Making it national, making it new : a journey through Australian cultural policy

Abstract

The aim of this doctoral thesis is to investigate the nature and historical development of Australian cultural policy. When the Australian government sets out to support the arts and culture in Australian society, how does it do it? What is the specific nature of this support, what is this support intended to achieve, and what does it achieve in reality? An interdisciplinary methodology is adopted. Methods of historical research, cultural sociology, investigative journalism, applied ethnography and the quantitative social sciences are deployed in a four-year exploration of the ways that cultural policy underpins and structures cultural production in Australia. In particular, I am interested in the ways that government policy encouraged or discouraged the creation and production of new works. With this in mind, I develop a specific and detailed research plan to gather empiri¬cal evidence on the production of new works in certain sectors of the Australian perform¬ing arts industries. In addition to the quantitative research carried out, a series of research papers were also written in cognate fields of cultural policy in Australia, presented in Chapters 2-6. The findings of the quantitative research inquiry undertaken for this thesis are three-fold. Firstly, there is a negative correlation between the size of cultural organisations and the amount of new work they produce. Secondly, artform differences account for much of the variation, with orchestral music in particular experiencing very little production of new works. Thirdly, the majority of work produced by federally-funded performing arts organisations in Australia is not new. These findings have implications for the conduct and practice of contemporary Australian cultural policy. The research papers presented in Chapters 2-6 present a wide-ranging journey through contemporary Australian cultural policy and production, including policy papers regarding Australian innovation and cultural policy settings, a detailed case history of the lifespan of an Australian cultural funding program (the Film Finance Corporation of Australia), case studies of working artists, and a philosophical critique of a recent book about the econom¬ics of cultural innovation. Four conclusions are advanced. Firstly, Australian culture is the complex outcome of its contingent historical development. Secondly, the structuring pattern of the market remains dominant. Thirdly, Australian cultural policy-makers have, by and large, responded to rather that shaped this contingent history of globalised, mar¬ket-based culture. Fourthly, policy remains a significant structuring influence, as can be seen by the growing importance of the concept of innovation to contemporary cultural policy debates. In closing, the thesis argues that cultural policy provides a powerful tool for the investigation of the sociology of the cultural industries in Australia.

Date of Award	2013
Original language	English