Discourse, justification and critique: towards a legitimate digital copyright regime?

Digitization and the internet have posed an acute economic challenge to rights holders in the cultural industries. Faced with a threat to their form of capital accumulation from copyright infringement, rights holders have used discourse strategically in order to try and legitimate and strengthen their position in the digital copyright debate with governments and media users. In so doing, they have appealed to general justificatory principles – about what is good, right, and just – that provide some scope for opposition and critique, as other groups contest their interpretation of these principles and the evidence used to support them. In this article, we address the relative lack of academic attention paid to the role of discourse in copyright debates by analysing user-directed marketing campaigns and submissions to UK government policy consultations. We show how legitimacy claims are justified and critiqued, and conclude that amid these debates rests some hope of achieving a more legitimate policy resolution to the copyright wars – or at least the possibility of beginning a more constructive dialogue

Money, (Co)Production and Power in Digital

This article discusses the contribution of critical political economy approaches to digital journalism studies and argues that these offer important correctives to celebratory perspectives. The first part offers a review and critique of influential claims arising from self-styled new studies of convergence culture, media and creative industries. The second part discusses the contribution of critical political economy in examining digital journalism and responding to celebrant claims. The final part reflects on problems of restrictive normativity and other limitations within media political economy perspectives and considers ways in which challenges might be addressed by more synthesising approaches. The paper proposes developing radical pluralist, media systems and comparative analysis, and advocates drawing on strengths in both political economy and culturalist traditions to map and evaluate practices across all sectors of digital journalism

Competitiveness, Creativity, and Place-Based Development

This paper seeks to make a link between the concepts of competitiveness and the `creative class' at a place-based level. The paper explores the relationship between creativity and competitiveness at the local level across the UK using a rural ^ urban framework. A growing competitiveness divide between rural and urban areas is found. Also, the creative class is found to be more evenly distributed than might be anticipated a priori. In conclusion, we argue that city-region approaches to economic development are having a detrimental impact on the competitiveness of rural regions

Parents, pre-schoolers and learning with technology at home : some implications for policy

Schemes that seek to ensure that children have access to technology at home have, so far, been aimed at children over the age of 8. However, there is likely to be an increasing policy interest in extending similar schemes to pre-school children given widespread commitment to the value of early intervention in children's education and family life. We draw on three research studies conducted by the authors to discuss the range of technologies that children encounter at home, the different forms their learning takes and family support for learning. We use these findings to provide starting points for considering the implementation of similar schemes for pre-school children and their parents in the future, identifying several questions to consider when developing policy on home access to technology for pre-schoolers: which technologies are most appropriate? Will access to technology at home lead to increased use? What roles do parents play in supporting learning? Which forms of learning are most likely to be promoted

Growing design? Challenges and constraints facing design consultancies in three English city-regions

There is some debate as to whether creative industries can thrive in second-tier industrial city-regions, as well as in leading global cities. This paper uses the results of firm interviews with design consultancies to examine their experiences in three industrial cities in the UK: Manchester; Newcastle and Birmingham. It highlights the major constraints on growth in each city and it emphasises the quantity and quality of demand, and the availability of skilled labour. It considers the effects of design and cultural policy initiatives and finds that most measures are perceived to have had only ambiguous and minor supportive impacts