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Cultural Economics, the Internet and Participation

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Book cover Enhancing Participation in the Arts in the EU

Abstract

Digitization and the Internet have affected the arts, heritage organizations and cultural industries along with other information services. Digital information and communication technologies (ICT) have altered the consumption of and participation in a range of creative goods and services, including the live performing arts, recorded music, film and cultural heritage. This chapter looks at some of the changes that have recently come about due to digitization and at the analysis of them by economists, and invokes key concepts in cultural economics to understand the meaning of these trends.

This chapter is an updated and adapted version of a working-paper first published in 2013 by the same authors. A related version was also published in the Handbook on the Economics of the Internet in 2016.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For concise reviews of these industries, see Waelbroeck (2013) on music, Stepan (2013) on film, Farchy et al. (2013) on e-books and Banks and Cunningham (2013) on games.

  2. 2.

    See Choi (2012) for a detailed treatment of bundling.

  3. 3.

    See Gabszewicz et al. (2015) for a recent survey.

  4. 4.

    Cultural products tend to be non-rival in consumption—the consumption by one party does not diminish the value of the same work by others. If there are no problems with excessive use (congestion), network effects will usually be positive. There may be exceptions where cultural products are Veblen goods that are appreciated for their scarcity and the potential to demonstrate social status through conspicuous consumption (Towse 1997).

  5. 5.

    Pay TV subscriptions for selected—often exclusive—audiovisual content have been marketed for a long time.

  6. 6.

    See Google and PRS (2012) for an overview of business models for illegal online provision.

  7. 7.

    See Sherman and Waterman (2016) on the economics of online video entertainment.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. ESHCC, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

    Christian Handke

  2. Austrian Society for Cultural Economics and Policy Studies (FOKUS), Vienna, Austria

    Paul Stepan

  3. University for Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Vienna, Austria

    Paul Stepan

  4. Bournemouth University—Business School, Bournemouth, UK

    Ruth Towse

Authors
  1. Christian Handke
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  2. Paul Stepan
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  3. Ruth Towse
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Christian Handke .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Foundations of Economic Analysis II, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Bilbao, Spain

    Victoria M. Ateca-Amestoy

  2. ECARES, Brussels, Belgium

    Victor Ginsburgh

  3. Department of Economics and Business, University of Catania, Catania, Italy

    Isidoro Mazza

  4. Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    John O'Hagan

  5. Department of Economics, University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain

    Juan Prieto-Rodriguez

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Handke, C., Stepan, P., Towse, R. (2017). Cultural Economics, the Internet and Participation. In: Ateca-Amestoy, V., Ginsburgh, V., Mazza, I., O'Hagan, J., Prieto-Rodriguez, J. (eds) Enhancing Participation in the Arts in the EU. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09096-2_20

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