Neoliberalism, Digital Communication Technologies and the Cultural and Creative Industries

Authors

  • Kelechi Chijioke Samuel School of Media Communication, Pan-Atlantic University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21467/ajss.6.1.96-108

Abstract

This article examines the use of internet-based media platforms for marketing communication among fashion designers as a manifestation of globalization and neoliberal free trade. It highlights some features of neoliberalism, sub-themes of the cultural and creative industries concept, and some impact of using digital media technologies, and argues that there is nexus between these three concepts. It notes that neoliberal globalization has promoted free markets and facilitated the disannulment of barriers which previously excluded many from trading freely. The findings suggest there are inherent economic benefits as well as precarious conditions associated with the use of digital marketing platforms. These conditions, some of which subvert the individuals’ rewards from using their talent, are consistent with the rise of precarious work under neoliberal capitalism. It recommends that cultural producers should seek ways of maximizing the benefits in using these media platforms while minimizing the burdens and precarious conditions.

Keywords:

Neoliberalism, digital technologies, cultural and creative industries, intellectual property

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Aaker, D.A. (2014). Aaker on branding: 20 principles that drive success. New York: Morgan James Publishing.

Abbasi, M., Vassilopoulou, P., & Stergioulas, L. (2017). Technology roadmap for the creative industries. Creative Industries Journal, 10(1), 40 – 58. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1080/17510694.2016.1247627.

Adorno, T., & Horkheimer, M. (1944). The culture industry: Enlightenment as mass deception. Retrieved from http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/adorno/1944/culture-industry.htm.

Adorno, T., & Horkheimer, M. (1947). Dialectic of enlightenment. In G.S. Noerr (Ed.) Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical fragments. (2002) Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Arvidsson, A., Malossi, G., & Naro, S. (2010, July). Passionate work? Labour conditions in the Milan fashion industry. Journal of Cultural Research, 14(3), 295 – 309. Doi: 10.1080/14797581003791503.

Banks, M. (2007). The politics of cultural work. Basingstoke: Macmillan.

Bathelt, H., Malmberg, A., & Maskell, P. (2004). Clusters and knowledge: Local buzz, global pipelines and the process of knowledge creation. Progress in Human Geography, 28(1), 31-56.

Bourdieu, P. (1993). The field of cultural production: Essays on art and literature. New York: Columbia University Press.

Broumas, A. (2017). The ontology of the intellectual commons. International Journal of Communication, 11, 1507- 1527. Retrieved from http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/6347/1991.

Castells, M. (2000). The Rise of the Network Society. (2nd ed.). Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.

Castells, M. (Ed.). (2004). The network society. A cross-cultural perspective. Cheltenham, UK; Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar.

Caves, R.E. (2000). Creative Industries: Contracts between Art and Commerce. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Chambers, J. (2017, Jan. 16). Economic prosperity in the digital age. Retrieved from Project Syndicate website: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/us-needs-digitization-strategy-by-john-chambers-2017-01

Cohen, N.S. (2012). Cultural work as site of struggle: Freelancers and exploitation. Triple C, 10(2), 141 -155. doi:https:doi.org/10.31269/triplec.v10i2.384. Retrieved from http://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/384

Cohn, J.A. (2013). Postfeminist technologies: Digital media and the cultural industries of choice (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles). Retrieved from http://escholarship.org/uc/item/3tg184z1.

de Peuter, G. (2014). Beyond the model worker: surveying a creative precariat. Culture Unbound. 6, 263 -284. Retrieved from http://www.cultureunbound.ep.liu.se

Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). (1998). Creative industries mapping document 1998, London: DCMS. Retrieved from webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.culture.gov.uk/reference_library/publication/4740.aspx

Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). (2001). Creative industries mapping document 2001. London: DCMS. Retrieved from https://static.a-n.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/DCMS-Creative-Industries-Mapping-Document-2001.pdf

Florida, R. (2012). The rise of the creative class-revisited: 10th anniversary edition. New York City: Basic Books.

Galloway, S., & Dunlop, S. (2007). A critique of definitions of the cultural and creative industries in public policy. International Journal of Cultural Policy, 13(1), 17-31.

Garnham, N. (1987). Concepts of culture – public policy and the cultural industries, Cultural Studies, 1(1), 23-37.

Gill, R. (2007). Techno-bohemians or the new cybertariat? New media work in Amsterdam a decade after the web, Network Notebooks. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures.

Gill, R. (2010). Life is a pitch: Managing the self in new media work. In M. Deuze (Ed.), Managing media work (pp. 249 -262). London: Sage.

Gill, R., & Pratt, A. C. (2008). In the social factory? Immaterial labour, precariousness and cultural work. Theory, Culture & Society, 25(7-8), 1–30.

Habermas, J. (1989). The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Hardt, M., & Negri, A. (2000). Empire. Cambridge: Harvard University Press

Harvey, D. (2007). A brief history of neoliberalism (1st ed.). Oxford University Press: USA

Hesmondhalgh, D. (2002). The cultural industries. London; Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Hesmondhalgh, D. (2007)). The cultural industries. (2nd ed.). London; Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Kalleberg, A. (2009). Precarious work, insecure workers: employment relations in transition. American Sociological Review, 74(1), 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1177/000312240907400101.

Kalleberg, A.L & Hewison, K. (2012). Precarious work and the challenge for Asia. American Behavioral Scientist, 57(3), 271 –288. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764212466238.

Kotler, P. (1980). Marketing management: Analysis, planning and control. (4th ed.) Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall International.

Lee, D. (2013). Creative labour in the cultural industries. Sociopedia.isa. doi: 10.1177/205684601181

Li, F. (2018). The digital transformation of business models in the creative industries: A holistic framework and emerging trends. Technovation. doi: 10.1016/j.technovation.2017.12.004. Retrieved from http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/18730

Lovink, G., & Rossiter, N. (Eds.) (2007). My creativity reader: A critique of creative industries. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures.

Marshall, M. N. (1996). Sampling for qualitative research. Family Practice, 13(6), 522-525. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/fampra/13.6.522

McRobbie, A. (2002). From Holloway to Hollywood: Happiness at Work in the New Cultural Economy? In P. du Gay & M. Pryke (Eds.) Cultural economy: Cultural analysis and commercial life, (pp. 97-114). London: Sage

Merges, R. P. (2004). A new dynamism in the public domain. University of Chicago Law Review, 71(1), 183-203. Retrieved from https://schorlarship.law.berkeley.edu/facpubs

Miège, B. (1989). The capitalization of cultural production. New York: International General

Negri, A. (1989). The politics of subversion: A manifesto for the twenty-first century. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Neilson, B., & Rossiter, N. (2005). From precarity to precariousness and back again: Labour, life and unstable networks. The Fibreculture Journal, 5. Retrieved from http://five.journal.fibreculture.org/fcj-022-from-precarity-to-precariousness-and-back-again-labour-life-and-unstable-networks/

Oakley, K. (2006). Include us out: Economic development and social policy in the creative industries. Cultural Trends, 15(4), 255-273.

Oakley, K. (2009). Art works – cultural labour markets: A literature review. Creativity Culture and Education Series. Retrieved from www.creativitycultureeducation.org/research-impact/literature-reviews/

Patton, M.Q., & Cochran, M. (2002). A guide to using qualitative research methodology. Paris: Medicin Sans Frontieres.

Peck, J. (2005). Struggling with the Creative Class. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 29(4), 740-770. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2427.2005.00620.x

Portes, A. (1997). Neoliberalism and the sociology of development: Emerging trends and unanticipated facts. Population and Development Review, 23(2), 229-259. doi:10.2307/2137545

Pratt, A. C. (2006). Cultural industries and public policy: An oxymoron? International Journal of Cultural Policy, 11(1), 31-44. Retrieved from https://doi.org/1080/10286630500067739

Pratt, A.C. (2000). New media, the new economy and new spaces. Geoforum, 31(4), 425-436. Doi: 10.1016/S0016-7185(00)00011-7. Retrieved from http;//eprints.lse.ac.uk/21388/

Pratt, A.C. (2008). Creative cities: The cultural industries and the creative class. Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography, 90(2), 107-117. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0467.2008.00281.x

Ryan, B. (1992). Making capital from culture. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter.

Sapir, E. (1931). Fashion. Encyclopedia of the social sciences, 6, 139-144. New York: Macmillan. Retrieved November 2018 from https://brocku.ca/MeadProject/Sapir/Sapir_1931b.html

Schneider, F. (2002, Jul.). Size and measurement of the informal economy in 110 countries around the world. Paper presented at a workshop of Australian National Tax Centre, ANU, Canberra, Australia). Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/253147023_Size_and_Measurement_of_the_Informal_Economy_in_110-Countries_Around_the_World

Scolari, C.A. (2009). Mapping conversations about new media: the theoretical field of digital communication. New Media and Society, 11, 943-964. Retrieved from http://nms.sagepub.com

Scott, A.J. (1999). The cultural economy: Geography and the creative field. Media, Culture and Society, 21(6), 807 - 817. https://doi.org/10.1177/016344399021006006

Scrase, T.J. (2003). Precarious production: Globalisation and artisan labour in the third world. Third World Quarterly, 24(3), 449 – 461. Doi: 10.1080/0143659032000084401

Shultz, B.J. (2011). Handmade and DIY: The cultural economy in the digital age (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Retrieved from http://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/1025.

Spender, L. (2009). Digital culture, copyright maximalism and the challenge to copyright law (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Western Sydney, Australia). Retrieved from https://researchdirect.westernsydney.edu.au/islandora/object/uws%3A7052/

Terranova, T. (2004). Network culture: Politics for the information age. London: Pluto Press.

Tronti, M. (1966). Operai e capitale (Workers and capital). Turin: Einaudi.

ul Haque, I. (2004, July). Globalization, neoliberalism and labour. Discussion Paper No. 173 presented at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. Geneva, Switzerland. Retrieved from UNCTAD/OSG/DP/2004/7.

Vallas, S., & Prener, C. (2012). Dualism, job polarization, and the social construction of precarious work. Work and Occupations, 39(4), 331-353. doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/0730888412456027.

Virno, P., & Hardt, M. (1996). Radical thought in Italy: A potential politics. Minneapolis, Minn.; London: University of Minnesota Press.

von Hippel, E. (2005). Democratizing innovation. Cambridge, MA: the MIT Press.

Vosko, L. (2010). Managing margins: Gender, citizenship, and the international regulation of precarious employment. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Downloads

Published

2019-10-24

Issue

Section

Survey Article

How to Cite

Samuel, K. C. (2019). Neoliberalism, Digital Communication Technologies and the Cultural and Creative Industries. Advanced Journal of Social Science, 6(1), 96–108. https://doi.org/10.21467/ajss.6.1.96-108