"This guide to the emerging language of creative industries field is a valuable resource for researchers and students alike. Concise, extensively referenced, and accessible, this this is an exceptionally useful reference work."

- Gauti Sigthorsson, Greenwich University



"There could be no better guides to the conceptual map of the creative industries than John Hartley and his colleagues, pioneers in the field. This book is a clear, comprehensive and accessible tool-kit of ideas, concepts, questions and discussions which will be invaluable to students and practitioners alike. Key Concepts in Creative Industries is set to become the corner stone of an expanding and exciting field of study"

- Chris Barker, University of Wollongong



Creativity is an attribute of individual people, but also a feature of organizations like firms, cultural institutions and social networks. In the knowledge economy of today, creativity is of increasing value, for developing, emergent and advanced countries, and for competing cities.


This book is the first to present an organized study of the key concepts that underlie and motivate the field of creative industries. Written by a world-leading team of experts, it presents readers with compact accounts of the history of terms, the debates and tensions associated with their usage, and examples of how they apply to the creative industries around the world.


Crisp and relevant, this is an invaluable text for students of the creative industries across a range of disciplines, especially media, communication, economics, sociology, creative and performing arts and regional studies.