"The most ambitious, thoughtful and internationally aware assessment to date of the creative economy. Defining creativity as the production of newness in complex, adaptive systems, the authors make the case that together the creative economy, along with other cultural outputs, represent a planet-wide innovation capability which marks an epochal turn in human affairs."
- Ian Hargreaves, CBE, Professor of Digital Economy, Cardiff University
Creativity, new ideas and innovation - and with them the growth of knowledge - have spilled out of the lab, studio and factory into the street, scene, and social media. Now, everyday life is productive, everyone is creative, and new ideas can come from anywhere around the world.
Instead of confining cultural expression to talented artists and expert professionals, this book investigates creative new ideas from everyone. Instead of confining the 'creative industries' to one sector of the economy and one type of productivity, this book extends the idea of creative innovation to everything. Instead of confining the growth of knowledge to wealthy countries or markets, this book looks for it in developing and emergent countries, everywhere.
The productivity of creativity can now be seen as a global phenomenon. It demands a systems-based and dynamic mode of explanation. Creative Economy and Culture pursues the conceptual, historical, practical, critical and educational issues and implications. It looks at conceptual challenges, the forces and dynamics of change, and prospects for the future of creative work at planetary scale.
It is essential reading for upper level students and researchers of the creative and cultural industries across media and cultural studies, communication and sociology.
Industry Reviews
This book explores culture as a mechanism and source of innovation. Using a new analytical lens, it re-examines the value of cultural and creative industries in individual, community and social development. China is entering a new stage of the Creative Economy. Innovation drives industrial restructuring, led by culture and creativity. How can China move towards becoming an innovative nation? The "Three Bigs" and "Three Buts" in this book may release the answers. -- Professor Li Wuwei In the late 1990s some operatives within the UK government discovered an important secret: the creative industries were driving economic growth. In this beautifully written book, Hartley, Wen and Li put a rocket under that argument, fuel it with some highly explosive Cultural Science, and launch it to a planetary scale. The result is a completely new vista on the economics of culture - what it is, how it powers innovation, and how it might best be governed. -- Jason Potts The most ambitious, thoughtful and internationally aware assessment to date of the creative economy. Defining creativity as the production of newness in complex, adaptive systems, the authors make the case that together the creative economy, along with other cultural outputs, represent a planet-wide innovation capability which marks an epochal turn in human affairs. -- Ian Hargreaves Creative Economy and Culture aims to develop a new conception of creative industries, a term largely associated with the aggregated economic activity of artists... The authors' very distributed understanding of creativity raises interesting questions, allows for the study of large-scale phenomena, and leaves open questions of precarity and devalued expertise. Hartley, Wen, and Li provide thought-provoking ideas about the nature of creativity that resonate in several ways with ongoing discussions in technical and professional communication. -- Stephen Carradini, North Carolina State University
