creative industry

TECHNOLOGY AND CREATIVE INDUSTRIES

BY SHILLA FLORA .M. BAPRM 42669 (7^th July)

Creative industries refer to a range of economic activities which are concerned with the generation or exploitation of knowledge and information. Creative industries comprises of various things like music, radio, television, films, publishing, art, architecture etc. Creative industries are seen to have become increasingly important for the economic well being, proponents suggesting that human creativity is the ultimate economic resource.

The industries of the 21st century will depend on the generation of knowledge through creativity and innovation.

The Creative Industries are regarded as one of the most promising fields of economic activity in highly developed economies, having a great potential to contribute to wealth and job creation. Their activities rest upon individual creativity, skill and talent, i.e. factors of production for which high-income countries have a comparative advantage. In contrast to most other industries, their main output is intellectual property rather than material goods or immediately consumed services. Demand for such immaterial output, which is often tailored to the specific requirements and preferences of individual users, is likely to increase with growing per-capita income. Being a cross-sectional industry which serves a large number of other sectors as well as public organizations and consumers, the creative industries profit from a diversified mix of customers and may stimulate growth in a variety of other sectors by providing creative inputs.

Besides the contribution to growth and employment, another key interest in research and policy making is the role of the Creative Industries for an economy’s innovation performance.

We assume that this role is twofold. On the one hand, the Creative Industries may develop and introduce innovations as part of their business activities, thus directly contributing to an economy’s innovative output. Such innovations include new products and services offered to their customers (product innovation) as well as new technologies, procedures and routines within their business that raise efficiency or quality of their output (process innovation). An example for product innovation may be a new marketing approach offered by an advertising company which has not been used by this company before. On the other hand, the Creative

Industries support innovation in other industries through creative inputs. These inputs can either be downstream, i.e. creativity produced in the Creative Industries is used by customers in their innovative efforts, or upstream, i.e. the Creative Industries demand innovative inputs from their suppliers (e.g. technology producers). Creative inputs need not necessarily coincide with the Creative Industries’ own product innovations but may also relate to standard (i.e. non-innovative) activities of creative enterprises.

Creative industries are those companies or organizations which produce or use knowledge and also included are those which use advanced scientific knowledge.

For example media, arts and design organizations and universities. The term creative industries also overlap with cultural industries and media industries. These include advertising, television, radio, newspapers, internet publishing, magazines, book publishing, film and theatres. These have attracted the attention of the government in developed societies because of the earnings that they generate.

Technology can bring about changes in creative industries. The change is in the form of “digital convergence”, which can be of three types: technological convergence (a shift in patterns of ownership of media, such as film, television, music and games), media convergence (allowing users to consume different media at the same time using a single personal computer) and access convergence (all production and distribution Of media and services are being reengineered to work on a distributed network platform; i.e., everything is becoming available or doable on the Internet)

Digitization creates a number of new possibilities for distribution. With digital formats, reproduction is free of degradation and incurs no extra cost per item. This opens up the possibilities for infinite expansion of markets and reduces or eliminates the need to warehouse or store products. In a digital age, however, it is potentially possible for producers and consumers to be in direct contact, thereby bypassing the control of the gatekeepers of the distribution system, which are economically powerful.