A Critique of Definitions of the Cultural and Creative Industries in Public Policy

The article critiques official notions of creative industries with reference to definitions of both culture and creativity. The knowledge economy-based concept of creative industries, it is maintained, has no specific cultural content and ignores the distinctive attributes of both cultural creativity and cultural products. As such it overrides important public good arguments for state support of culture, subsuming the cultural sector and cultural objectives within an economic agenda to which it is ill-suited. We argue against this turn in public policy and for a cultural policy that views its object as all forms of cultural production, both industrial and artisan. Finally we question the longer term motives and consequences for cultural policy of the creative industries agenda.