Abstract

This is a short report on work in progress. It centres on the idea of ‘creativity’, which is of presently of key importance for current UK government thinking about the ‘creative economy’. ‘Creativity’, I shall argue, has established itself as a hegemonic term in an increasingly elaborated framework of policy ideas. Although my focus is on the UK, we are addressing a body of thought that is now increasingly international in scope. The ideas in question are influential and set the terms for thought and action across a number of policy fields. Not for nothing has David Puttnam, a key ‘New’ Labour figure, said that ‘the importance of the creative industries was quickly enshrined as an article of faith’. An analysis of New Labour discourse reveals an underlying credo – itself a fit subject for the critique of ideology. A concerted effort is under way to shape a wide range of working practices by invoking creativity and innovation. These attributes are supposed to make our societies and economies grow in a fiercely competitive world. At present, official thinking circulates in a dominant culture of largely uncritical acceptance. Alongside the elaboration of the doctrine of creativity by the government policy apparatus is a specialist discourse of academic analysis. If it is now fashionable to see the creative economy as pivotal to the wider economy, this view is certainly not limited to policy makers. As creativity has moved centre stage, it has also become extraordinarily banal. The mark of its present hegemony is that it is also increasingly ubiquitous. ‘British creativity’, for instance, ensures market success for Thornton’s, the chocolate manufacturers, so their advertising tells us. Not on its own, to be sure: cocoa and sugar are added ingredients. In a district nearby to mine in Glasgow, there is a ‘creative hairdresser’. We who stay without must ponder what wondrous transformations occur under the stylists’ hands. My inbox is regularly assaulted by spam offering courses to explore my creativity (and temptingly, to develop my ludic qualities) in New York City and various European locations. So far I have managed to resist. Such examples could easily be multiplied.

Highlights

  • This is a brief exploratory essay that centres on the idea of ‘creativity’ and its signal importance for the workings of what is in the United Kingdom increasingly called the ‘creative economy’

  • The central contention is that from being a discourse that itself emerged from an earlier discourse on the cultural industries, ‘creativity’ has subsequently been elaborated to become a virtual doctrine, and is uncritically reproduced across government reports and the wider policy community, including most academics

  • In the UK, the discourse of creativity has been developed by government over the past decade and has become an increasingly elaborated doctrine of the ‘creative economy’

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Summary

Introduction

This is a brief exploratory essay that centres on the idea of ‘creativity’ and its signal importance for the workings of what is in the United Kingdom increasingly called the ‘creative economy’. I shall show how the idea of creativity has been elaborated in current policy discourse. At the heart of my argument is the proposition that ‘creativity’ has established itself as a hegemonic term in an increasingly elaborated framework of ideas that is so taken for granted that it is a mark of insanity - or even worse, political irrelevance - to question its assumptions. I wish to demonstrate the extent to which the ideas in question are influential and set the terms for thought and action across a number of policy fields. There is a dominant culture of uncritical acceptance This is limited not just to policy discourse. At the same time as creativity becomes more and more fashioned into a doctrine, it is becoming extraordinarily banal While it enjoys hegemony, it is increasingly ubiquitous.

The creative economy as a discourse
The Creative Economy Programme
Findings
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