The Creative Industries: a discourse-theoretical approach

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to examine the emergence of the idea of the creative industries in a particular former socialist country – Estonia. Instead of regarding the creative industries as an economic sector, the article (re)conceptualises it as an ‘empty signifier’. The paper borrows its central theoretical concepts (hegemony, empty signifier, floating signifier) from post-Marxist discourse theory and employs them to explore the ways in which the creative industries are instituted within particular social, discursive or political struggles. The article proposes that Laclauian (or post-Marxist) discourse theory can raise some new fruitful methodological problems and challenging research directions among the researchers of the creative industries and cultural policy, especially in the Eastern European context.