Page 58 - Communication Cultural and Media Studies The Key Concepts

CREATIVE INDUSTRIES

CREATIVE INDUSTRIES

The creative industries are those that take traditional creative talents in
design, performance, production and writing, and combine these with
media production and distribution techniques (for scale) and new
interactive technologies (for customisation) in order to create and
distribute creative content throughout the service sector of the new
economy. The mode of production is ‘Hollywood’ not ‘Detroit’ –
project-based and innovative, rather than industrial and standardised. It
is characterised by networks and partnerships. Consumers have given
way to users – interactive partners in further development of the
creative product.
The creative industries provide content products for the new
knowledge economy. It is here that the major social and consumer
impact of newinteractive media technologies is felt, since people are
much more interested in content than in technologies as such. The
appeal lies in the story, sight, song or speech, not in the carrier
mechanism. This is increasingly true where the potential for
distribution of creative content via the Internet and other new
interactive communication forms is being realised. In addition,
audiences increasingly expect high-tech content, interactivity and
customisation in traditional arts, media and entertainment industries.
In this context, creative content is not confined to leisure and
entertainment products, but extends to commercial enterprises in
general. As the newinteractive media technologies evolve from b2b to
b2c applications, creative content will be the central requirement,
whether the application is for a bank, an educational institution or an
entertainment provider, or whether the user is in ‘sit up’ or ‘sit back’
mode.
Previously distinct industries have rapidly integrated. Advances in
technology and increases in network performance have created a
fertile environment for the incubation and growth of new sectors and
the opportunity for existing disciplines to find newcommercial
applications. For instance, animation and creative writing both found
newapplication in the development of computer games, which
themselves have evolved from one-person to interactive games, with
multiple players, via the Internet.
The stimulation of the ‘intangible’ sector relies more than ever on
creativity, flair and risk-taking imagination – on creative enterprises
feeding constantly updated newcontent into technologically advanced
knowledge-based industries. But content providers no longer need to

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