ways, for example indirectly through the fact that regulatoryaction may be taken on their behalf by governments.An illustration is provided by the film industries of countrieswhere local content quotas are enforced in order to protectindigenous cultural expression. The rationale of such regulationsis essentially qualitative in nature, relating to matters ofcultural identity. Their economic effect is to channelresources into the local creative industries and to reduceexpenditures on imported creative products.Tourists are a particular group of consumers of interestto the creative economy. Tourism provides a significantsource of demand for cultural output in many countries.Such demand comes in two forms: mass tourism characterizedas high-volume and low-yield, where demand for creativeproducts or cultural experiences tends to be uninformedand undiscriminating, and cultural tourism, which islow-volume, sometimes high-yield and generally better educatedand more sensitive to local cultural values.International tourist demand for visitation to heritage sitescan be especially important in earning foreign exchange. Insuch cases, revenue from entrance fees may be a primarysource of funds for maintenance and restoration work, whilethe associated impact of tourist expenditures on the localeconomy can be substantial, measured in terms of incomesand employment.3.5.2 Creative industries and regulationThe incidence of creative industries in countries isinfluenced by national culture, taxation, education, industrialpolicies and level of ambition (as evidenced by the successof the East Asian nations). These factors have contributed todiffering intra- and inter-country levels of maturity and marketorganization across various types of creative industriesand across various segments of the national supply chains ofcreative industries. These factors have also meant that creativeindustries encompass a wide spectrum of commercial,subsidized and non-profit ventures. The issue of subsidies ispotentially problematic as more domestic creative industriesbecome commercialized and are traded internationally. Thedispute over the venture of the British BroadcastingCorporation (BBC) is a case in point. Commercial publisherscomplained that by going online, the BBC had movedinto areas already well served by the private sector. They feltconstrained in their ability to compete by virtue of the BBCbrand, which is associated with high standards of journalism,quality and range and depth of content coupled with itsaccess to license fees that commercial providers could matchthrough advertising income or venture capital. They arguedthat the support for the BBC free content provision on theInternet creates unfair competition, particularly for smallsuppliers in terms of news and the delivery of online education.26 Similarly, most member states of the SouthernAfrican Development Community have built up deliveryinfrastructure (galleries and museums) for the crafts andvisual arts industry (although rural artists are less wellserved) and have managed to organize the industry through25Pratt (2007:166-190).26This raises another issue with respect to the characteristics of the new information economy, where much information is available online. The new issue raised is the added value ofcommentary and the trust that audiences have in the carrier. The BBC may argue that it adds a particular value in both areas.92 CREATIVE ECONOMY REPORT 2010