F ROM THE

I N FO R M ATION ECONOMY T O

THE CREATIVE ECONOMY:

Moving Culture to the Center of

In t e rnational Public Po l i c y

S h a lini Ve n t u re lli

A s s o c i a te Pr o f e s s o r

In te rnational Communication Po l i c y

School of In te rnational Serv i ce

American Un i v e r s i t y

Redefining Culture in the Global Information Eco n o m y

THE GLOBALIZATION OF THE INFORMATION ECONOMYand the internationalization of cyberspace makes itimperative that concepts of culture and creativity bereassessed and repositioned at the center of publicpolicy. This requires a recognition that the culturaland creative challenges of the Information Economybe approached in terms of policies governing the pro-duction, distribution and exploitation of expression.Both these arguments form the basis of a set of recom-mendations, guidelines and principles for nationaland international policy.

Some have recently argued, such as Thaler (2000),for example, that the future study of economics oughtto consider the flaws in economic theory of the post-war period, particularly the reliance on rational math-ematical models devoid of social and psychologicalfactors. Models that account for social factors aremuch harder to develop, of course, suggesting thatHomo sapiens is not so rational after all. Not just eco-nomics, but notions of culture also call for some fun-damental reassessments in the new century. Theoriesthat inform much of our thinking on the informationrevolution and the Global Internet need to evolvebeyond accounts of the uses and functions of infor-mation, and begin to integrate factors that are social,political and most of all, cultural.

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SHALINI VENTURELLI IS ASSOCIATE PROFESSORof International Communication Policy atAmerican University and chairs theCommunication & Human Rights Committeeof the International Association of Media &Communication Research. She is among thefirst scholars to examine the internationaldimensions of the information society and theInternet and has published and lectured exten-sively on the subject. She is currently workingon a book that examines the regulatory andpolitical design of the Global Internet entitledCommunications Rights in Cyberspace.

cover image: www.freeimages.co.uk

Anthropology has revealed that culture is more thanthe general body of the arts; rather, in RaymondWilliams words, it is "a whole way of life" (1958), or acomplete meaning system. Nevertheless, the anthro-pological tradition continues to assume that culture isin the nature of artifact, a received symbolic systeminherited and passed on in human societies, bothmodern and premodern, from one generation to thenext. Cultural inquiry becomes then a task of decod-ing and deconstruction, unlocking the unique hiddenmeaning system which holds together the turbulentforces of a particular society.

The third tradition that drives our understandingof culture is industrial and commercial. Thisa p p roach, as Adam Smith first suggested in T h eWealth of Nations (1776), casts manufacturing and pro-ductive institutions as the collective basis of social life,thus recognizing modern industrial institutions as anew cultural system. At the same time, cultural prod-ucts, especially popular culture, can be treated as anyother category of industrial good and mass producedfor ever widening consumer markets. The industrialeconomy is the foundation of modern culture, whileculture itself becomes an industrial product. Theindustrial marketplace subjects all goods, whethercultural or non-cultural, to the same forces of supply,demand, and economies of scale. For these reasons,among others, the study of economics begins to assim-ilate the cultural to the agricultural, to commoditymarkets and manufactured goods sectors. No sepa-rate models are required to explain contraction orexpansion in the production of different types of cul-tural products since they, like all other product sec-tors, are subservient to one single and ineluctable eco-nomic forceconsumer demand (see Ve n t u re l l i ,1998a). To the extent this tradition affirmed the

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Conventions of Understanding Culture

We have inherited ideas regarding the culturaldimensions of modern life from three traditions,which, taken together, shape the entirety of ourapproach to cultural problems and policies. The firstis the aesthetic tradition which runs deep in the gene-sis of civilization, especially Western. It unfolds overtwo thousand years from, for example, Aristotles for-mal taxonomies in the Poetics, to Heideggers existen-tial search for being as art in Poetry, Language, Thought(1971). This tradition, while still relevant to the cre-ation, study, and contemplation of art, has long ceasedto inform social debates and public policy. In the U.S.and other Anglo-Saxon legal and political systems, atleast, naturalism and positivism have displaced thepower of art to reveal social truth or reality, giving riseto scientific and statistical verification as the unassail-able basis of collective self-determination and publicpolicy. Yet there still persist many modern and devel-oping societies that measure the vigor of collectiveidentity by aesthetic productivity in the fine arts andby the historically inherited corpus of artistic achieve-ments that define the national culture.

A second form of cultural understanding has beenthe legacy of the modern social sciences, more pre-cisely, the anthropological tradition. From FrazersGolden Bough (1922) with its enthralling survey ofprimitive life and Malinowskis study of NewGuinean social organization and kinship systems inArgonauts of the Western Pacific (1922), the traditionspans the last century and gives rise to a symbolicapproach with Geertzs pioneering mapping of thesymbolic basis of culture in the Interpretation of Culture(1973) and Bourdieus ethnographic dissection ofmodern cultural taste in La Distinction ( 1 9 7 9 ) .

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Culture and the New Information Space: Shifting the Debate

There are at least two reasons why our conven-tional understanding of culture must be revised.

The need to re-examine our approach to culturehas actually been apparent for some time. Since theinformation revolution of more than a century ago(with the emergence of the telegraph, telephone, pho-t o g r a p h y, cinematography, commercial publishingand broadcasting), we ought to have known, thoughwould not recognize, that information and culturalproducts are, in fact, not like other products at all. Bya few substantive over-sights, industrial or ratherpost-war economics hasbeen reluctant to accept thatthe economics of ideas andcultural expression cannotbe explained by the econom-ics of mining, metals, miner-als, agricultural commodi-ties, or manufactured con-sumer products. Unlikeautomobiles, toothpaste,appliances, or textiles, infor-mation products are notconsumed one unit at a time.Rather, each product unit isdesigned to be utilized

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Unlike automobiles, tooth -

p a s t e, appliances, or

t e x t i l e s, information

products are not consumed

one unit at a time. Rather,

each product unit is

d e s i gned to be utilized

repeatedly by many, thus

becoming more valuable

with use.

marketplace as the arbiter of all cultural preferences, itunderscored the democratic basis of both culture andthe industrial market. Using basic assumptions inindustrial and classical liberal economics, the charac-teristics of creative ideas and cultural products pre-vailing at any given time in a particular market can beexplained quite simply as a factor of consumerdemand. Thus largely unexamined assumptions oftwentieth-century economics that regarded the mar-ket for widgets identical to that for books, film, andtelevision programs, led to poor conceptualization ofc reative marketplace. Policymakers have workedfrom industrial assumptions to decide the fate of theinformation and creative marketplace, with scantintellectual or empirical grounds to assess how and inwhat manner the production and distribution of cre-ative ideas and intellectual/cultural products arequalitatively different from the production and con-sumption of widgets, automobiles, appliances andother industrial products.

Modern notions of a national culture draw fromthe aesthetic and anthropological traditions in layingclaims to a body of art, a way of life, and a symbolicmeaning system. The industrial approach to culture isalso useful to the policy of a national culture, allowingfor widespread diffusion and standardization of lan-guage and national cultural products. Yet all three his-torical traditions, I argue, are inadequate to thedemands and challenges of the Global InformationEconomy or Information Society, and have been forsome time.

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forms of expression, it causes even further heighten-ing of demand for the same expression, thus creatingan upward spiral in the spread of a specific form.

This multiple leverage capacity of information incyberspace casts the meaning of monopoly in anentirely different light from that conceived in conven-tional economics, providing far more acute evidenceof the special character of information monopoly andcultural monopoly. Anti-trust or competition lawwhose fundamental legal and regulatory assumptionsderive from industrial economics of supply, demand,and control over the factors of production, is ill-equipped to deal with the prospect of rapid accelera-tion in the monopolization of knowledge and ideaswithin very brief windows of time. As proprietarycontrol over ideas spreads through the informationnetwork, the ability to work with existing ideas toinnovate new forms becomes reduced, thus creatingthe economic and social irony of information scarcitycoexisting within an environment of enlarged accessto information technology. These processes in anInformation Society simply cannot be accounted forby aesthetic, anthropological or industrial explana-tions of culture.

Second, the conventional, one may say, legacyapproaches are deficient in their tendency to confinethe consideration of culture to a received, inherited, orcumulative body of art, aesthetic forms, symbolicmeaning systems, practices and institutions. Yet themost significant question about any culture is not thelegacy of its past, but the inventive and creative capac-ities of its present. The real issue is also less about thehandful of giants that dominate the history of art (theaesthetic claim to culture), or the essentialist qualitiesof cultural practices (the anthropological claim), or the

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repeatedly by many, thus becoming more valuablewith use. While the value of a single industrial prod-uct such as an automobile, refrigerator, or computerdecreases with usage, the precisely opposite effectapplies to an information or cultural product. A film,book, television program, or software product increas-es its value disproportionately the more it is used,viewed, or applied by increasing numbers of people.This has been the case since commercial publishingbegan and certainly since the age of mass distributedaudio-visual products such as popular music, film,and television programs. While we have had ampleevidence of this economic phenomenon from thedawn of film and broadcasting, an appreciation of theunique characteristics of cultural products went large-ly unacknowledged in public policy and research.

Today, that recognition is unavoidable, for theboosting of value based upon repeated usage is evenfurther accelerated in a network environment such asthe Global Internet. In fact, the rift between industri-al economics and information economics has growneven wider with the introduction of infrastructure net-works for facilitating distribution of ideas. The inher-ent tendencies of information economics to leveragethe value of creative ideas with use have been steadi-ly heightened in the deployment of networks such astheater networks, giant book store chains, and cabletelevision. But with the Internet it is now possible tocultivate worldwide audiences in the millions withwell-designed forms of intellectual and cre a t i v eideasaudio, video, text, or datadistributed digital-ly in cyberspace. The economic value of individualcreative expression can now be augmented exponen-tially to a degree unknown in the economic history ofnations. This is largely because, as a networkedinformation system levitates the value of ideas and

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classes and groups. Only in this dynamic context canlegacy and tradition have real significance.

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size of markets for mass produced cultural products(the industrial claim).Instead, the most significantissue confronting us todayconcerns the possibilitiesavailable for most people ina society to participate inoriginating new culturalforms. Hence, the environ-mental conditions most con-ducive to originality andsynthesis as well as thebreadth of social participa-tion in forming new ideascomprise the true tests ofcultural vigor and the onlyvalid basis of public policy.

This is not to say that the cultural legacy of thepast is irrelevant; rather, that the protection of cultur-al traditions must not comprise the sole aim of cultur-al policy. In the Information Society it has become amatter of fundamental urgency to promote a climateof creative development throughout economy andsociety. In a "museum paradigm," of cultural policy,works of art and artistic traditions are revered andcultural traditions closely guarded and defended. Butwhen these become the predominant measure of cul-tural resources and the notion of legacy occupies thesole definition of the creative spirit, ultimately thedevelopment of that spirit would be undermined.Such a recipe for creative stagnation is bequeathed usin the Mayan temples and the Parthenon whose cre-ative societies are dead while artifacts remain. A cul-ture persists in time only to the degree it is inventing,creating, and dynamically evolving in a way thatpromotes the production of ideas across all social

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A culture persists in time only to the

d e gree it is inventing, creating, and

d y n a m i cally evolving in a way tha t

promotes the production of ideas

across all social classes and g r o u p s.

Only in this dynamic context c a n

l e gacy and tradition have real

s i gn i f i ca n c e.

The environmental

conditions most conducive to

originality and synthesis as

well as the breadth of social

participation in forming

new ideas comprise the tr u e

tests of cultural vigor and

the only valid basis of public

p o l i c y.

Several considerations are paramount in this cul-tural debate. Nation states opposed to the protectionof cultural industries,whether in Europe or else-where, are about to discov-er, if they have not already,that the cultural conflictover media and audiovisualcontent is not a superficial,high-diplomacy power playbetween the U.S. andFrance. It is, instead, aboutthe fate of a set of enterpris-es that form the core, the so-called gold of theInformation Economy. In afeudal agricultural and am e rcantile economy, land,agricultural products, andnatural re s o u rces such astea, spices and gold formedthe basis of wealth. Gold, inp a r t i c u l a r, has been theobjective currency of wealthacross cultures and nationssince ancient times. In the industrial age, the basis ofwealth shifted to other mineral resources such as oil,and to the creation of capital in plant, equipment, andmass produced products manufactured from naturalraw materials such as iron, oil, and wood. Controlover these resources and of the means of transformingthem into mass produced products for distribution toever wider markets has been the basis of economicpower since the industrial revolution. TheInformation Society is now changing that equation.The source of wealth and power, the "gold" of theinformation economy, is found in a different type of

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Cultural Wealth of Nations: Key to the Information Eco n o m y

On this basis, culture can be seen as the key to suc-cess in the Information Economy, because for the veryfirst time in the modern age, the ability to create newideas and new forms of expression forms a valuableresource base of a society and not merely mineral,agricultural, and manufacturing assets. Culturalwealth can no longer be regarded in the legacy andindustrial terms of our common understanding, assomething fixed, inherited, and mass distributed, butas a measure of the vitality, knowledge, energy, anddynamism in the production of ideas that pervades agiven community. As nations enter the GlobalInformation Society, the greater cultural concernshould be for forging the right environment (policy,legal, institutional, educational, infrastructure, access,etc.) that contributes to this dynamism and not solelyfor the defense of cultural legacy or an industrial base.The challenge for every nation is not how to prescribean environment of protection for a received body ofart and tradition, but how to construct one of creativeexplosion and innovation in all areas of the arts andsciences (see Venturelli, 2000, 1999, 1998b). Nationsthat fail to meet this challenge will simply becomepassive consumers of ideas emanating from societiesthat are in fact creatively dynamic and able to com-mercially exploit the new creative forms.

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The Information Society is

now changing tha t

equation. The source of

wealth and power, the

"gold" of the information

e c o n o m y, is found in a

different type of ca p i t a l :

intellectual and creative

ideas packaged and

distributed in different

forms over information

n e t w o r k s.

publishers to subsidize small-scale independentpublishers (Germany), and structural funds and taxbreaks to encourage private investment in contententerprises (Canada, France, Australia, India, amongothers). As many have yet to discover, the gap in cre-ative productivity does not derive from lower levelsof national creative talent or content quality attributes;rather, the gap lies in the power to distribute throughadvertising, marketing, control of multiple networks,and from horizontal and vertical concentration withother media such as broadcasting, cable, satellite,wireless, and the Internet (Venturelli, 1998a).

Undoubtedly the Global Internet is already revo-lutionizing how cultural forms, including audiovisualproducts, are distributed and consumed. Culturalenterprises andinformation indus-tries have made thisassumption, or theywould not be active-ly positioning them-selves for the trans-formation. At thesame time, the newinformation indus-tries are rediscover-ing the importanceof traditional con-tent sectors such asprint publishingand film becausethese enterprisesform the cre a t i v efoundation andfeeding line into allthe on-line content

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capital: intellectual and creative ideas packaged anddistributed in different forms over information net-works. On might even say, that wealth-creation in aneconomy of ideas is derived far less than we imaginefrom the technological hardware and infrastructure,since eventually most nations, such as China, willmake investments in large-scale infrastructure tech-nologies. Rather, it is dependent upon the capacity ofa nation to continually create content, or new forms ofwidely distributed expression, for which they willneed to invest in creative human capital throughoutthe economy and not merely in gadgets and hard-ware.

For these reasons, every nation will need to have,for example, a vibrant and diverse audiovisual indus-try, publishing industry, intellectual industry, and adynamic arts community if it is to grow its othermultimedia content and cultural sectors. In thisrespect, nations which attempt effectively to preventthe total erosion of content industries will have anadvantage over those that simply give up the struggleto diffuse and diversify knowledge and creative enter-prises to the growing consolidation of internationalcontent producers and distributors.

It is no small irony, then, that many countriesimpervious to the cultural protection argument arenow scrambling to find schemes and mechanisms torevive their publishing, film and broadcast sectors,even as they seek ways to encourage the growth andexpansion of new content sectors such as software andinformation services. Mechanisms of cultural revivalinclude, for example: lottery systems to subsidize filmproduction (UK), taxes on cinema receipts (France),differential postal rates to encourage domestic maga-zine content (Canada), tax levies on commerc i a l

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A nation without a vibra n t

creative labor force of artists,

w r i t e r s, desig n e r s, scriptwriters,

p l a y w r i g h t s, painters, musicians,

film producers, directors, actors,

d a n c e r s, choreogra p h e r s, not to men -

tion engineers, scientists, researchers

and intellectuals does not possess the

knowledge base to succeed in the

Information Economy, and must

depend on ideas produced elsewhere.

Culture Moves to the Center of Public Po l i c y

The emergence of ideas as capital has brought cul-ture to the center of public policy. The central eco-nomic and societal question of the Information Societywill soon become how to stimulate innovation, that isto say, originality in ideas. Through careful and intel-ligent policy initiatives ranging throughout all sociallevels, governments will need to provoke a high levelof dynamic innovation in the arts, sciences, and imag-inative ideas and their integration into an on-line, net-worked world.

What does this challenge involve in terms of pub-lic policy? It means an educational system that placesemphasis on creative freedomand on incentives for inde-pendent thinking, state andprivate sector investment inresearch and development ofnew ideas and technology,and low levels of risk andhigh levels of reward for cre-ative risk-taking in the work-place and the economy. Mostof all, forging an environment of creative dynamismrequires regulatory stimulation of creative enterprises(those whose products are ideas).

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forms. In short, a nation without a vibrant creativelabor force of artists, writers, designers, scriptwriters,playwrights, painters, musicians, film pro d u c e r s ,directors, actors, dancers, choreographers, not to men-tion engineers, scientists, researchers and intellectualsdoes not possess the knowledge base to succeed in theInformation Economy, and must depend on ideas pro-duced elsewhere.

In an unexpected way, this changing reality hasvindicated the arguments of societies that sought toprotect their content enterprises in the name of cultur-al survival and sovereignty. They were right, thoughI suggest for the wrong reasons, since it is not thecultural legacy that is at stake, but the capacity toinvent and create new forms of culture. Few nationshad any notion, even five years ago, that the fate ofeconomy and society would be dependent on culturalre s o u rces and the capacity to contribute originalforms of expression in the Information Society. Fromthis standpoint, then, all nations will need to regardtheir content and creative enterprises, including thecreative work force, with at least the same value theyonce ascribed to their metals, mining, minerals, agri-cultural and heavy manufacturing industries.

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The central economic and

societal question of the

Information Society will

soon become how to

stimulate innovation. . .

the scale of economic importance, nations will need toturn their attention to the knowledge foundation ofthe educational system. Modern societies would needto educate, not for a standardized work force as theydid in the industrial economy, but for a highly knowl-edgeable work force prepared for a Creative Economy.Basic literacy skills and imitative learning adequatefor following instructions on the assembly line, theworkshop, or desktop terminal are simply inadequateto the demands of a creativeand innovative society. Notbasic education, butadvanced intellectual andcreative skills that empha-size interdisciplinary andindependent thinkingshould be required at earlierstages of the educationalp rocess, and extend fro mpreschool to grad school.

As nations begin tograsp the critical impor-tance of educational qualityto an economy based on cre-ative capital, there will bean international race to for-tify the substance of knowl-edge that is taught and tore-incorporate the linkagesbetween the arts, humani-ties and the sciences. Theseadvanced skills would needto promote independent judgment, creative and imag-inative engagement, scientific knowledge, technologi-cal literacy, intellectual and critical thinking, interdis-ciplinary knowledge of the arts and sciences, and

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An effective policy framework would:

broaden access to capital from conventionaland unconventional sources;

lower taxation on creative risk-taking;

remove content obligations and liabilities forentities that produce and distribute expres-sion (such as obligations to provide, block, orprevent access to certain categories of con-tent, with content providers forced to incurlegal liabilities for violations--an insupport-able burden that is becoming dangerouslypopular with governments worldwide);

ensure that a constant stream of newideas and cultural forms trickle into thepublic domain through fair use accessprotections;

assure reasonable, though not excessiveintellectual property rights for innovationin ideas, technology, and science (seeVenturelli, 2000a, 2000b).

A few of these policy challenges can be elaborated asfollows:

I. THERE IS AN URGENT NEED TO REORDER OUR BASICTHINKING ON EDUCATION.

The foremost challenge of a knowledge societythat places a premium on creative participation is arestructuring of the national agenda around access toknowledge. As cultural and creative resources ascend

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As nations begin to grasp

the critical importance of

e d u cational quality to an

economy based on creative

ca p i t a l, there will be an

i n t e rnational race to fortify

the substance of knowledge

t hat is taught and to re-

i n c o r p o rate the linkages

between the

a r t s, humanities and the

s c i e n c e s.

bank loans, raising funds in the public stock marketsand generous venture capital funds may only beavailable to a few, micro credits and loans can bemade available to many, giving all a stake in produc-ing ideas and expression in the Creative Economy.

IV. NATIONS WILL NEED TO BE ALERT TO THE MONOPOLIZA-TION OF IDEAS AND CONTENT, OF CULTURE AS IT WERE,SINCE THE NETWORKED SOCIETY OF THE INFORMATIONECONOMY EXPONENTIALLY BOOSTS INFORMATION POWER.

Monopolization of ideas is not the same, therefore,as the monopolization of material resources such asland, manufacturing plant and equipment. We knowfrom the technological and political lessons of the pasthundred years, but also from the history of civiliza-tion, that the most serious obstacle to developmentand growth is created by institutionally monopolizedknowledge. This was as true of the informationmonopoly of the Middle Ages as it is true of statedominated information and educational systemsunder Communism or dictatorship. The existence ofinformation monopolies raises the threshold for par-ticipation in the knowledge and Creative Economy toa level too high to bring about the social benefits ofdiversity in ideas, innovations, and creative forms. Acarefully designed policy framework that discouragesknowledge monopolies is indispensable to wealth cre-ation in ideas. As explained earlier, this is particular-ly important for the new economy since contentmonopolies will arise more readily and erect bottle-necks in all categories of content because of the lever-aging character of network effects. The entire socio-legal framework of competition policy will requirerestructuring to meet this historical need.

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experience in research activities for producing newknowledge ranging from bio-information and cultur-al invention to commercial ingenuity.

II. THE VALUE OF THE CREATIVE ECONOMY ENHANCES THEASSET VALUE OF IDEAS AS WELL AS THE CRITICAL NEED FOR

ACCESS TO IDEAS AND CREATIVE FORMS.

This is a delicate design challenge for public poli-cy, since it calls for a system of property rights ininformation and innovation that is carefully balancedso that creators and exploiters are rewarded for theproduction and commercialization of ideas, but theenrichment of the public domain is continually accel-erated. Without an enriched and expanding publicdomain, the new knowledge will not lead to morenew knowledge, thus restricting social participationin the production and distribution of ideas and inex-orably slowing the pace of innovation throughout theeconomy (see Venturelli 2000a, 1998b). This is whythe nation that can accurately balance fair use withproperty rights in expression will experience unfore-seen and unpredictable spurts in growth of creativeideas, placing it at a competitive advantage in theInformation Society.

III. THE FINANCIAL BASE OF CREATIVE ENTERPRISES, SUCHA S C A P I TA L M A R K E T S, M U S T A L S O B E T R A N S F O R M E DTHROUGH POLICIES FAVORING GREATER DIVERSIFICATION

AND DE-INSTITUTIONALIZATION.

Micro loans made for entrepreneurial investmentin ideas, for instance, carry a lower risk to lenders andborrowers and allow for experimentation as well asbroad participation in a Creative Economy. While

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Culture and the Conditions of Expression:In te rnational Im p l i c a t i o n s

If the cultural challenge of the Information Societyis to stimulate creativity and innovation, then we needa method of addressing the creativity dilemma. It issuggested here that the time has come to see culturaland creative vibrancy in terms of social, economic,and political conditions governing the production anddistribution of expression. This approach offers con-crete guidelines for public policy since "the questionof expression" would require us to reformulate infor-mation and cultural policy--irrespective of technologyor specific policy issues--so there is greater attentionto the structural conditions determining the produc-tion, ownership, access, uses and distribution of formsof expression. The cultural and economic challengesof the Global Information Society may then be articu-lated in terms of competing proposals for enhancingthe production and distribution of expression in allareas of the arts and sciences. In an expression-cen-tered approach, policies for the Information Society inthe areas of intellectual property rights, competitionpolicy, data protection, broadband access, content reg-ulation, or ecommerce, for example, could be regard-ed as methods for privileging specific modes ofexpression over others; for encouraging certain struc-tures of content production over others; for creatingparticular incentives and disincentives in the rangeand diversity of expression available in the public

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Despite grave inadequacies in traditionalapproaches to thinking about culture in the modernage, there may have been little policy incentive histor-

ically to reshape the culturaldebate and account for itsmissing dimensions. Butthe information technologyrevolution has altered thestakes and made culturalpolicy the precondition ofhow to ensure a cre a t i v eand innovative society. Thisleads to the next policyquestion: how to reformu-late our approach to creativ-ity for purposes of devisingc o n c rete initiatives. Thiscalls for an enlargement of

what is meant by culture from a policy standpointand how we may define the boundaries of the cultur-al problem in the international and multilateral sys-tem. The cultural and creative problem of theInformation Society should be understood in terms ofpolicies governing the production, distribution andexploitation of expression, an approach that has sig-nificant domestic and international implications.

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The information

t e c h n o l o gy revolution ha s

altered the stakes and made

c u l t u ral policy the precon -

dition of how to ensure a

creative and innovative

s o c i e t y.

ultimately to bring about in the public space of theinformation age.

If every element of the Information Society eitherdirectly or indirectly can be said to play a part indetermining the conditions of creative expression, wemust examine and account for the technical, econom-ic, and trade issues as much as for those explicitlypolitical or cultural. Among the elements of theInformation Society that have profound implicationsfor the conditions of expression, the following in par-ticular should be noted in the context of which form ofexpression benefits: the framework of intellectualproperty rights in cyberspace; content regulation ofconventional and new media; the framework of freeexpression rights and which constitutional traditionapplies; competition policy affecting forms of conver-gence and consolidation of information and culturalenterprises; universal service defining access to infor-mation infrastructure and information content; tech-nology policy promoting certain forms of technologi-cal development and exploitation; and ascendance ofcertain traditions of law, such as contractual or privatelaw, over other traditions, such as public and consti-tutional law in application to particular issues of pub-lic interest. What preferences do these policies revealwith respect to modes and forms of expression?

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sphere; for solidifying social structures that give riseto one type of expression over another; and for prefer-ring some social and economic applications of expres-sion at the expense of other areas of need.

If we redefine creative and innovative issues inthis light, other issues regarding the fate of cultureand creativity become secondary. It is far less signifi-cant to future social and democratic development

whether some cultures areunder attack by others, orwhether an adequate quanti-ty of information is availableon the network, or whetherconsumers have at their dis-posal multiple channels,devices, and appliances fordistribution of content. Inthemselves, these issues arenot unimportant, of course.But the truly substantivequestion concerns structuralarrangements that govern thediversity and range of formsof creative expression that aredistributed in the InformationSociety and the scope ofsocial participation in theexploitation and benefits ofsuch forms. Policies designedto advance particular modelsof the Information Society

are, in fact, policies designed to advance particularmodels of expression, which implies that care f u lattention must be directed not only to each compo-nent or element in the Information Society frame-work, but also to the larger question of the mode,diversity, and structure of creative expression we wish

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The truly substantive

question concern s

s t ru c t u ral arra n g e m e n t s

t hat govern the diversity

and range of forms of

creative expression tha t

are distributed in the

Information Society and

the scope of social

participation in the

exploitation and benefits of

such forms.

The long-term effect of such international agree-ments would be to shrink the range of creative inno-vation that is able to acquire a significant presence inthe marketplace of ideas. Other agreements strength-en the contractual rights of content and infrastructureindustries but often at the expense of promoting regu-latory stimulation of access to information and themeans to participate in the production and distribu-tion of ideas, which would require increased demand-side policies. The World Telecoms A g re e m e n t (World Trade Organization, 1996), for example, estab-lishes new international principles for limitingdemand-side policy options states can employ, such asuniversal service to diffuse the information infrastruc-ture. Other demand-side initiatives include publicpromotion of intellectual enterprises in engineering,science, the creative arts, publishing, audio-visualp roduction, and software development. Wi t h o u tdemand-side initiatives, most nations will be unableto create adequate demand and access in order to sus-tain participation in an information economy.Multilateral trade restrictions on compulsory licens-ing will also disallow the creation of indigenous con-tent industries in ideas and bioinformatics for theforeseeable future. (see further analysis of these issuesin Venturelli, 2000a, 1999, 1998b).

The emerging supranational regulatory systemrefers to an international system of supranationalinstitutions (such as the WTO, the WIPO, World Bank)which articulate principles and standards of regula-tion for nation states. The effect of this system is totransform most states into law takers rather than lawmakers, since national laws are not binding on themultilateral system, but multilateral agreements, par-ticularly in the area of trade, are binding upon partic-ipating states. For example, the General Agreement

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Supranational Regulation of the Global Information Society

To achieve the benefits of a creative and openGlobal Information Society, it will take more thandomestic policy and disparate national approaches.The globalization of cyberspace has put this questionto rest. A system open to innovation in a way that isbeneficial to most societies will require a supranation-al regulatory framework. Yet not all internationalframeworks will guarantee the innovative capacitiesof the Information Society, as is evident in the frame-work recently emerging in multilateral trade agree-ments that are far from adequate and may even beharmful to diversity of expression. For example, themost recent modifications to international agreementson intellectual property (World Intellectual PropertyOrganization (WIPO), 1996) create a property struc-ture for expression that is tilted in favor of the large-scale content industry at the expense of the publicdomain. By undermining effectiveness of the "fairuse" tradition that was designed to continually enrichthe public sphere with ideas so that more new ideasmay emerge, the direction of laws regulating the own-ership of expression seem to privilege certain forms,such as widely distributed commercial expression,over other forms.

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define the framework for all areas of the InformationSociety covering both infrastru c t u re and content.Participating governments have been discouragedfrom setting limits on whatconstitutes "telecommunica-tions" (see World Tr a d eOrganization, 1996) or frommodifying the radical revi-sions of international intel-lectual property law with itsinherent effects upon free-dom of expression and cul-tural policy. As a result,every aspect of theInformation Society may, inprinciple, fall under the jurisdiction of these agree-ments, standards, and rules.

Under the emerging supranational regulatory sys-tem, there is a potential that numerous areas of nation-al policy, regulation, or legal mechanisms carried outin the public interest may be charged by any otherstate as discriminatory and obstructive to world trade.In principle, anti-concentration competition policiesthat attempt to ensure diversity of content and expres-sion could be invalidated as the interventionist distor-tions of dirigiste states (U.S. Government, 1998), andcultural policies imposing obligations of pluralism incultural expression on information industries may beinvalidated as a barrier to international trade in infor-mation services (further treatment in Ve n t u re l l i ,1998b). The approach to the current world tradeframework may ultimately even challenge constitu-tional guarantees of political rights, communicationrights, and human rights as secured in a set of histor-ically evolved information policies and laws ofdemocratic nations, on grounds the implementation

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on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) contains principles andstandards of regulation in areas as diverse as foods t a n d a rds, services, and intellectual pro p e r t y.Countries that are signatories need to make significantchanges to their national regulatory and legal sys-tems. It is important to understand the significance ofthe binding nature of trade agreements under supra-national regulation in order to recognize the implica-tions and complexities inherent in the radical restruc-turing of the conditions of expression, culture, and thepublic sphere. What appears as economic or tradepolicy for the information market has in reality pro-found bearing on the creative capacities of free soci-eties.

International negotiations for a GlobalInformation Economy have been converted to legallybinding commitments under the rubric of the follow-ing categories of global policy: trade in services, glob-al standards conferences, telecommunications liberal-ization, licensing rules, investment agreements, ruleson foreign ownership, content liabilities, intellectualproperty laws, domain name registration, regulatorystandards, electronic commerce, competition rules,Internet taxation exemptions, bilateral agreements onprivacy standards, industry self-regulation codes.These and other crucial areas of international policyand supranational regulation are being forged in insti-tutions such as: the WTO, ITU, WIPO, OECD, EU,ICANN, UNCTAD, the World Bank, A P E C ,Transatlantic Economic Partnership (TEP),Transatlantic Business Dialogue (TBD), GlobalBusiness, Dialogue (GBD), and bilateral agreements inthe form of joint statements, declarations, and cooper-ation pacts. The significance of these commitments islikely to be far-reaching for social, political, and cul-tural development since these policies will eventually

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Ev e ry aspect of the

Information Society may,

in principle, fall under the

jurisdiction of these ag r e e -

m e n t s, standard s, and ru l e s.

Fu rthering Creative Freedoms in the Information Society

For a number of geopolitical and strategic reasonsrelated to a post Cold War international system, theinternational information industries, and powerfulstate actors who represent their interests, have shapedinternational legal mechanisms, and the legitimacy ofinternational and multilateral institutions such as theWTO, the World Bank, WIPO, and ICANN, to namebut a few. The political reality of the emergingInformation Society requires that more careful atten-tion be applied to the design of an open and accessibleCreative Economy. Yet recent attempts to modify, forinstance, the global framework for electronic com-merce (see UN Commission on International TradeLaw, 1996) so that educational, cultural, and politicalneeds can be better served, have not succeeded inshifting the global debate. Similarly, efforts to insertcultural diversity and development goals into eco-nomic development initiatives for the Internet, suchas initiatives undertaken by the World Bank andUSAID (U.S. Government, 1998a, 1997), have also fall-en short of acknowledging the central creative andinnovative problem of the Information Economy,including the need to apply a sharp focus on the con-ditions governing the production and distribution ofexpression.

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of these rights acts to constrain international tradethrough a set of non-commercial public interest limits onthe proprietary freedom of the communications indus-tries. Furthermore, policies that lead democratic societiesto determine a need for direct or indirect subsidiesbecause of issues concerning the common welfare or thegeneral interest, ranging from universal service to pro-gramming requirements for educational or cultural plu-ralism, may be rendered illegitimate under the suprana-tional regulatory system for the Global InformationEconomy.

Principal areas of international policy that have sig-nificant implications for the conditions governing theCreative Economy and conditions of expression, include,for example, intellectual property rights, universal access,competition policy, content and cultural policy, Internetgovernance, and free expression rights. The internationalpolicy framework will determine the mode of intellectualproperty laws in cyberspace; universal service and uni-versal access to critical features of information networksin the production and distribution of expression; the num-ber of information providers, producers and distributorsfavored by competition policies; governance structures forgranting producers of expression preferential rights toexploit particular frequencies or domain names; and thes t ru c t u re of positive and negative information rightsimplemented through content regulation and liabilitiesunder constitutional, statutory and regulatory obliga-tions.

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Principles of the Creative Economy: AHi s toric Challenge to Public Po li c y

It is important to articulate a set of guidelines forpublic policy that serve to affirm and secure theInformation Economy as a Creative Economy. Itshould be an economy in which cultural inventive-ness and innovation in all forms of expre s s i o nemerges as one of the central objectives of domesticand international policy. To achieve the full benefitsof a knowledge society, including new forms ofwealth creation, widening social participation, andadvancement in all categories of the arts and sciences,national governments and international policy institu-tions will need to measure their policy initiativesagainst the following principles which are provided inaddition to those outlined earlier.

I. International trade rules and regulations shouldincorporate recognition of the right of nations to pre-vent public and private entities, domestic or interna-tional, from monopolizing ideas through centralizedcontrol of the content industry and of the informationand media distribution systems.

II. Regulatory guarantees of information rightsthat broaden access to educational, political, and cul-tural content, and widen social participation in theproduction and ownership of expression, includingthe benefits from its exploitation, should not be treat-ed by international agreements as violations of tradelaws.

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The chances for real cultural and creative partici-pation and expression rights in the GlobalInformation Economy are still far removed from theaims of international policy. Certainly, the historicaldoor is not bolted shut, for history, as always, is a mat-ter of political struggle over options and strategies.Redeeming the cultural and creative promise of an

information age wouldrequire major powers suchas the United States and theEuropean Union, and a crit-ical number in the commu-nity of nations, acting incooperation with socialmovements and publici n t e rest organizations tomodify the entire body ofinternational agre e m e n t sand policies for theInformation Society accord-ing to a set of fundamentalprinciples re q u i red of aCreative Economy.

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The chances for real

c u l t u ral and creative

participation and

expression rights in the

G l o bal In f o r m a t i o n

Economy are still fa r

removed from the aims of

i n t e rnational policy.

the proprietary portals by which expression in cyber-space is distributed can only strengthen the speech andknowledge foundations of society. Lowering thet h reshold to creative participation in the pro d u c t i o nand distribution of ideas will cause innovation to surg et h rough all social classes and economic sectors. Thisprinciple is also consistent with universal human rightswhich obligates nation states to ensure information andknowledge access for all citizens in order to pro m o t epublic-opinion formation and political and culturalparticipation. No multilateral rules in any sectorshould directly or indirectly be allowed to treat as atrade barrier public initiatives to advance access,knowledge, and participation. Nations may legitimate-ly impose positive (not negative) public interest obliga-tions upon domestic and foreign information industriesto produce more categories of information and expre s-sion that serve educational and social developmentneeds, as well as the information needs of children andminorities.

VI. Finally, under new international rules, the prin-ciple of enriching the public sphere as a basic re q u i re-ment of the creative economy should make it illegiti-mate for nation states to censor speech in cyberspace onany national grounds. Negative content regulation, i.e.,censorship, is incalculably destructive to creative par-ticipation since it opens the door to the erection ofinformation barriers on such a global scale as to even-tually dry up the production of creative ideas thro u g h-out the global information network. The basic re a l i t i e sof information economics will eventually make thisself-evident, but not before the ill-considered actions ofboth democratic and non-democratic states exact a highprice in innovation and wealth-cre a t i o n .

It may be fanciful at this time to expect the multi-

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III. To enlarge the public domain, promote thepublic-opinion formation function of information net-works, and to stimulate creative diversity in culturalexpression, all nations should focus their public agen-da on developing content industries, both in conven-tional and new media. This requires improving edu-cation to achieve high standards of knowledge andcreativity, and a move away from imitative learningskills.

IV. To further the strategic aim of high levels ofcreative production, the public domain of ideas mustbe enriched and enlarged by allowing public access toe x p ression in order that new knowledge may lead tom o re new knowledge. To succeed in the Cre a t i v eE c o n o m y, all nations will need to affirm the right offair use of privately owned intellectual pro p e r t y.

V. Individual human citizens ought to be grantedm o re extensive information rights to receive andimpart ideas than artificial entities can claim rights top rotection from public interest obligations. In the U.S.,for example, a series of judicial decisions in the nine-teenth century conferred upon artificial entities thesame fundamental rights that the Constitution till thenonly extended to individual human citizens. Thesedecisions have made it difficult over time to re q u i republic interest obligations from information and con-tent providers even when a few industries monopo-lized the stru c t u re of the public sphere and the pre-dominant content within it (as in broadcasting). Thisis because the speech protection of the FirstAmendment now became available to the contentindustry as much as to individual humans. While neg-ative content regulation (or censorship) should be con-demned wherever it arises, positive regulation tore q u i re more voices, diverse expression, and access to

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R e f e r e n c e s

B o u rdieu, Pierre (1979). La Distinction: Critique Sociale du J u g e m e n t. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit.

F r a z e r, Sir James G. (1922). The Golden Bough. London:M a c m i l l a n .

Geertz, Cliff o rd (1973). The Interpetration of Culture. New York: Basic Books.

H e i d e g g e r, Martin (1971). P o e t r y, Language, Thought, translated by Albert Hofstadter. New York: 1971.

Malinowski, Bronislaw (1922). A rgonauts of the Western P a c i f i c. New York: Dutton.

Smith, Adam (1776/1986). The Wealth of Nations,i n t roduction by A. Skinner . London: Penguin.

T h a l e r, Richard H. (2000). "From Homo Economicus to Homo Sapiens." Journal of Economic Perspectives, 14(1): 1 3 3 - 1 4 2 .

UN Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) (1996). Model Law on Electronic C o m m e rc e .

U.S. Government (1998). U.S.-Japan Joint Statement on E l e c t ronic Commerc e .

U.S. Government (1998a). First Annual Report of the U.S. Government Working Group on Electronic Commerc e .

__________ (1997). AFramework for Global Electronic C o m m e rce. Interagency working group on electro n i cc o m m e rce white paper.

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lateral trading regime--aimed at universalizing theindustrial model of economy and society--to re c o g n i z ethe cultural, creative, developmental, and democraticfunctions of expression and information networks. Butit is also inevitable that the Information Society willhave to confront the social, cultural, and political eff e c t sof profound imbalances and inequalities resulting fro mill-conceived policies tilted in favor of large-scale pro-prietary domination over the production and distribu-tion of expression. Changes in our thinking of what isc u l t u re, cre a t i v i t y, innovation, and their basis in thes t ru c t u re of expression, may eventually be forced uponus simply from the high cost some societies will pay forstifling innovation by failing to secure by appro p r i a t epolicies, the underlying conditions of a Cre a t i v eEconomy and a knowledge society.

As the economics of ideas and expression are re c-ognized to play a central and strategic role in every-thing we do, from politics to banking, from educationto consumption, from the organization of the state andthe socio-legal system to organization of culture ands e l f - i d e n t i t y, it will become impossible to defend thec u r rent design of an information age grounded inindustrial economics and traditional concepts of cul-t u re or knowledge. Whether answering the challengeand closing the gap takes a few years or a century, thehistorical pre s s u res to revise our approach to theseissues is a certainty. Now or in the future, we will oneday find ourselves on the threshold of an internationalpolitical settlement to resolve these fundamental prin-ciples of a Creative Economy and Information Society.Which nation will transform its domestic policy firstand lead the international debate, and which will besurpassed in innovative capacities, forced to spenddecades catching up through costly misjudgments?

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Cultural Comment Series

The Center for Arts and Culture is an independent

think tank which seeks to broaden and deepen

the national conversation on culture.

An occasional series of papers sponsored by the

Center, the Cultural Comment Series offers new

perspectives on major cultural policy issues. The

opinions expressed in these papers are those of

the individual authors and are not necessarily

shared by the Center or its funders.

The Center for Arts and Culture receives funding

from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Robert

S terling Clark Foundation, the Na t h a n

Cummings Foundation, the J. Paul Getty Trust,

the Ford Foundation, the Thomas S. Ke n a n

In s t i t u te for the Arts, the He n ry Luce

Foundation, the David and Lucile Pa c k a r d

Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Open

Society In s t i t u te, and the Andy Wa r h o l

Foundation for the Visual Arts.

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Ve n t u relli, Shalini (2000a). "Ownership of Cultural E x p ression: The Place of Free Speech & Culture in theNew Intellectual Property Rights Regime of theE u ropean Union," Telematics & Informatics: An International Journal on Telecommunications & InternetTe c h n o l o g y, Special Issue: The Socio-Cultural Consequences ofthe European Information Society, 17(1&2): 9-38.

__________ (2000b). "Inventing E-Regulation in the US andEU: Regulatory Convergence and the New Information Space." Keynote A d d ress presented at the Conference onRegulating the Internet: EU and US Perspectives,E u ropean Union Center and Center for Internet Studies,University of Washington, April 27-29,2000.

__________ (1999). "Information Society and MultilateralA g reements: Obstacles for Developing Countries," M e d i aDevelopment, Key Issues in Global Communication, 46(2): 22-27

__________ (1998a). Liberalizing the European media: Politics, Regulation & the Public Sphere. Oxford, UK: OxfordUniversity Pre s s .

__________ (1998b). "Cultural Rights and World Tr a d eA g reements in the Information Society," Gazette: TheInternational Journal for Communication Studies, 60(1):47-76

Williams, Raymond (1958). C u l t u re and Society. London:Chatto & Wi n d u s .

World Intellectual Property Organization (1996). WIPO Copyright Treaty adopted by the Diplomatic Confere n c ein Geneva, 20 December 1996, CRNR/DC/94.

World Trade Organization (1996). Fourth Protocol to theGeneral A g reement on Trade in Services ("Wo r l dTelecoms A g reement"), S/L/20.

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