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Artistic Expression in a Corporate World: Do We Need Monopolistic Control
The Dossier of this issue of the Culturelink review will have a somewhat different format than usual. We have decided not to publish several individual texts but to offer you an insight into a recently published book by the Culturelink member Professor Joost Smiers from the Utrecht School of the Arts.
Our colleague Joost Smiers has written an interesting book entitled Artistic Expression in a Corporate World: Do we need monopolistic control? and instead of producing a printed version, he decided to publish it on the Culturelink web site and thus make it available for free download for Culturelink members and other interested readers. We are very grateful to Professor Smiers for choosing Culturelink's web site for publishing his most recent book and would like to encourage also other Culturelink members to use our web site to inform Culturelink members, subscribers and the general public about their initiatives and projects.
The book is divided into four chapters (the first three of which are published in the Dossier) with some strategic observations and proposals at the end. It is not just an overview of possible measures to counterbalance the negative consequences of globalization and liberalization of trade but rather, like some previous works of the same author, a reflection about the profound changes affecting contemporary societies.
In the introduction Smiers writes the following:
If ownership and decision-making concerning cultural life is being controlled in a substantial manner by just a few cultural industries worldwide, then fundamental human rights and democracy are in danger. Human communication, expressed in all different forms of the arts, and the access to its means of production and distribution, should be as free and diverse as possible and should in no way be controlled by a few forces that dominate cultural markets in all corners of the world. This is about to happen...
To read and download the pdf version of the book, please visit: http://www.culturelink.org/news/members/2004/Smiers_Artistic_Expression.pdf
Feel free to send your comments to the author: Dr. Joost Smiers, Research Group Arts & Economics, Utrecht School of the Arts, P.O.Box 1520, 3500 BM Utrecht, The Netherlands; tel.: +31-31-233-2256; e-mail: joost.smiers@central.hku.nl
Contents
Chapter 1
- 1 January 1985: from Culture to Trade
- Unesco – WTO
- Why should we have cultural conglomerates?
- The human right of access
Chapter 2
- WTO - No Safe Haven for Culture
- Preliminary skirmishes
- WTO: only commercial perspective
- A new binding international instrument on cultural diversity
Chapter 3
- Convention on Cultural Diversity
- The capacity of all states to preserve and enhance cultural diversity
- Cultural diversity: signifiers in human life
- Guiding principles
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