The Cultural Economy Moment: Reading Terry Flew’s Article

Terry Flew (2009). The Cultural Economy Moment? Cultural Science, Vol 2, No 1.

Terry is charting an expanded course for research in cultural economics.  (If I’m understanding correctly) His main points are:

There is no longer an effective way to separate culture from economic activity, especially in terms of “the information and knowledge economies, fostering creativity, embracing new technologies, and feeding innovation’ (Throsby, 2008: 229).  Most current discussions of economics and culture fail to account for this view in a way that moves research forward in a productive way.

He recommends 4 areas for collaborative interdisciplinary research to develop the discussion:

  1. Value of information – . . . “who has it, how it is distributed, how it is produced, and how it is used”.
  2. Value of networks – Networks are a primary means of coordinating behavior (along with hierarchies and markets) and also of coordinating ideas.
  3. Motivations for participation and collaboration in online social networks – . . . “an information-driven economy with digital technologies at its core places a premium upon non-market activities with non-pecuniary motivations, as it values a non-proprietorial approach to information as a metapublic good, with many implications for intellectual property, labour markets, the formation and maintenance of networks etc.”
  4. The relationship of culture to the wider economy –  “many economists and policy makers have not only failed to adequately register the rise and growth of the creative industries, but have failed to understand their changing relationship to economy and society”.

In summing up Flew says:

there is much potential for collaboration but . . . some serious rethinking has to be done in relation to the one-dimensional caricature of economic discourse that is found in many influential analyses in the field.

Reference

Throsby, David (2008) ‘Modeling the Cultural Industries’, International Journal of Cultural Policy 14(3), pp. 217-232.