Introducing Cultural Work

Abstract

It is commonly said that we live in a ‘cultural’ age, a ‘creative’ age, a time of artistic innovators, knowledge entrepreneurs, e-gurus, fashion conceptualists, music-makers and all manner of digital hawkers, traders and image-makers. Certainly, since the 1960s there has been a rapid expansion of activity and employment in advertising, art, television, radio and film, fashion, graphic design, music, software production, gaming and leisure – a group of activities that have now come to be known collectively as the ‘cultural industries’. Alongside this, the growth of what Bourdieu (1984) has famously referred to as ‘cultural intermediary’ occupations – cultural critics, journalists, talent-spotters, promoters and commentators – has helped furnish the markets for cultural industry goods and services. These days, few would doubt that in Western economies the cultural industries have, as Hesmondhalgh puts it, ‘moved closer to the centre of the economic action’ (2007, p. 1).