Creative Economy: A Feasible Development Option

1Concept and context of the creative economytakes into account the principles of cultural economics as adiscipline, the purpose is to better understand the dynamics ofcreativity and its overall interactions with the world economy,including its multidisciplinary dimension in which culturalpolicies interact with technological and trade policies.1.1.5 Creative industriesUsage of the term “creative industries” varies amongcountries. It is of relatively recent origin, emerging inAustralia in 1994 with the launching of the report, CreativeNation. It gained wider exposure in 1997, when policymakersat the United Kingdom’s Department of Culture, Media andSport set up the Creative Industries Task Force. It is noteworthythat the designation “creative industries” that hasdeveloped since then has broadened the scope of culturalindustries beyond the arts and has marked a shift in approachto potential commercial activities that until recently wereregarded purely or predominantly in non-economic terms. 9A number of different models have been put forward inrecent years as a means of providing a systematic understandingof the structural characteristics of the creative industries.The following paragraphs review four of these models, highlightingthe different classification systems that they imply forthe creative economy. Each model has a particular rationale,depending on underlying assumptions about the purpose andmode of operation of the industries. Each one leads to asomewhat different basis for classification into “core” and“peripheral” industries within the creative economy, emphasizingonce again the difficulties in defining the “creative sector”that were discussed earlier. The four models are as follows:■■UK DCMS model. This model derives from the impetus inthe late 1990s in the United Kingdom to reposition theBritish economy as an economy driven by creativity andinnovation in a globally competitive world. “Creativeindustries” are defined as those requiring creativity, skilland talent, with potential for wealth and job creationthrough the exploitation of their intellectual property(DCMS, 2001). Virtually all of the 13 industries includedin the DCMS classification could be seen as “cultural” inthe terms defined earlier; however, the Government of theUnited Kingdom has preferred to use the term “creative”industries to describe this grouping, apparently to sidesteppossible high-culture connotations of the word “cultural”.Symbolic texts model. This model is typical of the approach to9UNCTAD, Creative Industries and Development (document TD(XI)/BP/13, June 2004).■■the cultural industries arising from the critical-culturalstudiestradition as it exists in Europe and especially theUnited Kingdom (Hesmondhalgh, 2002). This approachsees the “high” or “serious” arts as the province of thesocial and political establishment and therefore focusesattention instead on popular culture. The processes bywhich the culture of a society is formed and transmittedare portrayed in this model via the industrial production,dissemination and consumption of symbolic texts or messages,which are conveyed by means of various media suchas film, broadcasting and the press.Concentric circles model. This model is based on the propositionthat it is the cultural value of cultural goods that givesthese industries their most distinguishing characteristic.Thus the more pronounced the cultural content of aparticular good or service, the stronger is the claim forinclusion of the industry producing it (Throsby, 2001).The model asserts that creative ideas originate in the corecreative arts in the form of sound, text and image and thatthese ideas and influences diffuse outwards through aseries of layers or “concentric circles”, with the proportionof cultural to commercial content decreasing as onemoves further outwards from the centre. This model hasbeen the basis for classifying the creative industries inEurope in the recent study prepared for the EuropeanCommission (KEA European Affairs, 2006).WIPO copyright model. This model is based on industriesinvolved directly or indirectly in the creation, manufacture,production, broadcast and distribution of copyrightedworks (World Intellectual Property Organization, 2003).The focus is thus on intellectual property as the embodimentof the creativity that has gone into the making ofthe goods and services included in the classification. A distinctionis made between industries that actually producethe intellectual property and those that are necessary toconvey the goods and services to the consumer. A furthergroup of “partial” copyright industries comprises thosewhere intellectual property is only a minor part of theiroperation (see chapter 6).Table 1.1 summarizes the industries included in eachmodel. The UK DCMS model makes no distinction betweenthe industries included, but the other three designate a groupof “core” industries, i.e., those whose inclusion is central tothe definition adopted in each case. It is apparent that thecontents of the core differ markedly among these three models;for example, the creative arts, which are the epicentre of6 CREATIVE ECONOMY REPORT 2010