Just finished uploading an article where “creative economy” is being confused with the art economy and I find this. I’m happy it came up because it illustrates the point I’m trying to make.
The article on Broadway World.com starts, “recently, Americans for the Arts released the 2009 Creative Industries Report, which offers a research-based approach to understanding the scope and economic importance of the arts.”
I think interesting a report on the creative industries. So far so good. It goes even further to describe the creative industries as “businesses that create or distribute the arts, including: museums and collections; performing arts; visual arts/photography; film, radio and TV; design and publishing; arts schools and services.”
Wrong! This is where the confusion begins. The creative industries are much larger than the “industries that create and distribute art“. Worse on closer inspection of their study, Americans for the Arts only included not for profit agencies in their recent nation wide study.
Their study covered the “art economy” not the creative economy. The art economy and the industries that create and distribute art are part of the creative economy but the creative economy is much larger than the art economy. As the creative industries are much larger than the art industries.
I appreciate the work Americans for the Arts are doing to promote a portion of the creative industries but the real potential for an economic turn around lies in advocating the full range of non-profit and for profit creative industries. The UK and the rest of the European Union use this definition of the creative industries. The same if not slightly larger definition is being used in Korea, India, China and Hong Kong. The potential for participation in the creative economy is broader than the potential of the art economy as is the potential for investment, change and exporting American creativity.
For the record, the annual AftA Creative Industries reports look mostly at for-profit companies, as the database is drawn from Dun & Bradstreet. The only nonprofits in there are the ones that have bothered to sign up with D&B. By contrast, the “Arts & Economic Prosperity” report, which was published most recently in 2007 and includes the oft-cited figure of $166.2 billion in economic impact, focuses exclusively on nonprofit arts organizations. Hope this helps.