Dynamics of creative industries in a post-communist society. The development of creative sector in Romanian cities

City, Culture and Society 7 (2016) 63e68

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

City, Culture and Society journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ccs

Dynamics of creative industries in a post-communist society. The development of creative sector in Romanian cities Anda Georgiana Becut¸ National Institute for Research and Cultural Training, Bucharest, 57 Barbu Delavrancea Street, Bucharest, Romania

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history: Received 9 August 2014 Received in revised form 27 October 2015 Accepted 15 March 2016 Available online 2 May 2016

The purpose of the paper is to offer an insight into the Romanian post-socialist urban environment, with a particular emphasis on the creative sector. How did the creative industries emerge in the Romanian cities during the post-socialist period and what were the premises for their development? How can we explain the differences between the Romanian cities in the development of the creative industries? What are the main difficulties that prevent a more dynamic growth of creative industries in a post-communist society? What are the most successful creative industries and creative cities in Romania? We shall explain the creative potential in relation to the level of the urbanization of the region, to the process of deindustrialisation, to the changes in the labour market and to decentralisation of the cultural activities. The results of our analysis show that the development of the creative sector in the Romanian cities is linked to the industrialisation and deindustrialisation process during the socialist and post-socialist periods. Though data show a positive trend of the contribution of the creative industries to the Romanian economy, there are impediments in their development due to a weak market of creative goods and because of the dysfunctions in the production and distribution system. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Creative industries Post-socialism Deindustrialisation Cultural vitality

1. Introduction The interest for measuring and mapping creativity and cultural vitality is not new and many authors from different scientific disciplines (from psychology to sociology, from urban studies to geography) were interested in finding new ways to define and measure the creativity and cultural potential of the cities. One of the first authors who raised the interest for creativity and its measurement was Richard Florida in his work The Rise of the Creative Class. He considered that creativity is the new engine of growth and there is a change from the old economy to a new economy, based on creativity, technology and creative people. Florida's approach has been criticised and is still debatable. Another author who was interested in the relation between creativity and economic development was Andersson, who considered that “knowledge handlers” are very important in the post-industrial economy (Andersson & Mellander, 2011). If Florida's main accent was on diversity and tolerance as important factors to influence the creativity potential of a city, Andersson demonstrated how the industrial development and income growth in a region are positively influenced by a combination of universities and other

E-mail address: [email protected]. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ccs.2016.03.002 1877-9166/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

research institutions, which grow synergistically with telecommunications and good accessibility to fast transport systems, such as air and road transport. These authors have developed creativity analysis models and identified indicators that can explain the relation between creativity and development e nationally, regionally or locally. However, these analysis models have been identified based on post-modern western societies' features and they are successfully applicable within these societies. Many critics brought arguments against this type of ranking, from the viewpoint of the inequalities created and reinforced, of the urban development strategies generated by his methodology and of the narrow vision used in building the creativity index. Ranking cities by creativity indices has highlighted the differences between big and small cities and the competitive disadvantages between them, imposed and reinforced by the creative capital (Lewis & Donald, 2009). From this point of view, the paper aims at presenting a critical approach of the creativity analysis models that do not take into account the local specificity and the past and present structural characteristics, when applied to post-socialist societies. Furthermore, the paper proposes an analysis of the various characteristics that may become explicative variables for a methodology of creativity analysis adapted to the sociopolitical and economic context that the ex-communist countries have been through in the past 25

64

A.G. Becut¸ / City, Culture and Society 7 (2016) 63e68

years. In order to understand the dynamics of the creative industries and the manner that creativity influences the development of a community or nation, it is important to outline a history of the creative industries concept within the ex-communist space. Although there were important steps made in defining and measuring creativity, there are still many disagreements on how to define creativity and innovation, depending on the economic, social, political and cultural context. Firstly, there are different opinions in the academic environment as regards the use of the appropriate concept to define the “new economy”: “post-industrial society”, “creative economy”, “knowledge-based economy”, or “network society”. Secondly, there are different definitions and methodologies for the analysis of the creative industries. The purpose of this paper is not to compare the pros and cons for one term or another. Still, it is worth mentioning the difficulty of comparing and choosing the appropriate term and approach from the viewpoint of the Central and East European context. Although the official version of the term used in the European Union's documents is “cultural and creative sectors”, in this paper we shall use the term “creative industries”. There are different models drawn-up for the purpose of defining and measuring the trends of the creative industries. These models start from the prerequisite that creativity is hard to define and acknowledge that this concept is dynamic and may have different meanings in different cultural spaces and periods. However, there is a consensus regarding the influence of creativity on development, and the major challenge is to identify how and to what extent this influence works. The development of the creative industries raised the researchers' interest in analysing their commercial value and contribution to the national economy. It is worth mentioning the WIPO Guide on Surveying the Economic Contribution of the Copyright-based Industries 2003. In Romania, in 2008, the Centre for Cultural Research in partnership with the Romanian Copyright Office and the Institute of National Economy and with the technical assistance of the World Intellectual Property Organisation published the report The Contribution of Copyright-based Industries to the Romanian Economy, the first research on this topic in our country. The growing interest in creativity and related industries and sectors within the West-European space in the 2000's has also reached the public agenda of Central and Eastern European countries, either following trans-national studies like WIPO or UNCTAD, or under the influence of organisations like the European Council, UNESCO, IFFACA or the British Council. For instance, according to the European Council's Compendium for Cultural Policies, the concept of cultural industries was first used in Bulgaria in 2001, simultaneously with the European Council's pilot project “Cultural Diversity and Cultural Enterprise”, while in Lithuania the concept appeared in 2003 with the conference “Creative Industries: a European Opportunity” (2003). Furthermore, in Hungary the concept emerged in 2002, when WIPO's study was carried out, dealing with the contribution of the copyright-based industries to the national economy, while in Latvia the correspondent study was carried out in 2005 e the same year when Slovakia accepted the definition of cultural industries as it appears in the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. Simultaneously with the occurrence of the concept on the public agenda in the Central and East-European countries, a series of researches on creativity and creative industries were carried out. Most of these studies apply the same creativity-measuring methodology used in the West-European space. In this regard, some of these studies are relevant, i.e. those that include comparisons between European-level countries and cities, such as the studies carried out by WIPO and UNCTAD or Cluster Observatory. Only a few studies carried out in the Central and East-European space used

a methodology adapted to the specificity of the country, e.g. Managing and Measuring Intangibles as Key Resources for Development Sustainable Competitiveness of the Republic of Serbia, where a WestBalkan Index was developed. Another relevant study is Creative industries in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which presents the Baltic approach regarding the development of creative industries. The paper presents the characteristics of each country, regarding both the definition of the creative industries and the related statisticaldata collecting methods. There are various ways of collecting data related to creativity and innovation. The differences in the national policies and legislation regarding creative and cultural industries are reflected in different methodologies and instruments of collecting data. In Romania, for example, the data on the labour market in the creative and cultural industries, with accent on the creative class, are few and sometimes not fully reliable because of the high level of informal economy. Though there are many data on creativity at national level, at local level statistics on this topic are few (especially data about the cities' creativity). There are also different ways of building the creativity index; some were focused on the individual level, and others were focused on social and economic factors in general. This paper proposes an approach on the creative industries through analysis models adapted to the Central and East-European space, as well as the identification of explicative variables for the dynamics in the pre- and post-socialist period. We consider that the analysis methodology of the creative industries in the excommunist space should be reconsidered by adding indicators expressing the local specificity where creativity manifests and referring, for instance, to the legal system, corruption, cultural and technological infrastructure, community facilities, financial instruments, urbanisation level, de-industrialisation and decentralisation level. As demonstrating the importance of each indicator could be the objective of a stand-alone study, in this paper we shall focus only on the last three indicators. Therefore, our study is focused not only on the potential of the cities to attract and retain creative people, but also on their present and past structural features. We shall explain the creative potential in relation to the level of the urbanisation and infrastructure in the region, to the process of industrialisation/deindustrialisation, to the changes in the labour market and to the decentralisation of the cultural activities. Furthermore, we consider that the quantitative data on the creativity-development relation and on the contribution of the creative industries to the national and local economy should be completed with qualitative analyses, which should offer possible explanations for the dynamics of this cultural and economic sector. The first section of this paper aims at mapping the creative industries and identifying the explicative variables, with a view to understanding the differences in performance from the viewpoint of the local vitality. The second section of the paper is dedicated to presenting the socialist and post-socialist context of Romania's creative industries' occurrence and development, focusing on the analysis of the main actors that created the favourable or unfavourable conditions for creativity, as well as on the analysis of performances and limitations in the development of the creative industries, in the meantime presenting success examples in this field. 1.1. Romanian cities and creativity in the socialist and post-socialist period As Andersson showed, as creativity flourished in the postindustrial society, there has been a continuity between the most creative cities of the past and the globalised creative cities of the present (Andersson & Mellander, 2011). In Andersson's theory, new

A.G. Becut¸ / City, Culture and Society 7 (2016) 63e68

networks and new institutions have caused a stage of transition from an industrial society based on manufacturing and large-scale infrastructures to a new type of society in which the creation of knowledge is central (Andersson & Mellander, 2011). For the former Communist bloc, the post-industrial period overlapped with the period of transition from the socialist to the market economy. How did the socialist cities look like and how were they transformed in the post-socialist and post-industrial period? Is there a continuity in a post-socialist and post-industrial society between the most developed cities in the past and the most creative cities in the present? How can we explain the differences between the Romanian cities in the development of the creative industries? These are some questions we shall answer hereinafter. In a very flexible labour market the attractiveness of the places is very important in terms of choosing where to live and work. Therefore, Florida (2005) advanced a theory of the competition between cities and regions to attract creative people, as a strategy to ensure all the necessary premises for a future economic, cultural and social development of the regions. Florida's approach on ranking cities by their creativity index has been criticised and is still debatable. Many critics brought arguments against this type of ranking, from the viewpoint of the inequalities created and reinforced, of the urban development strategies generated by his methodology and of the narrow vision used in building the creativity index. Moreover, the cultural activity should be seen by the local authorities as a goal in itself rather than a means of local development (Matarasso, 1999). In Romania, “creative industries” is a new concept, which began to be used in the official documents in 2009, in the 2009e2013 Strategic Plan of the Ministry of Culture, Cults and National Heritage. During this period there was a real frenzy in the public debates in the field, regarding the definition and role of the creative industries and sectors. As the Creative Gild Meeting (2009) showed, there is no agreement within the Romanian society regarding the definition of creative industries, in the sense that certain sectors are not deemed to have the characteristics of an industry (visual arts, theatre), while certain industries are deemed to have too small a creativity content to be included in the cultural and creative sectors (architecture, fashion, IT). The quasi-unanimous agreement regarding the attribute of creative industries was expressed in the case of industries with an obvious component of production, distribution and mass-consumption: the book industry, the movie industry and the music industry. However, the studies on the cultural and creative sectors carried out so far in Romania have used an extended definition of the creative industries, on the WIPO model. The Central and East European cities have a series of common features inherited from the socialist period: residential areas with high density in the suburbs, a high number of industrial areas located near the city centres, a high concentration of cultural institutions in the downtown (Bertaud, 2006). The urbanisation level and process were closely related to the process of industrialisation. In Central and East Europe the huge industrial mono-structures were accompanied by large neighbourhoods consisting in big blocks of flats with the same socialist architecture designed and built for the working class. The locations were determined by topdown political decisions from the party-governed political and territorial planning system (Matthiesen, 2005). This way, in Romania and in other East European countries, strong islands of economic growth came out, with a great industrial potential, a high level of urban density and a new morphology of the urban space. Most of the old cities in CEE countries were built around a historical centre, established many centuries before socialism and have rich cultural amenities and prestigious retail that reinforce their monocentric character (Bertaud, 2006). In Romania many of these city centres were reshaped in order to correspond with the new

65

political order as in the case of Ceaus¸escu's new Civic Centre in Bucharest (O'Neill, 2009). But some of the old cities escaped from the socialist urban rebuilding of the downtown and maintained the old architecture. After 1989 the rapid changes in the Romanian society and economy influenced the raise of the regional inequalities and of the economic differences between the Romanian cities. Thus, in the East-European countries there are two types of cities: the regional developed centres, mainly big cities, and “dramatically shrinking” small and medium towns (Matthiesen, 2005). The differences between the Romanian cities became more and more obvious in the process of deindustrialisation. After 1989, many of Central and East European countries faced a major flaw of the industrial system mainly because of a domino effect caused by the bankruptcy of the industrial platforms. As a consequence, the industrial system was divided into smaller, flexible units (Kovacs, 2000), some of them being the subject of privatisation. Some of these units became the small companies that operate nowadays in the creative industries, more or less related to the former industrial factories. Others went into bankruptcy and were demolished, to make room for new constructions, specific to the market economy. This way the land became very worthy for the real-estate companies, where they built new buildings (especially office buildings, hypermarkets and blocks of flats). The labour market changed simultaneously with the process of deindustrialisation, increasing the demand for young, instead of older, less-educated employees. (Kovacs, 2000) The well-educated labour phenomenon had a double route in Romania, after 1989: from the small towns to the big cities and abroad (the so-called brain drain). Between 1990 and 1996, over 40% of the total Romanian emigrants to Canada, Switzerland and UK were well-educated ila , 2011). Taking people (Alexe, Ulrich, St anciugelu, Bojinc a, & Miha into consideration Simonton's assumption that creative cities attract creative emigrants and stimulate those who are already there (Andersson & Mellander, 2011), we can conclude that Romanian cities are in competition to attract well-educated and creative people not only with other Romanian cities, but especially with the cities from abroad. As we have mentioned before, there is a link between the process of deindustrialization in the post-socialist period and the number of small firms that operate in the creative industries. The ranking of the Romanian cities by their creative economy index1 shows that the first five creative cities were important industrial centres during the socialist period (and some of them still are). The first city in the top is Cluj-Napoca, the biggest Romanian city - based on the population criterion, located in the North-East Development Region, according to the NUTS II level. In the socialist period, Cluj-Napoca was a big industrial centre, with many factories operating in the leather, fashion and chemical industries, which might explain the large numbers of the companies and small firms in the creative industries. Cluj-Napoca is also an important university centre and attracts many students and professors from all over the country. Located in the West Development Region,

1 The Study “Cultural Vitality of the Romanian Cities”, the third edition, carried ciun and Anda out by a team of researchers (Liviu Chelcea, Bianca B als¸an, Andrei Cra Becut¸) from the Centre for Research and Consultancy on Culture, aimed at analysing the cultural potential of 46 cities e district capitals and towns with over 50,000 inhabitants (except the city of Bucharest). The study is based on the methodology designed at the Urban Institute in Washington and uses official statistics from the National Institute of Statistics, the Ministry of Finance, the Trade Registry, the Ministry of Justice, etc. The cultural vitality index was built on six sub-indices: cultural infrastructure, specialised human resources, budget expenditures for culture, participation in cultural activities, the creative economy and the non-profit sector.

66

A.G. Becut¸ / City, Culture and Society 7 (2016) 63e68

Timis¸oara is an old industrial centre dating from the Middle Ages, with a long tradition in handicrafts and trade. During the socialist period this tradition continued and developed in a strong industrial centre which has been maintained after the fall of the communist regime. In the post-socialist period new creative industries arose and Timis¸oara is today one of the Romanian software centres. Creative cities are associated with emigrants' flows and traded goods that stimulate free exchange of ideas (Andersson & Mellander, 2011), therefore this would explain Timis¸oara's high position in the top of the most creative Romanian cities. Timis¸oara is also an important academic centre, attracting many students and professors in art faculties and university departments. As for the next three cities e Bras¸ov, Medias¸ and Sibiu, located in the Centre Development Region, they have an important industrial tradition, with factories related to cultural and creative industries. The only Romanian city that has been European Cultural Capital, Sibiu, distinguished itself through the well-developed creative economy, many specialised human resources in culture and the best cultural participation. Sibiu has a long historical tradition, being an important Transylvanian political and economic centre and is one of the few Romanian cities that managed to save the historical downtown during the socialist period. As in the case of Cluj-Napoca, the former industry of leather and fashion might explain the large number of small firms in creative industries and the large number of teachers and students in vocational and arts high-schools. 1.2. Creativity and creative industries in socialist and post-socialist Romania Creativity is a concept difficult to define and measure. The concept of creativity was presented as “thinking outside the box” and solving everyday problems in “innovative ways”, (Comunian & Faggian, 2011), which is very relevant for our analysis. How can we explain the emergence of the creative industries and creative cities in a post-socialist society, after 50 years of communist education, of “thinking only inside the box”? Was creativity possible during the communist regime? What are the main difficulties that prevent a more dynamic growth of creative industries in a post-communist society? These are several questions we shall answer in the following pages. During the socialist period, the cultural policies in Central and East Europe countries had some common characteristics, with few exceptions: state property of the cultural products and services, state control of the artistic content, state subsidies for culture, the centralisation of the cultural activities at the high level of the political administration, the utilisation of communist ideology and propaganda in culture and the promotion of the national culture. In Romania state held and controlled the entire system of production and distribution of cultural products and services. Artists were forced to be part of an artistic production organisation or to be members in an artists' union. The distribution of the artistic content was made through state institutions and the artists received a fixed salary. As a Kominform member during the socialist period, Romania implemented the “socialist realism doctrine” consisting in the obedience of artists towards the Communist Party (Chelcea, 2012). All the artistic content was controlled by the censorship agents and the cultural institutions were the instruments of the political propaganda system. The decisions regarding the institutional organisation of culture were made at central level by the Propaganda Secretariat of the Communist Party's Central Committee and the National Council of Socialist Education and Culture (Chelcea, 2012). The arts were considered as a means of education and enlightenment rather than as entertainment, and their mission was to help creating “the new man”.

At local level, cultural activities took place in the so-called culture houses or under the umbrella of the labour unions. Their purpose was to build the cohesion of the communist party members and to provide them the occasion to express their attachment to the communist ideology. Under socialism, the industrial enterprises supported a wide range of social and cultural facilities, such as vocational training, sports and amateurs' artists organisations (Stenning, 2000). Therefore, the labour unions of the big industrial platforms had an important role in the local culture and influenced the dimension of the cultural infrastructure during the socialist period, as well as after the fall of the communist regime. The labour unions played an important role in the transformation of the peasants into industrial workers and the purpose of the cultural activities organised at local level was to replace the traditional peasant culture with a modern urban culture. This was part of the socialist plan of urbanisation and industrialisation of the country. Moreover, the Union of Communist Youth played an important role in the cultural sector, inclusively by getting actively involved in the activity of culture houses and cultural centres and by mobilising young people towards cultural consumption (B alan, 1974). Although we cannot speak about the existence of creative industries in the communist period, the latter was momentous for the development of the production, distribution and cultural consumption, as it created the cultural infrastructure and the mass education on cultural goods consumption. In this respect the party structures were essential e i.e. those in charge with monitoring the infrastructure development plan and disseminating culture within the masses. Certain cultural sectors enjoyed the growing attention of the communist authorities, particularly those sectors that focused on education in the spirit of socialist doctrines: radio and television stations, cinema and written culture. The growing attention of the authorities translated into stronger control, allocation of additional funds for infrastructure development, special treatment of the artists in these sectors (B alan, 1974). After the fall of the communist regime, the post-socialist countries in the Central and East Europe began to restructure their institutions and to align their economic practices and policies to those of Western Europe. The economic recession affected the quality and the availability of state services, including cultural services in some Central East European countries. While in Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic the living standards increased, in Romania and Bulgaria the economic recession was fast and painful. After 1989, a decline of the cultural environment began in Romania, expressed in the decrease of the number of cultural institutions, of cultural participation in arts and of the financial support of culture from the local budget. Instead the creative industries flourished after 1989, from the old structures of cultural production and distribution. The state enterprises were privatised and the people who worked in the cultural sector started new businesses in the field. They had the know-how and in some cases they used the same infrastructure from the previous period, but they developed new products and extended their activity. For example, in the publishing industry many new firms were born from old publishing houses. The same happened in the film industry, where Buftea Studios provided specialists and infrastructure for the new Romanian film industry. The Romanian film industry is dominated by two big production companies that have their own film studios and around 5e6 small companies, which, despite their small capacity, managed to produce films awarded at the international film festivals. The production of books, music and films developed rapidly and the same happened with the interest of Romanian consumers' for new cultural products (especially foreign products), so much different from those available in the communist period (Becut¸ & Chelcea, 2009). As a consequence of the fall of the totalitarian regime and of the censorship in culture in the first years of democracy, the book

A.G. Becut¸ / City, Culture and Society 7 (2016) 63e68

production increased rapidly. While in the period 1975e1989, the average number of published books was 6 082, with an average printing number of approximately 77 million books, in the period 1990e2009 the average number of titles was 8 845, with an average r, 2010). The last period printing number of 26 million books. (Laza was characterised by an excessive publishing of the foreign authors and of the literary genres which had been forbidden before. Though it responded to the readers' expectations and compensated for the years of censorship, this trend in publishing disadvantaged the contemporary Romanian writers, who were not able to express themselves. The positive trend of the creative industries in Romania had been shown by the results of the study The Contribution of the Copyright-Based Industries to the National Economy.2 The creative industries had a positive dynamics during the economic growth of the Romanian society, which can be explained by the constant investments in production and distribution and in the growth of the consumption power and of the diversification of the consumption patterns. Despite this positive trend, there are some difficulties that prevent a more dynamic growth, due to some factors related to the features of a society in a period of transition from socialism to the market economy. There are issues common to all sectors of the creative industries, but there are also problems specific to each of these industries (Becut¸ & Chelcea, 2009). The first common impediment for the development of the creative industries is a weak market for creative products. While in the first years after the fall of the communist regime the Romanian consumer was very enthusiastic regarding all the new products, after ten years the enthusiasm for Romanian products was reduced because of the economic recession, as well as because of the attractiveness of foreign products. Many small creative companies did not succeed and closed down their activity, many creative people made their way towards other sectors of activity (especially towards marketing and publicity). The main problems of the small creative companies were the covering of the huge production costs, because of the lack of new technology, and paying the creative people involved in the process of production. The small companies have a weak organisation capacity due to the lack of information in the field and to the poor training of the human resources, especially in the technical area. Besides common issues that prevent their development, each of the creative industries has specific problems. Although the Romanian movies won many awards at the European and international film festivals, the Romanian film industry is not very developed because of some impediments related to production infrastructure and film consumption. The movie companies are affected by the very big costs of production (Becut¸ & Chelcea, 2009) and the distribution companies mainly promote Hollywood movies, along with very few Romanian movies. There is also a lack of specialists in some particular fields of film production such as casting, costumes, scenography, make-up artists, sound specialists, and this sometimes affects the quality of the movie. Both the film and the music industries have been very affected in the last year by the Internet piracy that has been modifying the consumption habits. The publishing industry is characterised by deficiencies in the

2 The research was carried out by a team of researchers (Liviu Chelcea, Delia ls¸an, Anda Becut¸ and Ca ta lin Da r  Mucica, Bianca Ba as¸teanu) from the Centre for Research and Consultancy on Culture as part of the project The Promotion of the Entrepreneurial Spirit in the Field of Creative Industries, co-financed by the European Social Fund, Operational Sectoral Programme Human Resources Development 2007-2013. The research used the WIPO methodology, including four categories of creative or copyright-based industries as follows: CORE industries, Interdependent industries; Partial industries and Non-Dedicated Industries, built on the Romanian corespondents of the NACE.

67

distribution system, with few small books stores and several bookstore chains and a decline of the book consumption (CRCC, 2010). Though according to the law the rents for book stores is 50% off the price for square meter in the buildings owned by the local administrations, and despite the fact that in the last period the e-commerce has flourished, the level of distribution is still low. 1.3. Which are the most successful creative industries and creative cities in Romania? The most successful creative industries are the software industry, the publishing industry and the advertising industry. Other relevant industries are: the movie, media, performing arts and music industries. The analysis of the dynamics of each mentioned creative industry highlights a constant growth of the software industry between 2006 and 2008 and the smallest decrease for this industry in 2009. The most aggressive decrease was recorded in the case of performing arts, advertising, media and publishing. The success of the creative industries is partially due to the public support for culture, given through various instruments by the Romanian state. In the case of the publishing industry, the support instruments were introduced in 2003 by a special law. One instrument is the direct support through direct financing from the National Administration of the Cultural Fund, which provides financing support for creation, publishing production, distribution and promotion of the written culture. Another instrument has been the financial support provided by the Romanian Cultural Institute for translations, grants for study, book festivals and fairs. Though the level of the exports of publishing products rose in the period 2006e2009 from 23.3 mil. V to 30.5 mil. V, the commercial balance is still negative (CRCC, 2012). Romania exports books especially to its neighbour countries (Moldova and Hungary), as well as to France, Germany and Greece, while most of the imported books come from Italy, Hungary, U.K., Germany and China (CRCC, 2012). In the case of the movie industry, the main national public support comes from the National Film Centre and in the last two years the budget allocated for movie production has increased from approximately 2.3 mil. V in 2012 to 6.7 mil. V in 2013 (CRCC, 2012). Compared to the 1949e1973 period, when 232 films were prolan, 1974), the production of feature films in the period duced (Ba 1990e2012 was of 321, which means a growth in production during the post-socialist period. However, the movie theatre infrastructure was heavily affected by the economic recession period. While in the communist period there was a network of 615 urban movie theatres and 5555 rural movie theatres, in the post-socialist period their number has dropped dramatically, drawing along the decrease in the number of shows and audience in movie theatres. The dynamics curves are similar, which may be interpreted as a direct link to the decrease in the consumption of films in movie theatres (as a consequence of flaws related to film distribution), not to a decrease of Romanian consumers' appetite for movies. 2. Conclusions The differences between the West-European and the ex-Soviet spaces, in terms of the occurrence and development of the creative industries concept, as well as of the production, distribution and consumption of mass cultural goods and services issue the necessity for either building specific models of creative industries and creativity analysis or for the more pregnant adaptation of existent models to the specificity of Central and Eastern European societies. The analysis of the pre- and post-socialist sociopolitical contexts shows that, besides the explicative variables used so far in the analysis presented in the first section of the paper, other explicative variables can be identified, which could be tested within

68

A.G. Becut¸ / City, Culture and Society 7 (2016) 63e68

future analyses. In spite of the limitations or absence of statistical data on the already-used indicators, it is possible that the utilisation of new indicators, for which the statistical data should be more available precisely because they are specific to a certain type of social and economic organisation, may offer a more complex indepth image of the cultural and creative sectors. The mapping of creative industries and the analysis of the creativity-development relation are affected by the differences between statistical data collecting methodologies, as well as by the absence of data and information for certain newer creative industries or for certain used indicators. This is why the information obtained by means of qualitative methods complete the available data with additional pieces of information that also cover the informal economy and offer other possible lines of research on creative industries. Therefore, this paper is important because it offers a new approach on the creative industries analysis within the post-socialist space and it offers indepth information on the creative industries dynamics in Romania. The specific conditions of cultural production, distribution and consumption organisation in the communist period have had direct effects on the creative industries' development in the last 25 years. The cultural infrastructure is a variable that cannot be ignored in any analysis of the creative industries, as the differences between urban and rural, between historic regions, between counties and cities are obvious. Moreover, the cultural infrastructure cannot be analysed without taking into account the urbanisation, industrialisation or de-industrialisation level, because, as we have previously shown, there is a domino effect which occurred after the fall of the communist regime and all the more affected those cultural fields related to the mass dissemination of the communist party's and high officials' messages. Industrialisation and de-industrialisation had obvious effects on the human resources in the cultural and

creative industries too, materialised in the decrease of the number of employees or in the non-adaptation of the jobs to the requirements of the free market and new technologies. References nciugelu, S., Bojinca , M., & Miha ila , V. (2011). The fourth wave. Alexe, I., Ulrich, L., Sta Brain migration on the route Romania-West. Bucharest: Soros Foundation. Andersson, D. E., & Mellander, Ch (2011). Analysing creative cities. Handbook of creative cities. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing Limitied. Becut¸, A., & Chelcea, L. (2009). The diagnosis of the cultural sector. Bucharest: Polirom. Bertaud, A. (2006). The spatial structures of central and Eastern European cities: more European than socialist? In S. Tsenkova, & Z. Nedovi c-Budi c (Eds.), The urban mosaic of post-socialist Europe space, institutions and policy. New York: Physica-Verlang. lan, I. D. (1974). La Politique Culturelle en Roumanie. Politque Culturelles: Ba etudes et documents. Paris: Presse de L'Unesco. Centre for Research and Cultural Consultancy. (2010). Cultural consumption barometer ('Unpublished results'). Centre for Research and Cultural Consultancy. (2012). The analysis of the Romanian comercial balance in the field of culture ('Unpublished results'). Chelcea, L. (2012). Romania. Historical perspective: Cultural policies and instruments. Cultural policies and trends in Europe Compendium. ERICarts: Council of Europe. Comunian, R., & Faggian, A. (2011). Higher education and the creative cities. Handbook of creative cities. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing Limitied. Florida, R. (2005). Cities and the creative class. New York: Routledge. Kovacs, Z. (2000). Cities from state-socialism to global capitalism: an introduction. GeoJournal, 49(1), 1e6. Laz ar, M. (2010). Book consumption and reading patterns in 2010. Cultural consumption barometer ('Unpublished results'). Lewis, N. M., & Donald, B. (2009). A new rubric for ‘creative city’ potential in Canada's smaller cities. Urban Studies Sage Publications, 47(1), 29e54. Matarasso, F. (1999). Towards a Local Cultural Index. Measuring the cultural vitality of communities. Nottingham: Russell Press. Matthiesen, U. (2005). Governance milieus in shrinking post-socialist city regions e and their respective forms of creativity. Zurich DISP, 162 (ETH). O'Neill, B. (2009). The political agency of cityscapes: spatializing governance in Ceausescu's Bucharest. Journal of Social Archaeology, 9(1), 92e109. Stenning, A. (2000). Placing (Post-)Socialism: the making and remaking of Nowa Huta, Poland. European Urban and Regional Studies, 7(2), 99e118.