Creative Industries and Cool Japan
Iwabuchi addresses the essence of cultural policy with the focus on cultural diversity, tolerance, and cultural citizenship. The chapter elaborates the evidence and trend in which the state intersects with the market by means of the Cool Japan initiatives
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Creative Industries and Cool Japan Koichi Iwabuchi
In the past two decades, the global media landscape has drastically changed due to the development of digital communication technologies, the intensification of transnational media culture flows and the diversification of media access especially with the rise of the Internet and social media. They are accompanied by the further marketization of culture and the rise of media communication sectors in the national and global economy. In this context, “convergence culture” and “creative industries” have attracted wide academic attention. A key idea proposed by these notions is promising as “it seeks empowerment for the individual, it welcomes what it sees as the democratizing potential of new media, and it is sufficiently idealistic to hope that the new media enterprises that attract their interest will achieve something more socially useful than commercial success” (Turner, 2011, p. 696). However, this does not automatically lead us to “give up on the value of a critical intellectual project” for critical appraisal of the performance of the market economy is even more needed in the current situation (Turner, 2011, p. 696). Eventually the policy-related
K. Iwabuchi (*) Department of Media and Cultural Studies, Monash University, Monash, Australia
© The Author(s) 2016 A. Fung (ed.), Global Game Industries and Cultural Policy, Palgrave Global Media Policy and Business, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-40760-9_3
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discussion of creative industries has attracted as much criticism as acclamation due to its breach of promise. One of fundamental questions is whether and how the facilitation of grassroots production activities thanks to the blurring boundary of producer and consumer has advanced social democratization. No less contentious is how the endorsement of marketdriven promotion of cultural production engenders the economy’s takeover of culture rather than reconciliation of a long-standing problematic relationship between economy and culture (such as Hesmondhalgh, 2013, p. 174; O’Connor, 2004, p. 146). While the increasing significance of “creative labor” is positively discussed, many studies (e.g., Miller, 2009; Ross, 2003) show the worsening of labor conditions especially for young workers in creative industries that are controlled by media conglomerates. An optimistic view that the search for diverse creative talents will improve inequality in job markets and enhance cultural diversity in creative cities (Florida, 2002) does not provide a good fit with the existing sociocultural hierarchy, which is even strengthened by the rise of creative industries (Oakley, 2006). While counter-arguments are offered from the advocates of creative industries (such as Cunningham, 2011), we need to keep critical insights into the discussion of creative industries if we are serious to draw out its potential to the full. The notion of creative industries has travelled well internationally. In Asia, much attention has been paid to China, Hong Kong, and Singapore, but not to Japan
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