The cultural economy moment?

This paper explores the rise of cultural economy as a key organising concept over the 2000s. While it has intellectual precursors in political economy, sociology and postmodernism, it has been work undertaken in the fields of cultural economic geography, creative industries, the culture of service industries and cultural policy where it has come to the forefront, particularly around whether we are now in a ‘creative economy’. While work undertaken in cultural studies has contributed to these developments, the development of neo-liberalism as a meta-concept in critical theory constitutes a substantive barrier to more sustained engagement between cultural studies and economics, as it rests upon a caricature of economic discourse. The paper draws upon Michel Foucault’s lectures on neo-liberalism to indicate that there are significant problems with the neo-Marxist account hat became hegemonic over the 2000s. The paper concludes by identifying areas such as the value of information, the value of networks, motivations for participation in online social networks, and the impact of business cycles on cultural sectors as areas of potentially fruitful inter-disciplinary engagement around the nature of cultural economy.

Cultural and creative industries

This chapter evaluates the rise of creative industries from four standpoints: the growing interest in creativity in the early 21st century; the 'culturalisation' of economic life with the rise of service industries; clustering and uneven development in the cultural economic geography of the creative industries; and the future of arts and cultural policy.

Aligning communication, cultural and media studies research and scholarship with industry and policy : Australian instances

This article reflects on aspects of what is claimed to be the distinctiveness of Australian communication, cultural and media studies, focusing on two cases – the cultural policy debate in the 1990s, and the concept of creative industries in the 2000s – and the relations between them, which highlight the alignment of research and scholarship with industry and policy and with which the author has been directly involved. Both ‘moments’ have been controversial; the three main lines of critique of such alignment of research and scholarship with industry and policy (its untoward proximity to tenets of the dominant neo-liberal ideology; the evacuation of cultural value by the economic; and the possible loss of critical vocation of the humanities scholar) are debated.

Research-led educational renewal and economic-cultural convergence

The 'Queensland Model' grew out of three convergent agendas: educational renewal, urban redevelopment, and the Queensland state government's 'Smart State' strategy.

A novel load transfer scheme for peak load management in rural areas

This paper proposes a novel peak load management scheme for rural areas. The scheme transfers certain customers onto local nonembedded generators during peak load periods to alleviate network under voltage problems. This paper develops and presents this system by way of a case study in Central Queensland, Australia. A methodology is presented for determining the best location for the nonembedded generators as well as the number of generators required to alleviate network problems. A control algorithm to transfer and reconnect customers is developed to ensure that the network voltage profile remains within specification under all plausible load conditions. Finally, simulations are presented to show the performance of the system over a typical maximum daily load profile with large stochastic load variations.

Government, citizenship and cultural policy : expertise and participation in Australian media policy

The study of institutions and policy processes in the formation of culture have been a major concern of the "cultural policy debate", which has been a major debate in Australian cultural studies in the 1990s (Bennett 1992a; Cunningham 1992; O'Regan 1993; cf. McGuigan 1996). Bennett (1992) argues that culture in modern societies is defined less by a distinct series of artistic and intellectual practices, the ways of life of distinctive communities or social groups, or as a system for the structuring of meaning in a society, but rather in terms of "the specificity of the governmental tasks and programmes in which those practices come to be inscribed." (Bennett 1992a: 397) Within such a framework, policy becomes "not... an optional add-on but... central to the definition and constitution of culture" (Bennett 1992a: 397). This understanding of culture as "intrinsically governmental" has in turn been linked to an increasingly strategic role for discourses of citizenship as a basis for the engagement of cultural studies intellectuals with the political sphere...

Assessment of the influence of cultural barriers to HDR supervision of non-English speaking background (NESD) students in engineering and information technology (IT) disciplines

The paper details the results of the first phase of an on-going research into the sociocultural factors that influence the supervision of higher degrees research (HDR) engineering students in the Faculty of Built Environment and Engineering (BEE) and Faculty of Science and Technology (FaST) at Queensland University of Technology. A quantitative analysis was performed on the results from an online survey that was administered to 179 engineering students. The study reveals that cultural barriers impact their progression and developing confidence in their research programs. We argue that in order to assist international and non-English speaking background (NESB) research students to triumph over such culturally embedded challenges in engineering research, it is important for supervisors to understand this cohort's unique pedagogical needs and develop intercultural sensitivity in their pedagogical practice in postgraduate research supervision. To facilitate this, the governing body (Office of Research) can play a vital role in not only creating the required support structures but also their uniform implementation across the board.

Paradigm shifters : tricksters and cultural science

This paper seeks to link anthropological and economic treatments of the process of innovation and change, not only within a given ‘complex system’ (e.g. a cosmology; an industry) but also between systems (e.g. cultural and economic systems; but also divine and human systems). The role of the ‘Go-Between’ is considered, both in the anthropological figure of the Trickster (Hyde 1998) and in the Schumpeterian entrepreneur. Both figures parlay appetite (economic wants) into meaning (cultural signs). Both practice a form of creativity based on deception, ‘creative destruction’; renewal by disruption and needs-must adaptation. The disciplinary purpose of the paper is to try to bridge two otherwise disconnected domains – cultural studies and evolutionary economics – by showing that the traditional methods of the humanities (e.g. anthropological, textual and historical analysis) have explanatory force in the context of economic actions and complex-system evolutionary dynamics. The objective is to understand creative innovation as a general cultural attribute rather than one restricted only to accredited experts such as artists; thus to theorise creativity as a form of emergence for dynamic adaptive systems. In this context, change is led by ‘paradigm shifters’ – tricksters and entrepreneurs who create new meanings out of the clash of difference, including the clash of mutually untranslatable communication systems (language, media, culture).

Hydrogen bonding in proton-transfer compounds of 5-sulfosalicylic acid with a series of aliphatic nitrogen Lewis bases

The crystal structures of the proton-transfer compounds of 5-sulfosalicylic acid (3-carboxy-4-hydroxybenzenesulfonic acid) with the aliphatic nitrogen Lewis bases, hydroxylamine, triethylamine, pyrrolidine, morpholine, N-methylmorpholine and piperazine, viz. hydroxyammonium 3-carboxy-4-hydroxybenzenesulfonate (1), triethylaminium 3-carboxy-4-hydroxybenzenesulfonate (2), pyrrolidinium 3-carboxy-4-hydroxybenzenesulfonate monohydrate (3), morpholinium 3-carboxy-4-hydroxybenzenesulfonate monohydrate (4), N-methylmorpholinium 3-carboxy-4-hydroxybenzenesulfonate monohydrate (5) and piperazine-1,4-diium bis(3-carboxy-4-hydroxybenzenesulfonate) hexahydrate (6) have been determined and their comparative structural features and hydrogen-bonding patterns described. Crystals of 4 are triclinic, space group P-1 while the remainder are monoclinic with space group either P21/c (1 - 3) or P21/n (5, 6). Unit cell dimensions and contents are: for 1, a = 5.0156(3), b = 10.5738(6), c = 18.4785(9) Å, β = 96.412(5)o, Z = 4; for 2, a = 8.4998(4), b = 12.3832(6), c = 15.4875(9) Å, β = 102.411(5)o, Z = 4; for 3, a = 6.8755(2), b = 15.5217(4), c = 12.8335(3) Å, β = 92.074(2)o, Z = 4; for 4, a = 6.8397(2), b = 12.9756(5), c = 15.8216(6) Å, α = 90.833(3), β = 95.949(3), γ = 92.505(3)o, Z = 4; for 5, a = 7.0529(3), b = 13.8487(7), c = 15.6448(6) Å, β = 90.190(6)o, Z = 4; for 6, a = 7.0561(2), b = 15.9311(4), c = 12.2102(3) Å, β = 100.858(3)o, Z = 2. The hydrogen bonding generates structures which are either two-dimensional (2 and 5) or three-dimensional (1, 3, 4 and 6). Compound 6 represents the third reported structure of a salt of 5-sulfosalicylic acid having a dicationic piperazine species.

Re-imagining China's future : soft power, cultural presence and the East Asian media market

As various contributors to this volume suggest, the term soft power is multifaceted. In 2002 Joseph Nye, the political scientist who coined the term more than a decade previously, noted that the soft power of a country rests on three resources: a country’s culture, its political values, and its foreign policies (Nye 2002). However, several factors can be drawn together to explain China’s adoption of this concept. First, China’s economic influence has precipitated a groundswell of nationalism, which reached its apex at the Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. This global media event provided an international platform to demonstrate China’s new found self-confidence. Second, cultural diplomacy and foreign aid, particularly through Third World channels is seen by the Chinese Communist Party leadership as an appropriate way to extend Chinese influence globally (Kurlantzick 2007). Third, education in Chinese culture through globally dispersed Confucius Institutes is charged with improving international understanding of Chinese culture and values, and in the process renovating negative images of China. Fourth, the influence of Japanese and Korean popular culture on China’s youth cultures in recent years has caused acute discomfit to cultural nationalists. Many contend it is time to stem the tide. Fifth, the past few years have witnessed a series of lively debates about the importance of industries such as design, advertising, animation and fashion, resulting in the construction of hundreds of creative clusters, animation centres, film backlots, cultural precincts, design centres and artist lofts.

Multi-version documents : A digitisation solution for textual cultural artefacts

Textual cultural heritage artefacts present two serious problems for the encoder: how to record different or revised versions of the same work, and how to encode conflicting perspectives of the text using markup. Both are forms of textual variation, and can be accurately recorded using a multi-version document, based on a minimally redundant directed graph that cleanly separates variation from content.

Using Web 2.0 tools to facilitate knowledge transfer in complex organisational environments : a primer

An often neglected but well recognised aspect of successful engineering asset management is the achievement of co-operation and collaboration between various occupational, functional and hierarchical levels present within complex technical environments. Engineering and technical contexts have been well documented for the presence of highly cohesive groups based around around functional or role orientations. However while highly cohesive groups are potentially advantageous they are also often correlated with the emergence of knowledge and information silos based around those same functional or occupational clusters. Improved collaboration and co-operation between groups has been demonstrated to result in a number of positive outcomes at an individual, group and organisational level. Example outcomes include an increased capacity for problem solving, improved responsiveness and adaptation to organisational crises, higher morale and an increased ability to leverage workforce capability. However, an essential challenge for organisations wishing to overcome informational silos is to implement mechanisms that facilitate, encourage and sustain interactions between otherwise disconnected groups. This paper reviews the ability of Web 2.0 technologies and mobile computing devices to facilitate and encourage knowledge sharing between “silo’d” groups. Commonly available tools such as Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Wiki’s and others will be reviewed in relation to their applicability, functionality and ease-of-use by engineering and technical personnel. The paper also documents three case examples of engineering organisations that have successfully employed Web 2.0 to achieve superior knowledge management. With a number of clear recommendations he paper is an essential starting point for any organization looking at the use of new generation technologies for achieving the significant outcomes associated with knowledge transfer.

User-created content and everyday cultural practice : lessons from YouTube

This chapter sets out the debates about the changing role of audiences in relation to user-created content as they appear in New Media and Cultural Studies. The discussion moves beyond the simple dichotomies between active producers and passive audiences, and draws on empirical evidence, in order to examine those practices that are most ordinary and widespread. Building on the knowledge of television’s role in facilitating public life, and the everyday, affective practices through which it is experienced and used, I focus on the way in which YouTube operates as a site of community, creativity and cultural citizenship; and as an archive of popular cultural memory.