BRCD

Archive for February, 2010

The growth of international commerce, which has helped reduce production costs, shows that globalisation can indeed have positive effects on intercultural dialogue. Cultural products have become an important source of economic benefits as well as employment creation. Furthermore, the opening of new markets has expanded, at least in theory, the perspectives of the creators of such products. And, finally, the growth of information and communications technologies (ITC) constitutes a means of participation in the social, cultural and economic life of cultures and languages around the world.

However, national and international markets have seen the emergence of commercial groups that have come to resemble oligopolies that dominate the market. These business conglomerates have taken advantage of technological convergence, deregulation and of the subsequent merging and concentration of companies. As such, these trends threaten to marginalize cultural diversity as culturally independent creators, producers and broadcasters increasingly find themselves outside of the mainstream channels.

According to the Study on International Flows of Cultural Goods, published by UNESCO, the value of cultural goods and services rose from 95.34 million dollars in 1980 to 387.93 million dollars in 1998. Furthermore, the bulk of this trade, which includes print, music, visual arts, cinema, photography, radio, television, videogames, sports merchandising comes from a small group of countries. At the start of the present decade Japan, the US, Germany, Great Britain and China were the main exporters in this sector, controlling more than half of the total volume of business.

According to data published in The Economist, in 1993, 36% of the companies in the sector had their headquarters located in the US, another 36% in the European Union and 26% in Japan. In just four years later, in 1997, more than half of these companies were based in the US. In 1980, thanks to exports, the US obtained 30% of the profits of trade in this sector. At the end of the nineteen nineties, the US share of profits rose to 50%. Comparatively, the European trade deficit in the audiovisual sector rose from 3.5 million dollars in 1993 to 6 million dollars in 1998. Even more dramatically, as of the close of the past decade, the entire continent of Africa had an average level of film production of only 42 movies per year.