Vers une théorie critique des industries créatives. – CULTURECREATION

Today the communication science based approach to cultural industries is both sufficiently consistent and somewhat fragmented; the time has therefore come to undertake a critical and epistemological reflexion, which is all the more vital since a number of its most significant contributions date back to the 1980's and 1990's. Indeed, since then, the economical, political, technical and ideological frameworks underlying the development of cultural industries have evolved considerably. These evolutions ' as well as the epistemological shifts incurred by the emergence of what has become known as the digital economy, the information or knowledge society, or the immaterial / creative economy ' do not invalidate the theories that were elaborated at this time, but do however call for their confrontation with new empirical elements and a general re-shaping of this approach, within a homogeneous unit. We therefore wish to work towards the elaboration of a critical, communication science based approach to creative industries, which will take into account the mutations that have been brought about by financialisation, concentration, globalisation, convergence between cultural industries and communication industries (in other words telecommunications, Web, computer and electronic equipment) and by the development of educational industries. Without discarding what makes up the specificities of cultural and educational industries, we wish to emphasise the creative core of these industries, in other words, the singular creative pattern that binds them together as a category, albeit each with their distinctive properties. We will not study the other industrial sectors that are sometimes wrongly included, according to our hypothesis, among creative industries. In order to firmly set our epistemological reflexion in the international literature concerned with these issues and to take into account the empirical evolutions that the field has undergone, two series of investigations will be carried out. Firstly, an inventory and analysis of scientific and para-scientific works related to the themes of cultural, communication, educational and creative industries, as well as those of knowledge / digital / immaterial based economies or societies. Secondly, investigations regarding the strategies of economical and social agents (notably electronic platform operators in the field of educational, media and cultural products and services, regulatory agents, and « content » agents implicated in so-called convergence strategies), by means of interviews and analysis of secondary data. The results of our work will be disseminated, throughout the research, by the circulation and discussion of our initial findings via the OMIC (International Observatory of Cultural Industry Mutations) website, and, in a latter phase, through the publication of two books and the organisation of an international conference that will follow on from the September 2006 conference. The team includes 9 researchers from 4 laboratories, as well as a professional involved in the field of film-making. It will be based at the North Paris MSH, where all the members of the team have already taken part in two former research programs (2004-2008). The current project differs from these last, due to its mainly epistemological aims, and because of the renewed approach, encompassing the theories of creative industries. Two foreign partners (Canadian and British), both self-financed, will be strongly associated in order to ensure the international character of the research. A post-doctoral position is required for the full three years of the program's duration. The feasibility of the research is also guaranteed by the limited number of members, their past experience of joint work, and the organisation in sub-teams (each under a the supervision of a coordinator), according to the separate tasks.