On March 15, 2023, the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released data on the 2021 contribution of the arts and cultural sector to the U.S. economy. For the first time in history, web publishing and streaming services were announced as the largest arts and cultural industrial sub-sector in America. The reasons for this are obvious, with clear growth in this particular CI sub-sector during the primary years of the COVID-19 global pandemic (2019–2023), when access to venues where live performances take place was substantially reduced, and purchasing CI products in general was pushed online and into the home.
According to the report, even by the end of 2021, ‘22 of the 35’ US creative industries sub-sectors had already returned to or exceeded pre-pandemic levels of economic activity. Those that lagged or (and here’s the crux of the report worthy of consideration) remained behind the economic level they had been at before the pandemic included ‘performing arts organizations (e.g. theatre, dance, and opera companies, music groups; and circuses), and arts-related construction’. Again, the logic of this, given the impact of pandemic restrictions on public gatherings is obvious.
It is reported this March that the thirteen US CI sub-sectors that had not returned to at least 2019 levels by the end of 2021 also included independent artists (of all kinds) in what is otherwise a NEA/BEH report highlighting economic growth. In fact, it is reported that ‘the overall (the US) arts economy in 2021 represented 4.4% of GDP, or just over $1.0 trillion—a new high-water mark’. With such a level of economic positivity in this report, connected conspicuously with the noteworthy growth in the web publishing and streaming services sub-sector, one question arises. Either a question for now, or one for the years to come. That is, if ‘only 18% of establishments in this industry [web publishing and streaming] are nonprofit’, does this rise in this sub-sector’s predominance also represent a long-term shift away from non-profit creative industries in the United States? In addition, if CI production involving independent artists also experienced a lower rate of economic growth than prior to the pandemic is that a trend that will continue?
The creative industries sector has for generations been powered by both individual arts practitioners and industrial entities. When assessing the sector, it has long been necessary to consider profit and non-profit organizations, individual professionals, hobbyists, the self-employed, non-profits groups (often community, education or health related), national corporations and global conglomerates, not least given the impact of cultural activities on individuals, communities, regions and nations – and indeed on how we all relate to each other beyond our cultural or national identities. CI is, fundamentally, about human exchange and even with the advent of various forms of artificial intelligence (AI) CI remains grounded in how humans relate to humans – whether the experiences and works produced in the sector are generated by machines or not, because the reasons for them existing at all is, to this point in human history at least, the result of human desire and of human reasoning.
Some final questions therefore arise. That is, about whether when reports on the contribution of the arts and cultural sector to the U.S. economy are complete for 2022 and then 2023 (on May 5, 2023, the World Health Organization announced that COVID-19 is no longer a global health emergency) will they present a similar picture to that for 2021? If not, will performing arts organizations, arts-related construction and individual artists have returned to or exceeded their previous economic status? If so, what new analyses will be needed to map the changes, and to consider the new shape of the American creative industries sector? And, indeed, how will it compare to that we will observe in other nations?
Editor’s note: Creative Industries scholarship continues around the world, written ahead of current circumstances and with no inference in its appearance today. I am nevertheless reminded today of the words of Benjamin Franklin, publisher, inventor, statesmen, diplomat and more: ‘There never was a good war or a bad peace’.
Notes
National Endowment for the Arts, New Data Show Economic Activity of the U.S. Arts & Cultural Sector in 2021, March 15, 2023
https://www.arts.gov/news/press-releases/2023/new-data-show-economic-activity-us-arts-cultural-sector-2021 Accessed May 30, 2023
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