Still not an ecosytem

Ten years ago, on the eve of a General Election, I wrote an article arguing that calling the UK’s creative industries an “ecosystem” was dangerous. I warned that this seductive metaphor would allow policymakers to imagine the sector as self-regulating and inherently resilient. That it could somehow thrive through ‘organic’ processes separate from market forces, that it would magically regenerate struggling areas simply by being planted there, that it would grow in any soil regardless of distance from talent, capital, and markets.

I’m sad to say that I was right – the metaphor has persisted, and the result is failure. But nowhere has the failure of the metaphor been more visible than in film, television and media production.

Read the full article here (5 minute read)