From Cultural Industries to Creative Industries and Back? Towards Clarifying Theory and Rethinking Policy

• Main Author: Kong, Lily
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2014
• Subjects: creative turn; creative cities; creative class; cultural/creative policy; Cultural/creative industries; Sociology of Culture; Urban Studies
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/1693; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/2950/viewcontent/Cultural_industries_Creative_industries_2014_av.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

In this paper, I draw attention to the complexities and confusions in the shift in discourse and praxis from "culture industry" to "cultural industries" and then "creative industries." I examine how this "creative turn" is fraught with challenges, highlighting seven issues in particular: (i) the difficulties in defining and scoping the creative industries; (ii) the challenges in measuring the economic benefits creative industries bring; (iii) the risk that creative industries neglect genuine creativity/culture; (iv) the utopianization of "creative labour"; (v) the risk of valorizing and promoting external expertise over local small- and medium-scale enterprises in the building of "creative industries"; (vi) the danger of overblown expectations for creative industries to serve innovation and the economy, as well as culture and social equity; and (vii) the fallacy that "creative cities" can be designed. I suggest that the move towards creative industries discourse represents a theoretical backslide, and raise the possibility that a return to "cultural industries" would be more beneficial for clarifying our theoretical understanding of the cultural sectors and the creative work that they do, as well as enabling better policymaking.