The Media Governance and the Public Sphere Sample for Students

Question: Discuss about the Media Governance and the Public Sphere. Answer: Introduction: The international environment as well as economy is changing rapidly due to globalization, competition and technology. Singapore, like many other nations, is reinventing itself in this era of globalization. It formulated and implemented policies for integrating and utilizing the multicultural ethnicity and multidimensional creativity of the people. The new age arts, technology and business have become the competitive advantage for Singapore. These lay the foundation for developing a creative economy (Cunningham 2013). Creative cluster is the main contributor for making a creative economy. It is defined as the industries that are based on individual skills and talents and exploitation of intellectual property. The three main creative industries are arts and culture, Media and Design. The contribution of the creative cluster is between 2.8% to 3.2% of GDP in Singapore. It has employee strength of approximately 72,000 in 8000 enterprises (Kong 2012). Review of creative cluster The objective of Singapore is to develop a sustainable and effervescent creative cluster to promote the growth of the nation as a creative economy. It generates value directly, along with that, it helps in innovation and diversification of businesses. According to Prof. Richard Florida, the main aspect of creativity is that, it is multidimensional. It is of various types: technological i.e. invention; economic i.e. entrepreneurship and artistic and cultural. These are different in nature but at the same time interconnected. The integration of arts, business and technology leads to development of new scopes for creative economy. Since the growth rate of creative clusters is higher compared to the overall economy, it can be said that the individual intellectual properties are the driving forces behind this growth rate. However, it is much less compared to other developed countries such as, UK, U.S.A. and Australia. The reasons for lagging behind can be addressed through the SWOT analys is (Cunningham 2013). The objectives of the strategies are to create awareness of the economic potential of such industries and define and measure the impact of these, research on the main issues and challenges arriving with the growth, foster collaboration among the private and public sectors to promote the growth of the creative sector, promote and implement policies (Kong 2012). The problems of the scope for creative clusters are as follows (Oswin 2012): The limited size of the domestic market forces the creative cluster of Singapore to adopt a global approach. The creative industries often face financing issue. The lack of industry specific knowledge of the financial companies and venture capitalists, lack of business know-how of the creative sector, high numbers of self employed and small businesses in the creative sector, and the possibility of intangible or long term returns often create problems for getting the adequate financing for the businesses. Singapore needs to shake off the image of overregulated city, because creativity flourishes in a place where there is more tolerance level for diverse ideas and more freedom to perform experimentation. Singapore government invested more than $1 billion in infrastructure for arts. However, the software technology and industry needs adequate investment too. It should spend money to create an international creative hub to promote the creative sector of the country. The threats of this industry can be derived from the SWOT analysis too. The international competition in this sector is on the rise, especially in the last decade. All other developing countries are investing money on their creative clusters to attain full economic value and the sector is growing giving hard competition to Singapore. The creative hubs of New York, London and San Francisco are much more developed and competitive than the hub of Singapore. Hence, the local talents in the industry are moving to those developed hubs. Singapore is facing the creative brain drain due to underdeveloped creative cluster. To develop the creative industries of Singapore, Creative Industries Working Group (CIWG) recommended that a national approach should be followed. It should involve all the entities of the country such as, ministries, statutory boards, educational institutes, businesses, technology companies, public and private investors and financial institutions. However, Ministry of Trade and Industry (MIT) should lead the developmental programs (Navera 2013). Policy review of Renaissance City CIWG has put forward some industry specific recommendations (Comunian and Ooi, 2016): Renaissance City 2.0 making Singapore a highly creative, innovative and multitalented international city of arts and culture; Design Singapore an international business and cultural hub for designing products, contents and services where design consciousness and creativity are the primary focus; Media 21 An international media city, which has a prosperous media system based in Singapore with global extensions To follow these recommendations, certain measures should be taken: Embedding the arts, design and media at all education levels: To bring out the creative talents of the people, learning tools of arts, design and media should be introduced at all education levels. Moreover, there should be more passionate and learned teachers to guide the people in the creative direction. Establishment of flagship university program for art, design and media: A flagship program at the National University of Singapore should be introduced in collaboration with leading global institutions to train the students in creative aspects. Establishment of a media laboratory: Singapore should plan for the establishment of a media laboratory with international partners to nurture the talents of the researchers for conducting research on innovating services and applications (Wong 2012). The Renaissance City 2.0 report throws some light on the economic performance of the arts and culture of Singapore, and the challenges faced by this sector. In 2000, the arts and cultural activities added around $470 million in the GDP from $43 million in 1986 (Department of Statistics). It has a multiplier effect of 1.66 which is significantly higher than 1.4 of the banking industry and 1.35 of petrochemical industry. Moreover, it is the artistic center of the creative cluster, and hence, it is directly linked with the economic activities and achievements of the overall sector. Furthermore, this sector promotes the attractiveness of Singapore to the international talents. It is very important to draw global attention in order to achieve recognition in the international market. Hence, Singapore must put effort to make it more attractive through the enhancement of arts and culture (Woon 2012). Critique: The Singapore Tourism Board (STB), National Library Board (NLB) and National Arts Council (NAC) are responsible for the development of arts and culture sector. The STB has taken it in the tourism angle while the other two has taken it in the nonprofit angle. This difference has become outdated and is not reflective of the complexities of the interdependence of profitable and nonprofit arts. However, when the nonprofit arts comprises of a public good, it works closely with the commercial counterparts. Thus, all these sectors must work together to bring out the economic potential of the arts and culture (Lim 2014). The problems of this policy are: Lack of investments in software results in inadequacy of bringing out the full potential of the economy. To enhance the creative talents, there has to be enough investments in the softwares to develop the international creative hubs. Small domestic market often discourages the improvement of the arts and cultural sector due to less demand. Local organizations must also contribute to expand the ways for this sector. High cost of business is a key issue in Singapore. The cost of rentals or lease is very high which discourages the organizations to promote arts and culture. Hence, incentives are required to make Singapore viable for potential businesses. Low levels of private sector partnership and sponsorship in Singapore is another problem for promoting arts and cultural events. The levels of partnerships and sponsors for such events must be increased. There are scopes for this policy to prosper. Singapore can promote the brand Singapore and can utilize the cultural tourism, fusion entertainment and its closeness to the huge Asian market and the cultural resources of South East Asia to achieve success of the Renaissance City developmental policy. Hence, maximization of the existing and new arts infrastructure potential through the development of softwares and integration of business and people can lead to a successful formation of the Renaissance City (Spieser et al. 2014). Review of design Singapore strategy Singapore must enhance itself as a center for contemporary designs to increase its competitiveness in the global market. A taskforce comprising of Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, International Enterprise Singapore, NHB, MTI, NAC and Economic Development Board have been given the responsibility of promoting the designing excellence of Singapore to the world. The key recommendations are: Integrating design in the enterprises; establishing National Design Agency; and nurturing a flourishing design community (Wood and Dovey 2015). The strengths and opportunities of this agenda consist of many factors such as; the sophisticated market and English speaking population. Along with those, the integration of attractive designs and public services, such as beautification of public attractions; innovating and redesigning of the global products using technological expertise and industrial and research infrastructure, efforts towards making Singapore a design hub; and introducing New Asia branding in an unique and exportable style in the sectors of food, beverages, hospitality, retail and entertainment service sectors can push the creative sector forward (Chuluunbaatar, Luh, and Kung 2014). The challenges are: The organizations more often do not consider the designing excellence as a sustainable planning advantage for unique products. The design capabilities are mostly imported rather than utilizing the local talents. The elements of design industry are in place but the efforts for consolidating are fragmented. Hence, the local talents are not used to develop the designing excellence of the nation to meet the competitive needs. The design activities are not fully realized in the country, hence, the full value of products and services, designed in Singapore, is not captured. There is lack of multidisciplinary design education which leads to a shortage of professionals who can place the designs more strategically to integrate the business, technological, sociological and aesthetic concerns. The awareness of the people regarding using a good and effective design and its impact on every aspect of life is very low. More persuasive design culture is not that much evident in Singapore. The vision for design Singapore is to make it a global hub for designing products, services and contents by applying the design consciousness of people. The policies have some positive outcomes such as; it has become one of the leading centers for contemporary designs in Asia. It is now attracting local and global talents to work here, promoting innovative design companies, and being a provider of creative design education. It has also helped to create a brand Singapore in the global market by attaching the label designed in Singapore. Moreover, the local companies have become more competitive and have gained advantages from the design excellence and there is a pervasive design culture in the country by raising the awareness level for effective designing (Howlett 2014). Review of policies for media city and collaborative strategy Key drivers of growth of media industry are increasing demand for knowledge from both regional and international market, information and demand for entertainment (Ramos, Suzanna and Gerard 2014). Singapore media industry is prospective to contribute in the growth of the economy. However, this industry faces shortage in finance, scarcity of required talent, rising regional competition, limited domestic market for media, drawing out of resources such as talent and investment by regional media industry. Media 21 envisages Singapore as a global media city. Media 21 has developed some key strategies such as development of State-of-art media city, positioning Singapore as Media exchange, export content made in Singapore, augmentation of media talent pool and fostering a supportive regulatory environment and culture. Policy of developing media cities have been taken with the aim of marketing the production of Singapore based media industry in the global platform and to pool talent from international media industries. The objective of the strategy is to develop a cluster around the media hub, where supportive industries would be building up to support media industry of Singapore. As discussed by Pernice and Raffaele (2016), impact of globalization helps to develop an urban area unto modern cities through cluster of different other industries having forward and backward linkages. Therefore, creative industry has significant impact on the development of metropolitan cities and on economic growth. It is recommended that government has to take initiative to adopt collaborative strategy for the development of cluster of creative industry. However, government and private companies both need to take initiative to support this industry. Government support may help to mitigate finance crisis faced by this industry (Oi and Kay Kok Chung 2015). As recommended by media 21, promoting applied research in the digital media can be effective policy. As discussed by Cho et al. (2016), investment in research and development is the effective way to bring innovation in this industry. Digitalization of this sector is supportive to bring competitive advantage in Singapore media industry. Technological advancement makes the media industry more creative (Comunian, Roberta, and Can-Seng Ooi 2016). Hence, the initiative of setting up MITs media lab is potent for this industry. Second strategy was to position Singapore as a Media exchange. This recommendation can enable the country to exploit media copyright and acquisition. Recommendations for tax break in this respect are effectual for this industry. Chang, Sharon, and Renuka Mahadevan (2014) cited that tax break encourages external media sector or financial companies to invest in this country or develop a media hub in Singapore. Establishment of Media Loan Fund with private companies is competent decision as the funds are available at competitive rate, which might be helpful in capitalize the Singapore media industry. Although Tan and Jeffery (2014) advocated for government funding, private sector participation in the finance market can make the availability of loan more competitive. Third recommendation of attracting venture capital is thus rational initiative. However, media business should not rely totally on venture capitalist. Funds can be collected from different sources with minimum cost. The fourth recommendation is to encourage companies to obtain copy rights and intellectual property rights registration in Singapore. Copyrights are essential to protect the ownership of creativity and talent recognition (Kong 2012). Talent evolution can be functional in establishing media sector of Singapore in the international market. Recommendation for promoting media marketing can be possible arranging trade shows, establishing partnership with international companies (Freeman et al. 2016). Although this strategy is pragmatic, arranging and hosting trade shows requires support from investors. Last strategy is to export media content, which is Singapore based. This policy is effective in developing strong art base and culture in the economy (Lee and Terence 2014). Appreciation of creativity of Singapore art in the international market enhances the opportunity of growth of the industry. Conclusion It can be concluded that all these strategies and recommendations can be implemented and effective. However, proper infrastructure is required to establish and place Singapore media and cultural industry in the international market. Collaboration of both government and private companies is required for successful implementation of the recommended policies. Finance is required for infrastructure development and to educational programme for knowledge formation in this creative sector. Investment in research and development is required to bring innovation in this industry. Cluster of creative industries around the recommended media hub is expected to facilitate media industry. References: Chang, Sharon, and Renuka Mahadevan. "Fad, fetish or fixture: contingent valuation of performing and visual arts festivals in Singapore."International journal of cultural policy20, no. 3 (2014): 318-340. Cho, Im Sik, Quyen Duong, and Ivan Nasution. 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