Justin O’Connor, "Culture is Not an Industry: Reclaiming Art and Culture for the Common" (Manchester UP, 2024)

May 1, 2024

Dr. Justin O'Connor challenges the commercialization of culture as an industry, advocating for its renewal as a social contract. Topics include the transformative power of culture in urban development, evolution of cultural definitions, the dual perceptions of art, cultural consumption evolution, challenges faced by artists, and redefining culture as a public good.

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Introduction

00:00 • 2min

Reflections on the Transformative Power of Culture and Urban Development

01:48 • 2min

Exploring the Evolution of Culture

03:53 • 13min

Exploring the Dual Perceptions of Art: Luxury vs. Necessity

16:37 • 5min

Cultural Consumption Evolution and Creative Industries

21:39 • 12min

Challenges Faced by Artists in the Evolving Cultural Landscape

34:06 • 5min

Redefining Culture as a Public Good

38:50 • 20min

According to Dr. Justin O’Connor, culture is at the heart of what it means to be human. But twenty-five years ago, the British government rebranded art and culture as 'creative industries', valued for their economic contribution, and set out to launch the UK as the creative workshop of a globalised world.

Where does that leave art and culture now? Facing exhausted workers and a lack of funding and vision, culture finds itself in the grip of accountancy firms, creativity gurus and Ted Talkers. At a time of sweeping geo-political turmoil, culture has been de-politicised, its radical energies reduced to factors of industrial production. Culture is Not an Industry: Reclaiming Art and Culture for the Common (Manchester UP, 2024) is about what happens when an essential part of our democratic citizenship, fundamental to our human rights, is reduced to an industry.

Culture is not an industry argues that art and culture need to renew their social contract and re-align with the radical agenda for a more equitable future. Bold and uncompromising, the book offers a powerful vision for change.

Michael O. Johnston, Ph.D. is a Assistant Professor of Sociology at William Penn University. He is the author of The Social Construction of a Cultural Spectacle: Floatzilla (Lexington Books, 2023) and Community Media Representations of Place and Identity at Tug Fest: Reconstructing the Mississippi River (Lexington Books, 2022). His general area of study is in the areas of social construction of experience, identity, and place. He is currently conducting research for his next project that looks at nightlife and the emotional labor that is performed by employees of bars and nightclubs. To learn more about Michael O. Johnston you can go to his website, Google Scholar, Twitter @ProfessorJohnst, or by email at johnstonmo@wmpenn.edu.

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