Creative Industry: Fact or Fiction?

Abstract

In the late 1990's there was a growing realisation that for many 'post industrial' economies and especially the UK, not only had they become dominated by traditional 'service' businesses (banking, finance, retail, logistics, law and other professional service firms) but that the most rapidly growing group of these 'knowledge based' firms were in an ill defined sector that depended on creativity for their source of competitive advantage such as fashion, design, architecture, advertising and PR, books, music, film and TV production, theatre, online communities, video games, museum and gallery exhibitions and other print and screen based media. Many of these firms were young and rapidly growing, there were some large scale businesses in media and advertising but the majority stayed small and had a high attrition rate. In the UK they represented about 8% of GDP but crucially were growing at twice the rate of the economy as a whole. From a policy point of view they attracted a lot of interest - was this the holy grail of the future 'knowledge economy'? Now nearly 10 years on from the UK's declaration of 'cool Britannia' under Tony Blair's New Labour project, it is worth reflecting on what we really know about the 'Creative Industries and Creative Business'. Are they fact or fiction? and what might be the implications for education in the arts and management