The Arts and Entertainment: Situating Leisure in the Creative Economy

Abstract

Among the many products and practices categorized as art and entertainment are some of the most popular forms of leisure in contemporary society. Of particular significance are such commodities and activities as the expressive arts, popular music, motion pictures, television and multimedia. Indeed, the leisure experiences and priorities of people living in the West, increasingly, are being satisfied by, and understood in terms of, the cultural industries sector rather than the leisure and recreation industries as they traditionally have been defined. Even tourism is now often included under the remit of culture rather than leisure. The creative industries are also at the centre of a range of city reimaging and city branding exercises which seek to turn former places of work and production into spaces of leisure and consumption (Stevenson, 2003). Such places have become key sites for economic development and the expression and maintenance of local and regional identities.