Culture is Bad for You: Inequality in the Cultural and Creative Industries

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In the book, we suggest that it’ll be necessary to bypass current modes of cultural production: big changes don’t start by transforming the Tate, but by starting something new. The key point here is that the organisation of work makes a sustainable career in culture extremely difficult, but disproportionally so for those people from working-class backgrounds, people of colour and women. Finance is provided by PayPal Credit (a trading name of PayPal UK Ltd, Whittaker House, Whittaker Avenue, Richmond-Upon-Thames, Surrey, United Kingdom, TW9 1EH). Dr Orian Brook is Chancellor’s Fellow in Social Policy, in the University’s School of Social and Political Science, and a member of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport’s College of Experts.

The ‘poshness’ of specific cultural occupations, the absence of those from working class origins, is not a new thing. Which stories get told is a result of how cultural production is organised’ (Brook, O’Brien and Taylor, 2020: 14). In Culture is Bad for You: Inequality in the Cultural and Creative Industries (Manchester University Press, 2020), authors Orian Brook, Dave O’Brien and Mark Taylor cut through a Gordian Knot of interconnected and complex factors that create and maintain multiple inequalities within the UK Creative and Cultural Industries (CCIs). The echo chamber of cultural politics looks at its worst when the most motivated consumers of culture also turn out to be its producers.The industry is risk averse as a result of the huge costs of production (and of subsequent distribution and marketing), set against the uncertainty of success. Q. The usual mainstream assumption is that culture is good for you – that it’s enjoyable, keeps you healthy, socially connected, inspiring etc.

Vaccinating Britain investigates the relationship between the British public and vaccination policy since 1945. They show cultural workers see culture as so valuable that it is worth changing themselves for – this means accepting to work for free, accepting a career in culture is irreconcilable with childcare and accepting there is no boundary between work and life. Arts Emergency would hook them up with mentors in that field so that they would have a way in, like a sort of alternative to the Old Boys Network. Since defining culture is closely related to inequalities, as academics we should not reproduce these distinctions like the survey does.It’s also massively to do with being a woman of colour… They would much rather hire the white dude, and they feel more comfortable with the white dude, than the bolshy brown woman who seems to have done things that they don’t feel comfortable with.

Vital reading for anyone working in culture and interested in equality - this book gives us the reasons to make change, the actions are up to us. This book tells the story of how Henna’s observation that film, and much of the rest of culture, is not a meritocracy. A lot of the kinds of policy interventions that would be most effective in confronting inequalities in the cultural sector are broader than the sector itself.The authors use the concept with hesitation, acknowledging that social mobility into creative jobs means ‘mobility’ into low pay and a lack of job security. In terms of how other activities differ from this picture of structural inequalities, I’d point to work by people like Daniel Laurison and Sam Friedman, who’ve investigated how the fractions of people from different backgrounds vary across industries.

Any views expressed within media held on this service are those of the contributors, should not be taken as approved or endorsed by the University, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University in respect of any particular issue. There’s a very interesting and persuasive argument for this that Kevin Osborne’s recently written, that I’d recommend people read.But what is missing is the potential for a cultural experience to be profound and authentic, to speak to more than the converted, a struggle the ACE has been battling with since its conception. Some parts of the cultural sector, those most able to take advantage of the boom in demand for digital content as people have stayed at home, may be doing well. N2 - In Culture is Bad for You: Inequality in the Cultural and Creative Industries (Manchester University Press, 2020), authors Orian Brook, Dave O’Brien and Mark Taylor cut through a Gordian Knot of interconnected and complex factors that create and maintain multiple inequalities within the UK Creative and Cultural Industries (CCIs).