ISSN: 1329-878X

Culture: Development, Industry, Distribution No 102 February 2002 Order form Abstracts

Contents

Abstracts

Tom O'Regan: Too much culture, too little culture: Trends and issues for cultural policy-making
This paper considers the paradoxical situation confronting contemporary cultural policy-making wherein it is sumultaneously centralised in creative city/industries and cultural diversity agendas while marginalised in broadcasting and film policy deliberations. This dual movement, it is argued, is the consequence of cultural policy becoming less its own sui generis domain and more part of a variety of other governmental processes, spheres, knowledges and domains. In these circumstances, effective cultural policy-making is increasingly embracing an agenda of rejuvenation marked by differentiated strategies, knowledges, sites and outcomes.

Lisanne Gibson: Creative industries and cultural development - still a Janus face?
Since the 1970s, it has been possible to discuss cultural policy in terms of the discourses 'art as industry' and 'cultural rights' (for a discussion of this history, see Gibson, 2001). 'Creative industries' is the policy 'buzz term' of the moment. The ways in which the terms 'creative industries' and 'cultural rights' are understood in contemporary cultural policy encapsulate the ways in which the economic and humanistic benefits of creative practice have been articulated as existing in competition. I argue that it is counterproductive to understand these discourses as mutually exclusive. Are these discursive constructions - art as profit versus art as identity - constitutively oppositional? To pose this same question using the terms which frame contemporary policy debate, how do we negotiate between the (seemingly) competing logics of the creative industries and cultural development policy discourses?

Ben Goldsmith: Cultural diversity, cultural networks and trade: International cultural policy debate
This article sketches some of the ways in which the language and concepts of cultural diversity are being taken up internationally. The debate has been driven in part by concerns about the treatment of cultural goods, services and knowledge in trade agreements. But it also involves larger questions about the role of the state, the role of non-state actors in domestic policy formation, and the shape and function of international policy communities comprising both state and non-state actors. The extent of the discussion of cultural diversity internationally is described through new formal and informal cultural networks and work towards an international instrument for cultural diversity to lay out ground rules for international trade, cultural exchange and policy principles to guide governmental responsibilities. The article concludes with analysis of some of these new networks, and investigates why Canada has been so prominent in these international efforts.

Stuart Cunningham: From cultural to creative industries: Theory, industry and policy implications
This paper presents a rationale for distinguishing between notions of cultural and creative industries which has implications for theory, industry and policy analysis. I do this from the standpoint of a researcher and analyst and also from a position of a corporate involvement in a substantial project to grow and diversify a regional economy through the development of its creative industries. This project is a 'creative industries precinct' in inner suburban Brisbane involving my university, Queensland University of Technology, the Queensland state government through its Department of State Development, a variety of industry players, and retail and property developers. There is theoretical purchase in distinguishing the two terms, in part to put further flesh on the bones of claims about the nature of the knowledge-based economy and its relation to culture and creativity. Shifts in the nature of the industries usually described by the terms also need to be captured effectively, as do different policy regimes that come into play as regulation of and support for cultural and creative industries.

Andrew McNamara: How 'creative industries' evokes the legacy of modernist visual art
The concept of 'creative industries' presents a new idea for the Arts/Humanities faculty predicated upon forging a conjunction between the creative arts and cultural industries. It also provides a unique opportunity for the creative arts as well as the old Humanities faculty to acquire a new role at the centre of policy discussions about the new economy. 'Creative industries', in short, provides arts and humanities with a 'new' industry face suited to the needs of the twenty-first century. Yet, so far, discussions about creative industries have focused upon either their new economy connections or upon their delineation from 'cultural industries'. This fosters the impression that the concept of creative industries is forged from the intersection of cultural studies, the new economy and cultural industries alone. What is the place of the creative arts within creative industries? Has it any feasible critical role when it is constantly dubbed 'the subsidised arts'? This paper presents a reading that shows that the conception of creative industries is actually reliant upon the creative arts - in particular, the legacy of interdisciplinary modernist practice within the visual arts. It will examine how the sometimes anti-art rhetoric of some creative industries manifestos evokes this legacy. It then draws out some important socio-political implications of throwing this legacy into this mix that currently constitutes 'creative industries'.

Ron Callus and Mark Cole: Live for art - just don't expect to make a living from it: The worklife of Australian visual artists
Visual artists make up one of the few occupational groups in Australia where the majority of those working in the field are not regulated by awards or agreements that set minimum rates of pay and conditions. This is because most artists are self-employed and therefore lie outside the industrial relations regulatory framework. This article builds on the results of a survey of members of the National Association of Visual Artists (NAVA). The survey was designed to provide a picture of the income sources and activities of persons who work in the arts industry. For the majority of artists, the paid work undertaken as an artist was not their main source of income. These artists supplemented their art-producing income with other art and non-related income-producing work. A significant proportion of NAVA members work for a living in the visual arts industry as teachers, arts administrators, curators or in other art-related work; many of these also produce art in their spare time. The data collected were then used to develop a typology based on the combination of artists' time-use and income-generating activities. The typology was generated through the use of a cluster analysis that revealed three major groups of artists and a number of subgroups within these three major groupings. Given the complexities of the artist's labour market experiences, a number of options are canvassed as to how the precarious nature of artists' work could better be managed. One approach to regulation is to accept the realities of the artists' labour market and build around this through a system of accruing entitlements that come from working in the industry rather than for any one individual or organisation. It is suggested that governments could also take a different approach by recognising the special nature of artists' work, specifically the fact that artists move in and out of the labour market over their lifetimes. A whole-of-life approach to the problem is therefore necessary.

Shane Homan: Cultural industry or social problem? The case of Australian live music
The live music pub and club scene has historically been regarded as the source of a distinctively Australian rock/jazz culture, and the basis for global recording success. This paper examines the history of live venue practices as a case study of a local cultural industry that often existed outside of traditional policy structures and meanings of the arts industries. Confronted with a loss of performance opportunities for local musicians, it is argued that traditional cultural policy mechanisms and platforms used for cultural nationalist outcomes are no longer relevant. Rather, policy intervention must engage with administrative obstacles to live creativity, specifically the series of local regulations that have diminished the viability of live venues. The decline of the rock/jazz pub continues in the face of current federal government support for touring musicians. A closer inspection of the local administration of cultural practice remains the best means of understanding the devaluation of the social and industrial value of live performance.

General Articles

Rod Giblett: Space power and information superiority: A new medium for cultural policy
Space is again a hot topic, with the resurrection of Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative or 'Star Wars' missile shield, albeit under a new name. Integral to this drive and vital to its success are the deployment and use of communication technologies, and the control of flows of information. Both of these take place in orbital, extraterrestrial space, a new front for warfare and a new medium for the new media of cyberspace and the internet. This paper traces this recent development and gives a critical account of the nationalist and militarist rhetoric in which it is couched. I argue that 'weaponisation' of space is in contravention of a number of international treaties. I conclude that 'astroenvironmentalism' should be a broadly based popular movement of resistance to these moves, and of action for the global commons of space owned by none and shared by all.

Tony Wilson: Global constructions of 'korupsi' in a local public sphere: A cross-cultural Malaysian reception study
Audience responses to television are at the heart of sense-making in the public sphere. Research on viewers' readings of economic, political and social events in news programs, invariably constructed around the activities of 'significant' individuals, is of particular consequence for understanding the functioning of a democracy. This paper is a cross-cultural reception study of how audiences come to interpret the program genre of television news. In a process of comprehension characterised by fusing/feuding horizons of understanding the world, viewers playfully accommodate the meaning of programs in their everyday lives. Analysis of television's reception should be tested against audience activity. Theory must be corroborated. Drawing from a significant literature discussing the phenomenology of ludic experience, the article theorises trans-cultural reception of Western (British) television by Asian (Malaysian) viewers as seriously 'playful'. Academic assertions are assessed as illuminating audience response.

Jacqui Ewart and Kevin Tickle: Reviewing the readership: Profiles of Central Queensland newspaper readers
This paper sets out to explore the concept of readership through a quantitative examination of Central Queensland newspaper readers. Because most Australian media audience research is undertaken by market research companies on behalf of news media corporations, an independent study of readership is needed in order to reveal data which can be used in future studies of regional newspapers and readership. Such data may also be useful in enabling regional newspapers to begin a process of forming stronger connections with their readers and communities. This paper focuses on data collected about newspaper readers in Central Queensland. While discussing Central Queensland newspaper readers, their demographics and newspaper reading habits more generally, this paper establishes a series of mini-profiles of these newspaper readers and investigates the issues which readers would like to see covered more often or less frequently by the newspapers they use. It suggests that these profiles are important for researchers wanting to investigate media in Central Queensland, and that the profiles may provide interesting comparisons of points from which to undertake readership research in other regions of Australia. As well, this paper suggests that such information is essential if regional newspapers are to fulfil the important role they have in their communities and reflect the concerns of their publics. Finally, this paper argues that such data are essential in the process of improving relations between regional newspapers and their communities, and ensuring they adequately reflect their publics.