Francophone perspectives on creative industries and the creative economy

Abstract

Research on the socioeconomics of culture, the collaborative Web and the creative economy have converged today in an ideological construct: the notions of creative industries and the creative economy, at least as they are presented by national and supranational institutions and experts. Most of these themes were introduced into Francophone research through Anglophone works. In this regard, the distinction between various forms of critical research on the one hand and non-critical research on the other seems much more fundamental. As a consequence, we propose to take the notion of creative industries seriously, deviating from the definitions given by experts so as to build a critical theory of creative industries that reflects the dynamics of the economy of symbolic goods.