The Race for Innovation in the Media and Content Industries: Legacy Players and Newcomers: Lessons for Policy Makers from the Video Game and Cinema Industries

Abstract

How do media industries innovate? And how can they compete with powerful new competitors from the information technology world? Innovation is usually linked with high-tech, and "creativity" is associated to media and content industries (MCIs), even if these industries rely on various technologies. The article focuses on the video game and cinema industries. It presents the contrasting specific forms of innovation from these two selected industries. Cultural public policies have always been designed mainly to support the production of creative content and generate social welfare instead of focusing on technological innovations. In the last decades, all these industries underwent significant transformations of their production processes, not to mention the transformation due to the introduction of computers within the firms. The findings raised by recent studies provide a fresh understanding of the nature of innovation, and its place in these industries that does not boil down to simply creating new content. Instead, economic dynamics have recently been opened in creative and cultural companies: a regular capacity for innovation is observable. The paper blends a general outlook that sets the scene of the transformations these industries have gone through with some selected case studies to highlight some innovative elements. The evolution of the development models and the changes brought by technology raise questions about how to (re)consider the role of public intervention in the cultural and creative industries (CCIs).

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