Redefining ‘Industry’: Young People and Cultural Policy in Australia

Abstract

This article considers the place of youth arts and cultures in the cultural industries approach to cultural policy. It argues that the ‘covert economic overlay’ (Brokensha, 1996: 101) of the Australian National Culture–Leisure Industry Statistical Framework privileges certain processes in a ‘government convenient’ model of industry inputs and outcomes, and that the assumptions of this model are challenged by youth-specific and community-based modes of production. Furthermore, it argues that the philosophies and practices of contemporary youth-specific arts organisations have the potential to redefine ‘culture industry’ and contribute to a ‘coherent new paradigm’ of cultural policy (UNESCO, 1995: 232). This paper makes these arguments by examining the place of youth arts and cultures in the existing environment of cultural industrialisation, by considering recent government policy responses to young people's cultural activity and by addressing long-term policy issues for the support of young people and cultural development.