Creative Industries Journal

Successful creative production is often documented to occur in urban areas that are more likely to be diverse, a source of human capital and the site of dense interactions. These accounts chart how, historically, creative industries have clustered in areas where space was once cheap in the city centre fringe and inner city areas, often leading to the development of a creative milieu, and thereby stimulating further creative production. Historical accounts of the development of creative areas demonstrate the crucial role of accessible low-cost business premises. This article reports on the findings of a case study that investigated the location decisions of firms in selected creative industry sectors in Greater Manchester. The study found that, while creative activity remains highly concentrated in the city centre, creative space there is being squeezed and some creative production is decentralizing in order to access cheaper premises. The article argues that the location choices of creative industry firms are being constrained by the extensive city centre regeneration, with the most vulnerable firms, notably the smallest and youngest, facing a Hobson's choice of being able to access low-cost premises only in the periphery. This disrupts the delicate balance needed to sustain production and begs the broader question as to how the creative economy fits into the existing urban fabric, alongside the competing demands placed on space within a transforming industrial conurbation.

Much of the recent interest in the development of individual creativity has drawn upon Richard Florida's (2002a) book The Rise of the Creative Class. Whereas in the industrial age, classical and neoclassical economic theory told us that people followed jobs, in the modern knowledge economy Florida describes how jobs follow talented people. The research reported in this article represents an analysis of quality of place and the dispersion of the creative knowledge workers in seven European countries and builds upon the work that has been undertaken in North American cities in order to understand whether similar processes concerning the relationship between creativity, human capital, and high-technology industries are at work in Europe as claimed is the case within North America. Economic outcomes from creative class location are also reviewed. Finally, we consider the implications for further research, given the evidence presented here suggesting some variation of results by national socio-economic context.

In this article, the key implicit assumptions embedded within the Creative Britain agendas are identified and the explicit or representative evidence base associated with these assumptions outlined. An attempt has been made to identify the weaknesses, contradictions and gaps in this evidence. Some persistence in these evidence gaps is discerned alongside a reluctance to explicitly engage with non-supportive research findings. Recourse to public choice economics is made to sketch a systematic and intuitively plausible series of explanations for this persistence and reluctance, and to frame an alternative policy course and set of guiding principles.

Animation is unlike other media industries in that it is, to use a sometimes vaguely applied adjective, global. The highly labor-intensive process behind animation production means that work is very often shared across countries and even continents. Animation, which is easier to dub and has much less local context than live action drama, also travels easily. The key target audience of under-nines happily watch cartoons wherever they originate. These underlying strengths of the genre remain, but it has become an increasingly tough industry for producers as more intense competition in the broadcasting marketplace has transformed their funding model. The corporate structure of companies active in the business ranges from the largest media conglomerates in the world (Walt Disney, Time Warner and Viacom Inc.) to small companies amounting to little more than a designer with a PC and the latest software package.

From its creation in 1981 until the mid-1990s, Channel 4 Television's advertising revenue was plentiful, enabling it to commission programmes that were often challenging and innovative in form and content. Its animation work focused mainly on short films, which attracted plaudits at home and internationally. It commissioned as many female as male directors and instituted schemes to foster innovation in animation and to nurture first-time directors. For some years the BBC and S4C were also active in the field. At the time, given that there was no commercial market for challenging shorts, it seemed this work might be of no relevance in the outside world. But nowadays several commentators are warning of a crisis of creativity in the industry, and this article considers whether this could be related to the almost total absence of British television from the sector. Could television or another market segment plug that gap in future?

Japan is recognized as the leading country in the global animation industry. Nevertheless, the real circumstances behind the scenes have not been fully unveiled to a wider audience. In the past half century, Japanese animation has developed without government support. However, now it finds itself at a crossroads. The Japanese Animation Creators Association investigated animators' working conditions in 2008 as part of the first assessment of this field and revealed some important facts. In addition to the industry's heavy reliance on outsourcing to countries such as China and South Korea, the assessment finds that young animators face poor working conditions. This article demonstrates the main points arising from these facts, and outlines the recent approach of the Japanese government in response to the problems.

This article seeks to examine some of the overlooked transcultural aspects and elements of creativity in anime. Through a series of contemporary case studies, it is argued that anime supports an array of transcultural creative practices that span across borders, hybridize content and even force the creation of new types of text and distribution. The attention to the transcultural here is an attempt to move beyond discussions of how Japanese anime are, and to open up a space in which to discuss their relevance beyond their home nation. In these ways, the creative work undertaken by those within and beyond the industries related to anime is demonstrating the global reach of Japanese cultural products.

Changes in governance are fostering the creative and knowledge economy around Europe. The aim of this article is to show how different institutions and governance mechanisms contribute to promoting the creative and knowledge economy as the cornerstone of economic growth in the Barcelona Metropolitan Region (BMR). Not only will the involvement of public, private and societal actors be explored, but also the relationship between different municipalities and geographical scales.Departing from an institutional and economic perspective, our analysis aims to answer the following research questions on the basis of the comparison of two case studies: the 22, the digital district of Barcelona, and the Consortium of Employment and Economic Promotion of the Valls Occidental (CEDEVO). The article considers whether there is any common path (an agreement, a clear leadership, involvement of private funding) followed by institutions to promote the creative and knowledge economy. It questions to what extent experience can be transferred between different situations, and how existing context and embeddedness should be taken into account. As this article will show, governance arrangements and adjustments to the existing context have played a key role in both experiences in promoting the creative and knowledge economy.

This article utilizes the introduction of the new 2007 Standard Industrial Classification and a matrix of occupations by industrial sector to determine whether or not the British Department for Culture, Media and Sport's definition of the creative industries retains its validity. After reviewing the torturous definitional landscape, the article finds that the current definition has probably reached the end of its usefulness. The article concludes that the current definition grossly overestimates the employment impact of creativity, and that now is an appropriate time for a thorough review that should produce both a definition that is acceptable and a more transparent methodology for calculating outcomes. Given the economic importance attached to the creative industries in both the United Kingdom and Europe, the current ad hoc methods of measuring this important facet of the economy are in need of some serious revision.

What are the conditions for the growth of creative industries in Toulouse? Semi-structured interviews with twenty managers and seven experts in the audio-visual, web design and consultancy sectors aid understanding of the importance of different location factors. The personal trajectory effect is significant since three quarters of the managers were born or studied in the region. The second major reason explaining their presence in Toulouse relates to the size of the city, which provides business opportunities and a skilled labour force. More intangible aspects like the general urban atmosphere matter, however, are not overriding. Since the 1960s, Toulouse's development has led to a specialization, mainly in aeronautics, space and electronics, and although they have grown more recently, creative industries are far from being representative of the local economic fabric. A major criticism made by managers to local leaders refers to their scepticism towards emergent, small and flexible businesses related to arts and entertainment.

The article provides a sociological analysis of the class habitus that predominates in the world of contemporary cultural production. As the creative industries increasingly rely on a workforce that must ignore the determinants that structure the field, the resulting contradictions lead to a de-incapacitation of avant-garde challenges to the status quo. The article provides models drawn from psychoanalysis to consider how fantasy not only structures subjectivity but allows agents to imagine social and cultural alternatives to neo-liberal governance through creative industries.

Cultural industries are activities concerned with the production and marketing of goods and services that have aesthetic or semiotic content (SCOTT 2004). Their emergence as engines of economic growth reflects an economic and cultural conjuncture where commodity production has become tied in with artistic experimentation. Research on cultural industries, however, has revealed a latent tension between artistic/l'art pour l'art and commercial or so-called humdrum considerations (Caves 2000; Cowen and Tabarrok 2000; Kloosterman 2010a) As many cultural industries can only survive in the long run through constant product differentiation and innovation, ways have to be found to shield creative workers at least temporarily from direct market pressures to be able to come up with new ideas and innovations. We theorize that sector-specific capital requirements, the nature of the production process and markets, and the aesthetic and functional value of the object impact on how experimentation can be organized. Notwithstanding the basic similarities in the organizational and spatial format of cultural industries, we anticipate that there are various institutional configurations that can shield off market pressures and allow creative workers to pursue new roads. To illustrate our point, we briefly present findings from the Amsterdam case.

The Chinese government proposed to upgrade its manufacturing-driven economy to a creative and innovation-based economy by developing cultural industries. Developing cultural industries involves a process of cultural modernization demanding a whole series of economic, legal and socio-urban structures within which these industries can thrive.In China, the essence of the cultural industry reforms is to open up the country's cultural market and facilitate the development of a cultural economy, whilst retaining the government's tight grip of content. The partial privatization operations under the party-controlled system have caused years of conflict between commercial and public interests. Examples can be found from the case study of a government-sponsored creative cluster, International Creative Industries Alliance (ICIA), Beijing.As the cultural industries began with the exterior sectors of the industries, the reforms have brought little impact to the core sector the content industry. But the reforms have allowed creative entrepreneurs a more relaxed environment to produce creative content. With the growing power of Chinese consumers and the speedy technological convergence, the relations between creative entrepreneurs and the government have entered a new phase.As China rapidly embraces market socialism, Chinese society has started to recognize the importance of creativity and individual expression. Although the top-down party-controlled model of state-run media stays unchanged, commercial interests and consumer demands are the driving forces to push for a more diverse and creative Chinese society.

The objective of the article is to explore the relative determinants of firms' performance in the Birmingham Jewellery Quarter (BJQ) considering creativity and innovation; firms' access to the market and networking. The article utilizes qualitative and quantitative analyses and aims to ascertain the role of firms' commitment to developing an in-house or external creative capacity on their ability to grow. The novelty of the article is to consider a potential creative cluster, the jewellery cluster in the BJQ, and to analyse its growth drivers including creativity.

This interview with Huang Gai is about a creative business park named Creative Shanghai Riverside built on an old General Electric (GE) factory along the western bank of the Huang Pu river, the most important drinking-water source and shipping artery of Shanghai. The reason we call it an ecstaquarter is that we see it as an existing imaginary place that foregrounds the sensual and philosophical side of the founder and designer Deng Kunyan, where you could undress yourself and cast your body in the role of mediator through which to explore.Deng Kunyan, a self-made architect from Taiwan who has devoted the best twenty years of his architectural career in Shanghai, and is well known for his conversion of an abandoned 1930s warehouse along the banks of Suzhou Creek, another important shipping route in Shanghai. The success of that project sparked an artistic renewal of the surrounding industrial district, saving old factories from demolition, and winning him the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Award for Culture Heritage Conservation in 2004. In Creative Shanghai Riverside, Deng Kunyan has integrated Taoist and Buddhist philosophy in his architectural and interior design work, lending modern spaces an atmosphere reminiscent of ancient Chinese traditions. Due to the absence of Deng Kunyan, we have interviewed the managing director of this creative business park, Huang Gai, who insisted humbly to be called the assistant of Mr Deng.

This article deals with the first successful case of global co-development in the Korean online games industry. Global co-development is one of the strategies to respond to increasing competition. This article first briefly introduces the current status of the Korean online games industry and collaboration during the development of the industry; it shows that collaboration was limited to easily modularized areas such as sound and motion capture, whereas game design and server/client programming were not easily externalized. The first successful case of global co-development in the Korean online games industry deserves special attention in that both parties attempted to co-develop client programming elements. The case shows that it is possible to collaboratively develop online games and learn from each other without sharing the other party's programming source code, and emphasizes the importance of close communication and minimal intervention as the first step for trust accumulation. Learning capability is not reduced in such collaboration.

This article reports on a study conducted by the Association Culture and Work (Bad Mergentheim) and the Vienna University of Technology. This study surveyed the conditions under which cultural economic effects can be generated as much as possible by local actors in small towns in rural areas. The main finding shows that networks such as continuous learning systems are central success factors in these processes. At present, there are only a few successfully working networks in Germany with a cultural economic focus that could possibly serve as a role model for small towns nationwide. Local actors from culture, business and local administration have rarely developed institutionalized ways of cooperation in order to generate income and economic benefit for all parties. Motivating local actors via networks to join cooperations with an economic focus offers enormous economic potential, which has not yet been sufficiently explored.

This article develops and applies a ten parameter typological scheme for comparative analysis of film production regimes. The ten parameters are applied to three ideal typical models an auteur model, a High Concept (Hollywood) model and a model derived from contemporary Danish film production. This application facilitates the elaboration and illustration of the ten parameters and displays the capacity of the typological scheme in structuring comparison and leading inductive enquiry into film production regimes. Thus, in contrast to many typological schemes that are taxonomical, this scheme is intended to direct empirical research. In plying the middle ground between detailed, single case studies on the one hand, and mono or bi-dimensional comparisons on the other, we capture the virtues of comparative research discerning the origins of and factors impacting variation, divergence and convergence between regimes while also facilitating the construction of models detailed enough to track changes within regimes over time.

This article aims to support a social model of the Creative Industries (CIs) with particular reference to the design sector. To do this, the social model of design is compared to other models that have been used to describe the CIs; namely the welfare model, the competition model, the growth model and the innovation model. Once the social model is understood in context and in comparison with other models, the social model is examined using a Social Network Analysis (SNA) methodology. SNA enables the study and mapping of connections between the design sector and other CIs sectors. The analysis discussed in this article shows that the issue of models and classification of the CIs is a complex one. However, using SNA, the design sector has been shown to fit within a social model of the CIs. Indeed the design sector is shown as pivotal to the CIs within this social model, with numerous links between it and all other creative industries.

The accelerated growth of the creative economy poses two problems for policy analysts. The first is the disconnect that exists between the use of conventional economic accounting tools used to capture skills and innovations in quantitative ways, and the qualitative essence of creativity itself. The second problem is the tendency to examine and portray the creative economy in theoretical terms rather than through empirical studies, which creates an artificial basis for policy design. In this article, relational mapping is outlined as an alternative empirical model and as a possible solution to both sets of problems. Relational mapping portrays the creative economy as a system of relations between workers and networks, which represent the principal creative spaces through which creative enterprise takes hold. In categorizing the creative economy in this way, it is possible to uncover new patterns and regularities in creative practices, which open up new avenues of enquiry. As an example, a relational map of arts-based organizations and networks operating in the West Midlands, United Kingdom is examined here, which magnifies the importance of underground scenes in creative economic activities, and from which it is possible to conceive of an upper-ground, middleground and underground of creative spaces taking hold and driving creativity in different ways.

Our ability to manage creativity is pivotal to future economic prosperity and social welfare. A fit-for-purpose education system that can enable this is then a must-have for policy-makers and practitioners alike. However, the provision of appropriate learning is subject to a number of fundamental structural and cultural challenges. Drawing on empirical evidence from a master's programme in the Creative Industries & the Creative Economy in the United Kingdom, I outline some of the problems facing those involved. The article argues that we should shift attention away from occupational roles and towards the behaviours, knowledge and skills that successful creatives and managers in the creative industries exhibit, and of the specific contexts in which they interact. In particular, we need to provide the space and the environment in our educational institutions, as much as our cultural and creative industries organizations, which can enable interaction and (co)-creation to flourish.

The adoption of creative and cultural industries (CCIs) as drivers of regional economic development in the UK has been unquestioned by policymakers. However, the academic literature which looks at work practices and patterns of creative workers highlights contradictions between business and creative goals and issues of sustainability and growth within the sector. This article tries to engage with these two perspectives and assess in what ways CCIs practitioners balance their work between business and creativity. Looking at a specific regional context, the north-east of England, and in particular Newcastle-Gateshead, it highlights the limits of looking at the CCIs from a narrow economic development perspective. The article concludes by arguing for a re-assessment of regional agendas and for a more realistic and holistic approach in understanding the needs and practices of the sector.

This paper intends to discuss copyright infringement from consumers' perspective through looking into anime 'fansubbing.' Anime fansubbing refers to the participatory consumption in which avid fans copy anime (Japanese animation), translate Japanese to another language, subtitle and release subtitled version on the Internet to share it with other fans, without asking for permission from the copyright holder. The case study of English fansubbing of anime shows that this activity was guided by fansubbers' own ethics that intended to support the anime industry by self-controlling fansubbed anime. Under the advancement of digital technologies and the increased global connectivity among anime fans, however, the existing ethics have become outdated and thus global distribution of anime is further detached from the industry's distribution businesses. This paper notes the importance of consumers' own norms and rules in shaping behaviour of copyright infringement. It raises further questions on the relationship between copyright law and consumer ethics.

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While the creative industries concept is generally well recognized in Australia, regional creative industries have received less attention. This is particularly the case in terms of north-east Australia, which is geographically isolated from the major metropolitan centres. The regional tropical city of Townsville, its economy dominated by government services including a major defence base, is considered the unofficial capital of North Queensland and recognized as a key part of the economic growth plan for the state and nation. The creative industries in this location, however, are yet to be examined in any depth, hence this article reflects a first phase study to explore key features of the sector and the participants involved. Data was obtained through a survey completed by 84 creative industries stakeholders. The findings are significant, including a clear lack of engagement with key government and stakeholder policies, numerous identified opportunities for strategic partnerships with other economic sectors, as well as the potential role of key leadership groups and stakeholders in terms of further growth and development.

The transition of the printed word to digital product is arguably the most significant event in the history of publishing since the invention of the printing press, presenting authors with unexpected challenges. The evolving digital publishing environment has irrevocably changed the copyright expectations of authors, who find themselves grappling with the realities of both traditional expectations and digital advances in publishing. This article deals with the Australian author's place in an ever expanding digital sphere, copyright and publishing implications, and digital copyright challenges presented by this transitional environment. It also examines the views of Australian authors on the subject and addresses the shifting power balance in publishing. The role of the author in the public sphere will be addressed, followed by three examples of how authors have asserted or alternatively failed to assert themselves in the expanded publishing environment. In particular, the article considers the interrelation between the ‘author sphere’, the ‘publisher sphere’ and the ‘digital public sphere’. The evolving copyright landscape brought about by the Internet provides an appropriate environment in which to investigate authors' perceptions of this legal concept that impacts so intrinsically upon their creative rewards.

This article investigates underlying constraints within China’s creative economy. Drawing on two studies of creative clusters in Suzhou and Foshan, it identifies the importance of knowledge transfer and internationalization to the generation of higher value-added products and services. Both examples illustrate relationships between resources, activities, routines and entrepreneurship. The article argues that the examples notwithstanding, the vast majority of what is accounted for in data collection as China’s creative industries are more appropriately cultural industries. The focus on cultural industries drives local development and increases land values but the benefits are rarely dispersed internationally or into the broader economy.

Attempts to measure the bundle of activities termed the creative industries commenced with the UK’s Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) release in 1998 of its Creative Industries Mapping Study. Like many earlier attempts to study the size and impact of the cultural industries, these focused on the employment and business activities (within selected industrial classifications) of either census of industry employment or surveys of businesses within industries. Since then, there have been mapping exercises in several countries, based to a greater or lesser extent on the 1998 UK exercise. This paper proposes that there have been three iterations of creative industries mapping to date. It outlines the issues faced, the methodologies applied and the findings produced by representative projects in each iteration. Research on which this article is based was supported by an Australian Research Council Linkage-Project grant administered by Queensland University of Technology in partnership with the Australian Government Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts and the Australian Film Commission.

There is growing evidence of the decentralization of the film and television (FTV) industry in London. The article demonstrates that this decentralization is happening in a counter-intuitive manner: first, it is more prominent for micro production companies, which are most vulnerable to the loss of face-to-face connectivity; second, it occurs not in ‘town centres’ characterized by better services and connections, but in the residential suburbs. The article suggests that the industry is becoming more and more ‘cottage-based’ in a very direct sense – oriented to projects run from the homes of producers. This happens in both ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ ways: the former is typical for affluent ‘home-based’ producers; the latter, for industry’s ‘losers’ and start-ups. The suburban concentrations of FTV production are being explained not only by the specifics of industry organization and the diseconomies of high rents and overcrowding but also by the requirements of particular lifestyles, as well as by simple business failure.

This article is focused on product design in the National Palace Museum (NPM) in Taipei, Taiwan. Because of the rapid rise in product design in recent years, the Taiwanese government has emphasized ‘qualia’, the emotional value or sense of quality goods. The NPM is being used as the flagship to create national policies for the cultural product design industry. The article chooses the most well-known collection at the NPM — the Jadeite Cabbage — as the subject of the research in order to apply the qualia concept. The subjects of this study are products from the NPM's gift shop and online store. Some suggestions for improving product design and administrative measures are provided.

CREATIVE CLUSTERS AND INNOVATION. PUTTING CREATIVITY ON THE MAP, CAROLINE CHAPAIN, PHIL COOKE, LISA DE PROPIS, STEWART MACNEILL AND JUAN MATEOS-GARCIA (2010) London: NESTA Research Report, 55 pp., ISBN 9781848751125 (pbk)

Tasmania, Australia’s southern island state, is known nationally and increasingly internationally for its arts and cultural sector. As is common elsewhere, the extent and nature of the sector has been poorly measured and documented, with its value remaining relatively opaque within a policy making framework. With the onset of COVID-19 in March 2020, serious consequences of this poor categorisation and articulation of the sector’s value emerged, with many creative and cultural workers missing out on crucial financial and other support. This article presents the findings of a study of the impacts of COVID-19 on Tasmania’s cultural and creative sector, including on financial sustainability, health and wellbeing, and future work. Using a combination of survey data and interviews, we problematise the reliance on industry and occupation categories when describing the economic understanding and measurement of the sector, and instead provide an analysis of the sector through an approach based on self-describing work, work identities and perceived contributions. We find that those who were financially supported during the pandemic were able to shift or adapt their creative practice and had a higher sense of health and wellbeing, whereas those who did not receive government or philanthropic funding experienced significant negative impacts on their health and creative practice. These findings reinforce the urgency of embedding new methods for describing and valuing the sector for policy makers, and in turn, the sector’s participants.

In this interview, writer, director, dramaturg, and producer Tom Wright and I examine his experiences with creating LGBTQ + theatre and film during the pandemic. We discuss some of the changes to theatre as an art form, as well as how he negotiates with them. We go on to analyze his two recent offerings: Very Special Guest Star (2021), which had its premiere at the Omnibus Theatre, and I Ain’t Dumb (2022), which premiered in Wright’s hometown, at the Belgrade Theatre Coventry, as part of UK City of Culture celebrations. We conclude by looking at Wright’s first short film ‘Stockholm’ (2021). This interview advances scholarship in two significant respects: first, it offers insights into Wright’s growth as an artist—that is, as a writer, director, and now a filmmaker—and secondly, it illustrates the capacity of theatre and film to explore issues that have remained pressing to the LGBTQ + community, including adoption, mixed-race relationships, and hyphenated identities.

The goal of this article is to analyse the distribution of American movies in Italy in the central part of the twentieth century (1930–1996), using methods derived from both social sciences and quantitative history. For this goal, I will apply Pierre Bourdieu’s ‘serial history’ to the Italian local market, also following Franco Moretti’s quantitative work on literary industries, so as to detect some historical patterns.

In the post-industrial age, the creative industries and their economic contribution have attracted growing attention from scholars and policy-makers alike. Although there has been significant discussion about what industries constitute the creative industries, it has been widely and uncritically accepted that the advertising industry is one of them. However, discussions of the creative industries and their formation have been largely ahistorical. This article addresses this absence by focusing the evolution of the advertising industry in Australia in the 1960s and 1970s. Although advertising agencies increasingly embraced creativity as a defining feature of their operations, it was tempered by the business side of advertising practice. By examining the different images of the advertising industry as well as the tensions between them, this article uses a historical approach to demonstrate that creative industries are neither fixed nor inherently creative.

Utilising adaptations of Richard Pollay’s 1983 Pollay, R. W. 1983. “Measuring the Cultural Values Manifest in Advertising.” Current Issues and Research in Advertising 1: 71–92. [Google Scholar] methodology for measuring the cultural values that are contained in advertising texts this study conducts an interpretive content analysis of 214 TV adverts archived by the Irish Film Institute and funded by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland under the ‘Irish Adverts Project’. Findings show that throughout the decades surveyed the dominant cultural value referenced in these adverts is Enjoyment/Leisure; followed by Success/Status, with the third most prominent cultural value being Modernity/Technology. Given that Ireland in the 1960s was emerging from decades of inward-looking, protectionist policies and was growing in confidence (economically, politically and culturally), advertising appeals that focused on topics such as holidaying overseas, social status and technology align with the cultural changes Ireland was experiencing; although the full picture for people in Ireland in these years is more mixed. The results of the analysis thereby arguably add some credence to the claim that advertising acts a ‘distorted mirror’, reflecting a marketable version of society back to itself.

In the 1980s, the major record labels in the United States and the United Kingdom publicly confronted consumers over the private copying of music onto blank cassette tapes. Industry trade groups, such as the Recording Industry Association of America and the British Phonographic Industry, mounted publicity campaigns combatting this practice of ‘home taping’, and, in addition, took legal action and lobbied governments for new copyright legislation. They condemned the practice as piracy, even though private, non-commercial copying was predominantly legal. In a significant precursor to the digital file-sharing battles of the 1990s and 2000s, fans and musicians widely objected to these attempts at media control, often through highly creative responses. This article examines these anti-home taping campaigns as a historical conjuncture that reveals some of the ways content firms defend themselves against new media technologies, while also illustrating the complexity and diversity that exist within media industries like ‘the recording industry’ that are too often falsely presented as singular, homogenous groups. This analysis raises important questions about media production, labor, and creativity, in particular how the creative work of audiences is culturally discounted and copyright law is used to define creativity in highly restrictive ways.

This paper aims at providing new insights about audiences’ opinions concerning the role of advertising and its relation with the perceived quality of TV channels. It analyses Spanish audience's perception of quality of public service broadcasters TVE1 and La 2 before and after the advertising withdrawal in 2010. The goal is identifying if the advertising removal is perceived as an improvement of the quality of TVE. The first conclusion is that a vast majority of the viewers find the channels more attractive now without any advertising than before having it. In addition, gender and age are not significant variables in order to affect this opinion. But the audience educational level does impact their perception: those less educated have a significantly better opinion about the advertising withdrawal than others who are more educated. Both national public service channels (TVE1 and La 2) have improved significantly their quality perception when comparing 2008 and 2012 surveys. They are the only two channels within the Spanish market to obtain a better quality assessment. In fact, all channels tend to maintain or reduce their quality perception in the 2008–2012 time period.

In response to globalization of traditional manufacturing and the growing significance of a symbolic economy, fashion cities are now formed by different mixings of material, design/creative and symbolic forms of production. The intersection between these elements is particularly evident in the global fashion cities, which have experienced a profound process of deindustrialization and a shift between manufacturing and symbolic economies. This paper explores London’s relationship with fashion through the perspectives of key industry actors. We draw upon 30 semi-structured in-depth interviews undertaken between 2016 and 2018 to explore the interplay between material, creative and symbolic forms of fashion production in the city. Interview material is supported by the analysis of data collected from the Office for National Statistics and the Higher Education Statistics Agency. London’s fashion ecosystem is seen as having strong focus on creativity, artistic values and forms of symbolism, which are however regarded as in tension with a viable fashion design industry, an effective business culture and manufacturing system. The paper contributes to the literature on the fashion’s positioning in urban economies by shedding light on the interaction between production, creative and symbolic elements in a global creative city.

This paper argues for a break from the notion of small cinema as a temporally and geographically located space and reconceptualises it as a socially constructed place. A shadow site that mirrors elite forms of cinema in microcosm and as a locus for communities of practitioners that intersect primarily through project networks. This case study of a long-running 48 Hour Film Challenge in the UK asks how identity formation contributes to a sense of membership within peripheral production communities. The socialising process that confers membership, provides a basis for the development of relationships that cement the interconnectivity of the network. Emphasising fluidity over stability the paper argues that networks of practice are a dominant organising principle. The research draws on a rich mixture of auto-ethnographic reflection, observation and qualitative data gathered over a four-year period. The paper evidences the contribution that a 48 Hour Film Challenge, as a locus for networks of practice, can make to the evolution of a regional creative economy. It attests to the ways in which participation in a filmmaking and screening activity has value for early-career filmmakers through an engagement with their own personal narratives.

The contemporary economy is marked both by the growth in international trade and the increasing importance of the creative industries. However, these activities are dominated by big firms and big cities, spurring a large body of research into creative cities in the last decade. Going against this trend, this paper examines how small creative firms in small cities can successfully export their products. Drawing on survey data from 464 small firms in the creative industries in the county of Rogaland, Norway, it examines how cooperation with partners and active strategies for identifying and absorbing knowledge from these partners affect the firms' ability to sell their products abroad. Firms with extensive collegial linkages, especially those that cooperate with partners in the international artistic community, are particularly successful at exporting. However, cooperation within the national artistic community may have a negative effect on exporting. Furthermore, having strategies for absorbing knowledge from external partners has an independent effect on the ability to export. These findings highlight the need for firms in small cities to develop linkages to the international artistic community, rather than trying to replicate global creative cities at a small scale through relying only or mainly on local cooperation.

Literature describe the creative industries as a combined effort to enhance operations which facilitate innovation, co-working, collaboration and co-creation of cultural, artistic and entertainment value. Some of these initiatives drive change and creativity. We investigate the impact of The Street Theatre as a meeting place where creatives can create and engage with networks. Literature suggests that these creative accelerators contribute to the nurturing of talent, experiences and continued creativity. This paper uses bricolage literature to examine the resources derived from being involved in this creative accelerator. We use the embedded case method as part of our qualitative approach and conducted interviews with all stakeholders involved. Three themes describe the accelerator and its value. The first theme relates to the creative drive that is encouraged and supported. The second refers to the physical and relational network. The third highlights the creative value that is incubated and developed. This research illustrates how a theatre company can act as an accelerator for creatives by providing essential infrastructures to support the development of the networks, cohesion and successful delivery. The contribution can assist policymakers to focus their funding and support initiatives, creative entrepreneurs can have a better understanding of the value proposition of these institutions, and future organisations can benefit from this example.