City, Culture and Society 7 (2016) 63e68

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City, Culture and Society

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Dynamics of creative industries in a post-communist society. The

development of creative sector in Romanian cities
Anda Georgiana Becuţ
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: The purpose of the paper is to offer an insight into the Romanian post-socialist urban environment, with
Received 9 August 2014 a particular emphasis on the creative sector. How did the creative industries emerge in the Romanian
Received in revised form cities during the post-socialist period and what were the premises for their development? How can we
27 October 2015
explain the differences between the Romanian cities in the development of the creative industries? What
Accepted 15 March 2016
are the main difficulties that prevent a more dynamic growth of creative industries in a post-communist
Available online 2 May 2016
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
Keywords:
Creative industries
deindustrialisation, to the changes in the labour market and to decentralisation of the cultural activities.
Post-socialism The results of our analysis show that the development of the creative sector in the Romanian cities is
Deindustrialisation linked to the industrialisation and deindustrialisation process during the socialist and post-socialist
Cultural vitality periods. Though data show a positive trend of the contribution of the creative industries to the Roma-
nian 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.

1. Introduction research institutions, which grow synergistically with telecom-

The interest for measuring and mapping creativity and cultural
vitality is not new and many authors from different scientific dis-
ciplines (from psychology to sociology, from urban studies to ge-
ography) 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 Cre-
ative 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: anda.becut@culturadata.ro.
munications 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 crea-
tivity 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 crea-
tivity index. Ranking cities by creativity indices has highlighted the
differences between big and small cities and the competitive dis-
advantages 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. Further-
more, the paper proposes an analysis of the various characteristics
that may become explicative variables for a methodology of crea-
tivity analysis adapted to the sociopolitical and economic context
that the ex-communist countries have been through in the past 25

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ccs.2016.03.002
1877-9166/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
64 A.G. Becuţ / City, Culture and Society 7 (2016) 63e68
years. In order to understand the dynamics of the creative in-
dustries 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, so-
cial, political and cultural context. Firstly, there are different opin-
ions 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 pur-
pose 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 view-
point of the Central and East European context. Although the offi-
cial 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 pub-
lished 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 coun-
tries, 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 Eu-
ropean 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 re-
searches on creativity and creative industries were carried out.
Most of these studies apply the same creativity-measuring meth-
odology used in the West-European space. In this regard, some of
these studies are relevant, i.e. those that include comparisons be-
tween 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. Man-
aging and Measuring Intangibles as Key Resources for Development
Sustainable Competitiveness of the Republic of Serbia, where a West-
Balkan 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 statistical-
data collecting methods.
There are various ways of collecting data related to creativity
and innovation. The differences in the national policies and legis-
lation 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 (espe-
cially data about the cities' creativity). There are also different ways
of building the creativity index; some were focused on the indi-
vidual level, and others were focused on social and economic fac-
tors 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 ex-
communist 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 in-
struments, urbanisation level, de-industrialisation and de-
centralisation level. As demonstrating the importance of each in-
dicator 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 contribu-
tion 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 eco-
nomic 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 limita-
tions in the development of the creative industries, in the mean-
time 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 post-
industrial 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. Becuţ / 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 crea-
tive cities in the present? How can we explain the differences be-
tween 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 rein-
forced, of the urban development strategies generated by his
methodology and of the narrow vision used in building the crea-
tivity 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-unani-
mous 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 in-
dustry, 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 in-
dustries, 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 in-
stitutions 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 top-
down 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 mono-
centric 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 Ceauşescu'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 be-
tween 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 Roma-
nian emigrants to Canada, Switzerland and UK were well-educated
people (Alexe, Ulrich, St anciugelu, Bojinc
a, & Mihaila
, 2011). Taking
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 pro-
cess 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 social-
ist 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
out by a team of researchers (Liviu Chelcea, Bianca B ciun and Anda
alşan, Andrei Cra
Becuţ) 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 cul-
ture, participation in cultural activities, the creative economy and the non-profit
sector.
66 A.G. Becuţ / City, Culture and Society 7 (2016) 63e68
Timişoara 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 Timişoara 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 Timişoara's high
position in the top of the most creative Romanian cities. Timişoara
is also an important academic centre, attracting many students and
professors in art faculties and university departments.
As for the next three cities e Braşov, Mediaş 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 po-
litical 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 institu-
tional organisation of culture were made at central level by the
Propaganda Secretariat of the Communist Party's Central Com-
mittee 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 cul-
ture houses or under the umbrella of the labour unions. Their
purpose was to build the cohesion of the communist party mem-
bers and to provide them the occasion to express their attachment
to the communist ideology. Under socialism, the industrial enter-
prises 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 in-
dustries in the communist period, the latter was momentous for
the development of the production, distribution and cultural con-
sumption, 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, allo-
cation 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 dis-
tribution. 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 (Becuţ & 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. Becuţ / 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
printing number of 26 million books. (Laza r, 2010). The last period
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 in-
vestments 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 (Becuţ & Chelcea, 2009).
The first common impediment for the development of the cre-
ative 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 produc-
tion infrastructure and film consumption. The movie companies are
affected by the very big costs of production (Becuţ & 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 and consumption of mass cultural goods and services issue the
The research was carried out by a team of researchers (Liviu Chelcea, Delia
Mucica, Bianca Ba lşan, Anda Becuţ and Ca ta
lin Dar 
aşteanu) 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 in-
dustry, 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 in-
dustry 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 pro-
duced (Ba lan, 1974), the production of feature films in the period
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 the-
atres 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 crea-
tive industries concept, as well as of the production, distribution
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. Becuţ / 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 in-
depth 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 in-
formation 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 in-
depth information on the creative industries dynamics in
Romania. The specific conditions of cultural production, distribu-
tion 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 re-
quirements of the free market and new technologies.
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