Mobile Media and the Emergent Creative Economy

Sydney.
The second keynote speaker this morning at Mobile Media 2007 is my colleague Stuart Cunningham. He begins by highlighting new approaches to the study of economics which are now being applied to the creative industries as an emergent innovative heart of the services sector. In the process, the creative industries are setting the template which other, more mainstream industries will follow. This enables an evolutionary growth process which embeds new and emergent technologies into the economy.

What such studies require is an understanding of economic structures as evolving, not static, and this cannot be measured easily through conventional means; the creative industries and the rest of the economy are linked in a dynamic relationship, and Stuart outlines four models for an understanding of this relationship (negative, neutral, positive, and emergent).

The first model assumes a negative relationship, and here, creative or cultural industries as 'special industries' are assumed to consume more resources than they produce; what they do produce are merit or public goods, and public policy providing subsidies must be deployed to support such industries. This is a model based on cultural economics, and is usually applied to the 'arts' component of the creative industries, it addresses non-market valuation and systemic market failure.

The second model poses the creative industries as simply another industry; the creative industries are assumed to have a neutral economic impact that is on par with other sectors. This model best fits established and 'mature' media industries (which currently experience static growth or relative decline), whose special features are addressed subject to market competitive conditions.

The third model sees the creative industries as inputs into the broader economy, and assumes a positive relationship between growth in this field and in the wider economy; here, creative industries are posited in a situation similar to that of agriculture, manufacturing, and ICT industries in previous eras. Creative industries are either causally involved in the growth of the economy, or their growth is proportionally or overproportionally boosted by an overall growth in the economy. Policy intervention must invest in conditions for economic growth, rather than subsidise to compensate for market failure, and must support especially prototypical design and the development and deployment of new technologies and media.

Finally, the fourth model characterises the creative industries not in the first place as an industry sector, but more importantly as an element of the innovation system of the economy. Here, creative industries are seen as analogous to science, education, and technology sectors: as a mechanism of all industries which explores new innovative possibilities Innovation policy must therefore be geared as mich to the creative industries as to the conventional science, education, and technology sectors. They provide a 'switching yard' between social and commercial, between emergent and established activities.

Growth in the creative industries is predicated on rising affluence and a shift of expenditure towards leisure activities, it is supported by the growth of ICTs. Growth is supported by social innovation and 'social network markets'; mobile media have been at the forefront of this especially also in the field of technology and service design - user-led innovation is particularly important here, too. This provides a classic instance of creative destruction, and offers a key challenge to established media organisations.

In this context, complex social networks often play a more important coordination role than traditional market signals; consumer choice (to both produce and consume) in creative industries is governed largely by the choices of others, not only by market competition. The creative industries thus are a crucible for new and emergent markets which arise from new technologies and remain at the complex borderland between social networks and established markets.

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