RESETTING CULTURAL POLICY FOR GLOBAL RUPTURE
[Reading time: 5 minutes]
Cultural policy has taken a back seat to economic production incentives in recent years. But a political, military and economic realignment has been gathering pace around the world. Canadian MP Mark Carney has called it a “rupture”. Policy-makers are now looking for a cultural sector reset.
In his speech at Davos earlier this year, Canadian PM Mark Carney talked about a “rupture in the world order” and called for exploring new alliances. The term ‘rupture’ rightly captured media attention, signalling a decisive resetting of relationships with Donald Trump’s USA – economically, militarily and (implicitly) culturally.
“It is the the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a harsh reality, where geopolitics, where the large, main power… is submitted to no limits, no constraints.”
Countries around the world have been rapidly increasing defence spending, reducing reliance on organisations, such as NATO.
But some are asking whether a rethink about cultural goals should get the same urgency.
CHALLENGE
Rethink Creative is involved in a number of think tanks, workshops and other initiatives, reviewing the value of cultural policy.
There are signs of a shifting mood among policy-makers and industry. Some are now openly concerned about whether governments have been too focused on technocratic goals and not enough on cultural values.
Rethink Creative’s Michael Gubbins moderated a debate at the Berlin Film Festival, where European Parliamentarians and industry figures largely agreed on the need for a renewed focus on soft power and cultural value.
As with defence spending, there is a growing sense that cultural goals have been complacently neglected. Public service broadcasting, for example, has been in serious decline for decades.
There is much discussion of funding models and expanding digital platforms, all of which are important. But there has been much less in-depth debate about the underlying relevance (or otherwise) of the cultural and social mission of state broadcasters.
Lord Reith’s famous founding mission for the BBC to “educate, inform and entertain” is 100 years old this year. Back then, broadcasters were generally confined to radio with very little competition.
But up until the Internet began to exert its influence, public service broadcasters essentially defined the centre of gravity of culture and society.
The debate is not necessarily about how far public service broadcasters should be protected and funded. Concern about the age demographic of viewers and dated funding models cannot be ignored.
Rather, the debate needs to be about the social value of culture and sustainable models for effective reform. Given the political divisions, it will not be an easy or comfortable discussion but the changed context might give it an urgent focus.
CONTEXT
Carney suggests a realignment with new structures supporting liberal democratic values. It offers a different perspective on the future of public funding. Certainly, it implies that technocratic approaches to Creative Sector growth are not enough on their own.
There is a need to clear narrative around a new (or renewed) approach to public funding in the Creative Sector.
The position of those arguing against public funding are coherent and clear.
• There is no need for public funding because the market offers more than enough diversity.
• Tax breaks and other automatic incentives support production, creating tangible economic returns.
• Cultural funding is liberal elitism (if you are on the right), or patriarchal/patrician (on the left).
There is also an alternative message from populist nationalists: Culture’s role is to instil a sense of national history and pride. Public funding becomes a weapon in a Culture War against diversity, inclusion and a liberal world view.
What becomes clear from discussions in Berlin and elsewhere is a deep lack of self confidence in those arguing for cultural funding.
Public service broadcasting is no longer the hegemonic influence in States.
It is increasingly clear that the industrial, and too often narrow social bubbles of industry events, festivals and organisational structures were sustained by confirmation bias and a host of pleasant fictions.
The arguments in favour of public funding sound old. And too often the battleground for ideas is dictated by opponents.
CONSEQUENCES
Populist nationalist governments are already making practical steps in reshaping cultural policy. Hungarian PM Viktor Orban said: “we must embed the political system in a cultural era.”
His cultural policy, followed by others, was explicit that cultural policy was about imposing a particular traditional view of national identity. That meant both censorship and funding of films that conformed to the government’s ideology. Others have followed his lead around the world.
The liberal alternative view is much less clear. There have been widely enforced political moves, particularly in terms of diversity, gender equality and inclusion in industry.
But there is generally a defensiveness about content. No-one wants to appear to be too ‘liberal’ – a term co-opted and negatively defined by the American right.
At a recent Think Tank, a fund talked about supporting ‘right wing’ films to offset the perception of liberal bias in public funding. Such an approach is either an acknowledgment of actual bias, or a decision to give preference to a politically partial film because of a false impression of bias. It demonstrates a confusion.
The reality is that public cultural funding is a liberal concept. It embodies the idea of culture outside the market or authoritarian state. There is no getting around that simple fact.
Recent years have shown how easy it is to pull down established institutions but how hard it is to build alternatives.
The question of cultural value requires a very big rethink. The perceived success of tax breaks and incentives as the key policy intervention will be tested in the coming years.
But creating a compelling case for selective cultural funding needs new arguments, created within the realities of a changed context.
RethinkCreative’s mission is all about facing realities and confronting fictions, however pleasant.
