Presentation to 3rd China Trade in Services Congress, Beijing, China, 1-3 June, 2011

1. Culture and Creative Industries in
Australia
Terry Flew, ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and
Innovation, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia
Presentation to 3rd China Trade in Services Congress, Beijing, China,
June 1-3, 2011

2. Origins of Australian Creative Industries in
1990s Creative Nation cultural policy
• This cultural policy is also an economic policy. Culture
creates wealth ... [and] adds value, it makes an essential
contribution to innovation, marketing and design. It is a
badge of our industry. The level of our creativity
substantially determines our ability to adapt to new
economic imperatives. It is a valuable export in itself and
an essential accompaniment to the export of other
commodities. It attracts tourism and students. It is
essential to our economic success. (Creative Nation,
1994)

3. Creative Industries Sectors
1. Advertising, Graphic Design and Marketing;
2. Architecture, Visual Arts and Design;
3. Film, Television and Entertainment Software;
4. Music Composition and Publishing;
5. Performing Arts;
6. Writing, Publishing and Print Media.

4. Creative Trident
• Specialist creatives
(cultural occupation/
cultural industry
• Embedded creatives
(cultural occupation/
non-cultural industry
• Support activities
(non-cultural
occupation/cultural
industry
4

5. Australian creative workforce - using
creative trident
Source: Higgs, Cunningham and Pagan 2007.
5

6. Sectoral composition- employment
Source: Higgs, Cunningham and Pagan 2007 6

7. Value of Australian CIs -
using creative trident
Source: Higgs, Cunningham and Pagan 2007.
7

8. Australian CIs as industry share, 2006

9. CI growth by sector, Australia, 1996-2007

10. Australia’s GDP Growth, 1995-2010
!

11. Australia’s terms of trade, 1995-2010
!

12. Internet and digital media technologies
Mass
communica+ons
media
Convergent
social
media
(21st
(20th
century)
century)
Media
Large-­‐scale;
high
barriers
to
Internet
drama,cally
reduces
distribu,on
entry
barriers
to
entry
Media
Complex
division
of
labour;
Easy-­‐to-­‐use
Web
2.0
produc,on
media
content
gatekeepers;
technologies;
mul,-­‐skilling;
small
professional
ideologies
collabora,ve
teams
Media
power
One
way
communica,ons
flow
Greater
empowerment
of
users/
audiences
Media
content
Tendency
towards
‘Long
tail’
economics;
de-­‐
standardised
mass
appeal
massifica,on
and
segmenta,on
content
to
maximise
audience
of
media
content
markets
share
Producer/ Impersonal,
anonymous
and
Poten,al
to
be
more
personalised
consumer
commodi,sed
(audiences
as
and
user-­‐driven
(user
created
rela,onship
target
mass
market)
content
–
UCC)

13. The new cultural policy
• Governments have searched for ways to surf the wave of
the new information economy, looking to the creative
industries broadly defined as sources of innovation to
feed economic growth and employment creation at both
national and local levels … [enabling] the arts [to] be
seen as part of a wider and more dynamic sphere of
economic activity, with links through to the information
and knowledge economies, fostering creativity,
embracing new technologies and feeding innovation
(David Throsby, 2008).