Building Better Creative Industries:Institutions, Policy, Equity, and Sustainability for a New 21st Century

This book argues that the 21st century effectively “re-opened” in the wake of the pandemic and an intensifying tech clash—platform concentration, algorithmic governance, and the disruptive rollout of AI—requiring a redesign of the institutional wiring of the creative industries. Rather than encyclopaedic sectoral coverage, it pursues depth through carefully chosen comparative case studies (UK, Brazil, China) to illuminate how funding architectures, market governance, labour regimes, IP/data rules, and place-based infrastructures shape policy implementation and outcomes. A concise definitional framework and glossary clarify key terms (creative industries, creative economy, economy of culture) and cross-reference debates from The Political Economy of the CCIs. The analysis foregrounds systemic issues: which institutional arrangements reproduce inequality and precarity; how power and intermediation determine who benefits and who is excluded; and the mechanisms—outsourced risk, subcontracting chains, opaquely priced streaming, data capture without transparency—through which policies can entrench or alleviate vulnerability. It treats the post-pandemic/AI juncture not as an aberration but as the new baseline for policy design. A dedicated chapter integrates environmental and social-justice lenses, contrasting neoliberal defaults with alternative development pathways centred on sustainability, care, and fair work, and assessing the climate implications of cultural production, distribution, and infrastructure. Across cases, the book distils practical design principles and tools: institutional diagnostics to “read” an ecosystem; options menus for funding and finance; levers for fair-work enforcement and collective rights; IP/data and transparency standards fit for platformised markets; and evaluation frameworks that look beyond GDP to equity and wellbeing. Written in an accessible style for policymakers, cultural leaders, practitioners, students, and engaged citizens, Building Better Creative Industries is both critical analysis and hands-on guide—showing how institutional choices, made in the century’s second opening, can deliver creative economies that are more equitable, resilient, and sustainable. Written in an accessible style for a global readership, it speaks to policymakers, industry professionals, students, and engaged citizens seeking rigorous, actionable insight into how institutional choices steer creative economies and their societal effects.