The Values of Cultural Work: ethics, interests and motivations in the cultural and creative industries

这一批判性审查的目的是探讨不同的价值观如何影响和塑造文化和创意产业的工作和生产过程。它考察了艺术家、音乐家、网页设计师、电影制作人和其他一系列可识别的创造性或文化工作者从事的各种“文化工作”如何受到各种道德、关切、兴趣和动机的影响。通过这样做，它希望特别展示文化工作的各种复杂性，如何影响工人自己(以及更广泛的公众)对一种特定价值--文化价值--的性质和意义的理解。虽然对文化价值的研究往往侧重于文化物品、文本或商品的离散性质，或它们如何被受众消费，但这往往掩盖了导致这些物品的创造并已部分塑造其特定形式和公共意义的文化工作过程。但文化工作--以及工人--是文化价值问题的核心，因为没有工人生产文化产品，公众和观众就没有什么真正有价值的东西。在将他们自己的(文化、社会、政治或其他)前提和利益带到文化产品的创造方面，工人们发挥了什么作用？那么，这会如何影响更广泛的公众对这类商品的接受、价值或意义？然而，更核心的是，当文化工作者从现有的价值剧目中吸取教训，创造新的价值，并将影响其公共流通和消费的目的和意义投入到他们的工作中时，他们也‘为自己’从事文化工作，为了他们自己的内部目的、回报和价值。准确地说，这些可能是什么？通过对现有的关于文化工作经验背景的跨学科文献的详细审查，本项目得出了文化工作对工作者本身的价值。在这样做的过程中，它对传统的假设提出了质疑，这些假设认为文化工作者的主要动机只是“艺术”甚至“经济”利益，并更全面地探索了文化产业生产的复杂的“道德经济”。通过将文化工作作为想象和产生文化价值的一套特定的条件和背景进行调查，该项目开始就文化和创意产业的特殊伦理性质和目的展开更广泛的讨论。

The aim of this critical review is to explore how different values inform and shape processes of work and production in the cultural and creative industries. It examines how various ethics, concerns, interests and motivations are brought to bear on the kinds of 'cultural work' undertaken by artists, musicians, web-designers, film-makers and a whole range of other identifiably creative or cultural workers. In doing so, it hopes to show especially how cultural work, in its varied complexity, can influence workers' own (and wider public) understandings of the character and signifiance of one particular kind of value - cultural value. While studies of cultural value often focus on the discrete qualities of cultural objects, texts or commodities, or how they are consumed by audiences, this tends to obscure the cultural work processes which have led to the creation of those objects and already part-shaped their particular form and public meaning. But cultural work - and the worker - are at the very heart of the matter of cultural value, since without workers to produce cultural goods, there is nothing for publics and audiences to actually value. What role do workers play in terms of bringing their own (cultural, social, political or other) presuppositions and interests to the creation of cultural goods? And how does this then affect the wider public uptake, value or meaning of such goods? More centrally, however, while cultural workers draw from existing repertoires of value, and create new value, and invest their work with purpose and meaning which influences its public circulation and consumption, they also undertake cultural work 'for themselves', for their own internal purposes, rewards and values. What might these be, precisely? Through detailed review of the existing range of interdisciplinary literature on the empirical contexts of cultural work, this project draws out the value of cultural work for workers themselves. In doing so it questions conventional assumptions that suggest cultural workers are only primary motivated by 'artistic' or even 'economic' interests, and more fully explores the complex 'moral economy' of cultural industry production. By investigating cultural work as one particular set of conditions and contexts under which cultural value is being imagined and produced, the project moves to open up a wider discussion of the particular ethical character and purpose of the cultural and creative industries.