My presentation to the Beijing Academy of Science and Technology (BJAST), 11 October 2012

1. Culture, Technology and the City
Presentation to Beijing Research Centre for
Science of Science,
Beijing Academy of Science and Technology,
11 October 2012
Professor Terry Flew, Journalism, Media and
Communications, Creative Industries
Faculty, Queensland University of Technology,
Brisbane, Australia (t.flew@qut.edu.au)

2. 21 st Century: the Century of Cities
• No. of people living in cities exceeded those living
outside for first time in human history in 2007
• 70% of world‟s population will live in cities by 2030
• Urban populations of developing world 4x larger than the
developed nations
• World cities: centres of
finance, industry, information, logistics and creative
industries

3. Cities and globalisation
• Historically
– Cosmopolitan places with diverse populations
– Cities exert considerable influence on the regions
surrounding them
– Cities exist within a “global system of cities” – hubs in
global networks
• Rise of the Internet has not diminished the importance of
cities – informational cities in global space of flows
(Manuel Castells)

4. There appears little evidence to support the claim
that cities are becoming less important in an
economy marked by increasing geographical
dispersal … *they+ assert, one way or another, the
powers of agglomeration, proximity, and density,
now perhaps less significant for the production of
mass manufactures than for the production of
knowledge, information and innovation, as well as
specialized inputs … in terms of the territorial base
of the economy, there can be no question that the
city remains the economic motor of postindustrial
society (Amin, 2003: 120).

5. Figure 5.1
Dynamics of Local and Global Relational Patterns
Global Global
Nation Nation
City City
Traditional hierarchical pattern New emergent relational pattern
Source: Isar et. al., 2012: 2.

6. Social shaping of technology
• need to analyse „the socio-economic patterns embedded
in both the content of technologies and the processes of
innovation‟ (Williams & Edge 1996).
• „Technological development is constrained by cultural
norms originating in economics, ideology, religion, and
tradition‟ (Andrew Feenberg)
• „technologies are … processes that structure the world in
particular ways … we should not see technology and the
social as separate domains‟ (David Sholle)

7. ‘A technology such as the computer is a
product of social processes from the
beginning. The particular construction of
knowledge in institutions of science and
engineering, the economic interests of
companies, the cultural patterns of
consumption, the spatial arrangements of
communities and nations, the political
motives of government policies are
inscribed into the technology from the very
beginning’ (Sholle, 2002: 7).

8. Culture and Technology; three levels of
engagement
Culture Technology
Common sense The arts Devices
level
Level of social Everyday life Communication practices
practice
Structural level Language and Ways of interpreting and acting
governing cultural upon the world
norms
• Need to get past the “two cultures‟ of
the humanities, arts and social
sciences (HASS), and science,
engineering, technology and maths
(STEM) – C.P. Snow, “The Two
Cultures” (1959)

9. Ways the arts can shape innovation
1. Cultural innovation
2. Rich skills development
3. Creation of new knowledge
4. Commercial returns
5. Creative industries
6. Innovation within institutions and organisations –
innovation systems

10. Culture and cultural studies
• “Culture is the description of a particular way of life,
which expresses certain meanings and values not only in
art and learning but also in institutions and ordinary
behavior … Such analysis will … include analysis of
elements in the way of life that to followers of the other
definitions are not „culture‟ at all; the organization of
production, the structure of the family, the structure of
institutions which express or govern social relationships,
the characteristic forms through which members of the
society communicate” (Raymond Williams, The long
Revolution, 1965: 57–58).

11. Structures of culture
Time Event Technological Cultural/communic
development ations practice
18th-20th centuries Mass literacy Print media Books, newspapers,
(reading and magazines
writing)
20th century (esp. Common global Broadcasting Radio and
1950-2000) media events television – one-to-
many
communication
21st century Global communities Internet and digital Multiliteracies –
of content media convergence one-to-one to
creators/distributor many-to-many
s – highly communication
decentralised

12. Cities and creative industries
• „Hard‟ and „soft‟ infrastructure
• Localisation economics (clustering)
• Urbanisation economics (diversity)
• Global city economics (continuous innovation)
Type of city Form of Type of innovation Sustainability over
competitive time
advantage
Industrial city Localisation/cluster Incremental Vulnerable to
ing innovation global demand
shifts (low)
Large urban centre Density/diversity Product innovation Vulnerable to poor
governance
(middle)
Global city Centre of global Radical product May become “dual
decision-making innovation cities” (high)

13. New York as a global creative city
Economists often talk of the agglomeration of labour
pools, firms, suppliers, and resources as producing an ensuing social
environment where those involved in these different sectors engage each
other in informal ways … But this informal social life that economists often
hail as a successful by-product (what they call a positive spillover or
externality) of an economic cluster is actually the central force, the raison
d’être, for art and culture.
The cultural economy is most efficient in the informal social realm and social
dynamics underlie the economic system of cultural production. Creativity
would not exist as successfully or efficiently without its social world –- the
social is not the by-product –- it is the decisive mechanism by which cultural
products and cultural producers are generated, evaluated and sent to the
market (Elizabeth Currid, The Warhol Economy, 2007: 4 – emphasis added).

14. Social network markets
• High consumer productivity
• Fast flows of information and new knowledge
• Population diversity
• High levels of skills and education
• Willingness to adapt to change and adopt new ideas
• „Because of inherent novelty and uncertainty, decisions
both to produce and to consume are determined by the
choice of others in a social network‟ (Potts et. al., 2008:
169).

15. Social network markets in the creative
industries
• “The CIs rely, to a greater extent than other socio-
economic activity, on word of mouth, taste, cultures, and
popularity, such that individual choices are dominated by
information feedback over social networks rather than
innate preferences and price signals … other people‟s
preferences have commodity status over a social
network because novelty by definition carries uncertainty
and other people‟s choices, therefore, carry information”
Potts et. al., 2008: 170.

16. Urban Policy and Innovation
• Untraded interdependencies (Michael Storper):
conventions, informal rules, and habits that coordinate
economic actors under conditions of uncertainty – region-
specific assets
• Soft infrastructure (Charles Landry) : associative structures
and social networks, connections and human interactions that
link individuals and institutions
• Features of successful creative clusters (DePropris and
Hypponen): „geographical proximity, face-to-face
collaborations, co-location of specialized activities, low
transaction costs, thick networks of social business
activities, high levels of competence and
specialization, innovation, and pools of skilled labour‟.

17. Problems with cluster theories
• Too many clusters
• Top-down approach
• Generic solutions
• Risks of „groupthink‟
• Need for external catalyst of consumer demand
• Local or global markets?
• Too producer-driven?

18. Creative Cities
The concept of a ‘creative city’ describes an urban complex where
cultural activities of various sorts are an integral component of the
city’s economic and social functioning. Such cities tend to be built
upon a strong social and cultural infrastructure; to have relatively high
concentrations of creative employment; and to be attractive to inward
investment because of their well-established arts and cultural facilities
(Throsby, 2010: 139).
At its best … a creative city strategy will pay attention to cultural
infrastructure, local cultural participation and involvement, the
development of a flourishing and dynamic creative arts sector,
community-oriented heritage conservation, and support for wider
creative industries that are fully integrated into the local economy
(Throsby, 2010: 140).

19. Problems with creative cities models
• Generic urban cultural policy
• Are the beneficiaries artists or urban professionals?
• Amenities-based growth models ignore global economic
dynamics
• Prosperity of cities drives provision of urban amenities,
not vice versa
• Creative cities often socially divided cities

20. Bringing together creative clusters and
creative cities approaches
Social network markets
CREATIVE CREATIVE
CLUSTERS CITIES
(PRODUCTION- (CONSUMPTION-
BASED) BASED)