Employment and diversity in the cultural and creative industries in South Africa: research note

The publication of Richard Florida's (2002) The Rise of the Creative Class marked a growing international interest in the creative economy. There are several ways of understanding the creative economy, often divided into the cultural and creative industries. Cultural industries are those whose major outputs have some symbolic value, such as fine arts, film and craft, jewelry design, publishing and fashion. Creative industries are defined more broadly as those that have knowledge as their major input. In addition to cultural goods and services, these include things like software design and internet services. UNESCO (2009) provides guidelines for defining the cultural and creative industries and the ways in which they can be measured, but there is currently no international consensus. Nor is there likely to be, since different countries will have very different levels of involvement and focus that may shape what information is useful, for example, for shaping policy