Download The socio-economic impact analysis of cultural capital: a new

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The socio-economic impact analysis of cultural capital: a new assessment of the effect.
Youn Sun Won 1
Erasmus University, Rotterdam
Abstract
The public investment on arts and culture has been considered in recent decades for policymakers as an
important way to make a region innovative and creative. Almost every country and local government
competitively shows willingness to convene a big cultural event as a chance to bring the economic
growth to the region as well as to strengthen social cohesion. The former is as sources of growth related
to the shift of economies, to focus on tourism. Such a fathomed impact is mainly about economic capital
and can be viewed as an exogenous effect that pumps a local economy instantly. Conversely, there are
negative effects as well such as empty spaces after the big event requiring huge maintenance costs. In
order to overcome the drawbacks, local government should ponder complementary measures after the
big event. That may account for the sustainable development of a local area.
When it comes to the latter, it should be considered in the frame of social and cultural capital with
quantitative data. As a matter of fact, this effect is hard to estimate and recognize directly in generic
approaches. Nevertheless, in this paper we try to figure out a new approach to evaluate impact of
cultural capital on a regional balance and economic activity in the creative economy context by
articulating case studies of Seoul city government and Amsterdam city government.
Therefore, this study explores a new way to ascertain the endogenous effects of cultural activities with a
socio-economic methodology based on interactions, aiming at contributing to the local economy.
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Youn Sun Won, Ph.D. candidate, Department of Cultural Economics, Erasmus School of History, Culture and
Communication, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, Email: [email protected]
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1. Introduction
The public investment on arts and culture has been relevant for the emergence of the creative economy
in recent decades. Creativity is inspired and nurtured by cultural capital, and creativity in turn generates
innovative implementations, inspiring the economy and creative activities. Local governments appeal to
the creative economy, and put it up as the way to make the region flourish. The assumption is that
cultural capital contributes to the local economic prosperity by cultural activities, and events directed at
tourism.
Tourism benefits a local economy instantly, both in positive aspects and negative aspects. Negative
effects include empty spaces after the big event with large maintenance expenses or a cultural site
overwhelmed by commercial facilities. How does a local government retain the halo effect strategically?
What should they take into account in determining public investment? Another impact that they may
expect is the strengthening social ties in the region. But how can we identify social network? How do we
notice a signal of the change in a macro perspective? Is it by mere numbers? Or are there different ways
to detect such a social impact?
When it comes to impact analysis, the assessment usually focuses on economic impact. The assumption
is that this reflects the capacity of cultural capital sufficiently. In order to prevent from being crippled
estimation of its capacity, from giving rise to a misconcept, this is dubious. To do more proximate to the
qualitative aspects of the creative economy a different approach is needed.
In this study we explore a new approach with a cultural economics perspective, and consider how
cultural capital influences on social as well as economic activity. To begin with, this paper first defines a
framework, comprising five spheres in which different values are distinguished. The next section
introduces an interdisciplinary methodology to investigate impact of cultural capital, with a view to
identifying relevance amongst the spheres in practice. Third, this study discusses a new way to ascertain
endogenous effects of cultural activities and illustrates the method with Korean cases in a comparison
with a Dutch case by using of social media networks.
2. Basic Structure for evaluation
This study draws on a new economy structure of applied research focusing on qualities in the macroeconomy proposed by Klamer (Klamer, 2016). The structure describes five spheres, Cultural, Social,
Market, Governance, and Oikos Spheres. It enables to articulate quantitative analysis as a whole, as it
delivers an operating system of the economy. In this study, especially we concentrate on the
relationship amongst subjects in the course of generating each value in the creative economy.
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[Figure 1. The creative economy based on a value-based approach]
(Source: Klamer(2016))
[Table 1. Five spheres in a value-based economy]
Embedded value
How to come about?
Cultural Sphere
Cultural value
Social Sphere
Social value
Governance
Societal value
cultural activities, identity, symbol, aesthetic,
heritage, music, performing arts, painting, sculpture
friendship, membership, trust, solidarity, social
power, network
policy, (in)direct supporting, public investment
Market
Economic value
exchange, goods and commodities
Oikos
Personal value, Shared value
family, parenting
(Source: Elaborated from Klamer(2016))
The most important here is that this model gives weight to Social sphere more than Market and
Governance. This is a different arrangement from a standard economic system. Figure 1 reflects
priorities in the creative economic system where selling and buying products on the market is not a top
priority, instead, it is more important for people to be aware of value and participate in the production
and consumption procedure, and to come about creativity with an aim of the sustainable development.
Underlying here is that it is a social environment that makes people creative, even though creativity
turns out through individuals (Hall, 1998; Csikszentmihalyi, 1996).
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This perspective assumes that each sphere functions when valorisation takes place, for instance, cultural
capital operates when cultural value comes out. Hence estimation is also available when value comes
out.
3. Data collection for Interdisciplinary methodology
Following the discussion, this section briefly elaborates the elements of evaluation methodology. For the
sake of it, we recall fundamental characteristics of cultural capital, a collection of multi-faceted product.
Implicit is that we need an interdisciplinary lens to reflect it instead of a single-faceted formula.
Cultural capital turns out by various kinds of cultural goods such as cultural activities, paintings, music,
and design and so on. As noted above, it activates only when people realize its value. This logic has been
applied to tourism as well. To get an attention of people sellers exploit cultural properties in a variety of
ways with or without recognition of cultural value. When people, for instance, don’t recognize cultural
value of a historical site, the place would be considered simply as an old-fashioned and abandoned field,
without any appreciation of the symbolic meaning. This is about the question of which value people are
aware.
In this sense, social media data offers a strong advantage in collecting data in real-time as well as
containing what is important to social sphere in practice, therefore, it enables to find relevance
underneath the surface amongst the five spheres, and prevents from being lost in pushmi-pullyu
information.
With regard to relevance, context analysis should be performed in advance. In so doing, this study uses
secondary data, too. In the process, it should be designed with caution, however, given the two
different data sources, with considering compatibility between datasets. As analyzing quantitative data
with different angles instead of a single account, to construct an analytical ground, we set up a threestage approach: first, interpretation of local properties from secondary data, second, big data analysis
with social media network data, third impact analysis as an overall perspective.
4. Application: Korean cases
Overview
It notes that Figure 1 and Table 1 deliver a general context, as aforementioned, the two diagrams matter
valorisation, which focuses on the question what is important to each sphere. It, therefore, calls for the
accounts of local context in order to circumvent overgeneralization of the approach, for the reason that
contribution of cultural capital is determined by a local context.
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I introduce two examples of Seoul Metropolitan City in South Korea. In the nation, economic and social
infrastructure mainly has been developed by government’s initiatives. It stems from a historical
background, in a political and economic context it could be interpreted as the ‘infant industries’
phenomenon (Klamer, 1996) 2. Governance has had a role of mediator, fund raiser, policy maker, and
administrator. Seoul consists of twenty five districts. In collaboration with city government, each district
(called Gu) manages the jurisdiction. Amongst them, Jung-gu offers good examples that can be
projected onto the new economic system.
Jung-gu is located in the centre of Seoul and functions as a centre of finance, public administration,
tourism, and industries. Historically they hold a considerable amount of cultural sites such as palace,
streets, Seoul fortress wall, houses and historical buildings. There are a variety of local markets and
many small and medium size firms based on manufacturing industries. Moreover, the district functions
as a centre of tourism; according to a recent data based on 2013, about 78 percent of foreign visitors
contribute to the valorisation of economic value as well as cultural value (Stat.junggu.kr, 2013).
Along a boulevard shopping streets are overwhelming and brand-new buildings in which mainly
headquarters of companies and banking industries are agglomerated put on airs of modern business and
cultural city, though, behind them the old town struggles to breathe. A high density of old-fashioned
industries and a conventional infrastructure of small local markets don’t seem to be very fanciful in
urban design. In Jung-gu, and thus, multiple layers of crowd coexist, which means that they have tangled
relationships. Figure 2 sketches the air of the district in brief.
[Figure 2. Coexistence old and new buildings and streets]
(Source: Junggu.go.kr)
Tasks of jurisdiction, therefore, are to make a well-arranged balance between the two contradict but
coexisting areas, as remaining the unique atmosphere. Recently, in addressing the creative economy,
Jung-gu has been challenging a transformation into a creative region, facing with the continuous
economic recession. The local government has promoted two directions: urban revitalization through
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Trading Culture: Gatt, European cultural policies and the transatlantic market, Boekman Foundation, Amsterdam,
1996.
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cultural capital, and urban regeneration for consolidation of social interaction, for the sake of
sustainable development of the local economy. One consistent focus is on revitalization of the overall
atmosphere and spillovers from cultural capital. It appears to be subtler, though. Two examples of this
district articulate each of direction, respectively.
Structuralization
Case 1. G 3- Urban revitalization
The one example that I would introduce is Jeong-dong revitalization project. Jeong-dong is a specific
street where cultural heritage of the nineteenth century are agglomerated. Geographically the location
is in the very centre of Seoul, now it functions as a business and public service area. Hence it doesn’t
seem that people who stay in the area are living there.
In this section, we structuralize its current conditions according to the value-base approach, and put
forth how each value comes about. In Cultural sphere, it matters the valorisation of cultural value.
Jeong-dong, surrounded by skyscrapers, contains not only cultural heritage of the nineteenth century
but also historical stories of Seoul so that a unique ambience exists. Nevertheless people recognize the
area not so much through cultural value as through a centre of public organizations, banking industries,
and domestic press companies.
Facing with the problem, local government (Governance sphere) postulated the cultural site in order to
make people realize cultural value embedded in the street. They organized a special program to invite
people to the street, and to feel the symbolic ambience, Jeong-dong Culture Night (means taking a walk
at night) in Korean context, as the presence of historical sites itself didn’t attract people. The program
has been designed since 2014, and kicked off in 2015, with cooperation between public organizations
such as foreign embassies in Jeong-dong 4. It is held every May.
Moreover, important here is the argument that what determines public investment and a way to
support. Recently, many governments have been changing a supporting way from direct, for instance,
subsidy, an archetypal way, to indirect ways such as lowering regulations, helping out public
administrative procedures or offering tax reduction. In case of this, the target capital could not be
evaluated on market, but could valorise its societal value so that governance had to get initiatives first,
however, once the process settles down, they would have to promote citizens to do self-organized civic
engagement. To find a balance in opportunity and support requires sensitivity that is usually too much
for our pragmatic politicians (Klamer, 1996).
In the standard economic perspective, several commentators would estimate its value by transactions
such as real estate or high rental costs from buildings. In the value-based perspective, yet, this becomes
a quite different story. Local administration invested 1.7 percent budget of a whole financial support for
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The author labels G1 denoting Governmental project case.
In this area, national agencies, foreign embassies, governmental organizations are concentrated. Hence, it is, in
fact, impossible for social sphere to get access to promote a collaborative project.
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local regeneration projects. In measuring outcomes, according to Figure 1, societal and cultural value
largely should be considered in the separation of economic value.
Leading endogenous innovation, Social sphere is expanded by social interaction, which needs common
ground or shared value. The location is more or less business area so that most of the crowd are
employees, who might have less willingness to appreciate or be aware of social spirit or identity. Thus, in
case of this, not only people who are working in this area, but also a variety of crowd should be
considered.
Market sphere, which is originally about the exchange of products, functions when it valorises economic
value. Economic value accruing to private goods matters. Basically economic value that the place holds
is, at best, real estate one, though, we acknowledge that the place conveys more than economic value.
Additionally, if this operates well, tourism might be considered as valorising economic value.
Oikos denotes home where people realize personal values related to family life or private lifestyle. Only
when people realize value, and contribute to each other, its value embedded in Oikos valorises. In this
category goods exist not to be owned, but to be shared.
Case 2. G2- Social consolidation
The other example is about an old industrial town, called Euljiro. Located in the centre of the district,
pressed between high buildings and tangled small and old enterprises which have been running
manufacturing businesses, the street concerns Korean modern industrial period since the Korean war.
[Figure 3. Euljiro urban regeneration site]
(Size of the site: 578,871 ㎡, source: Jung-gu)
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The site, literally saying, has been floating between unclear developing schemes in the political context,
and more or less getting out of hand. Complicated ownerships on real estate disabled to make a
consistent urban planning concrete. Retaining the obsolete infrastructure, the tangled stores still run
their businesses with narrow advantages of cheap rental costs, and centred location.
In Cultural sphere, as a matter of fact, contrary to Jeong-dong, nothing can be found as cultural
heritages such as buildings, gates, or statues and so on. Instead, iron, tile and electrical factories remain,
holding the ‘hard’ and ‘blue collar’ atmosphere of the industrial site. Recently, the local government put
an intention in a scheme to safeguard the ambience by introducing cultural capital to this area, desiring
social inclusion and inner city regeneration. Tempere, for instance, provides a successful example that a
city transformed into a creative city, remaining the old factories as heritages of the city’s identity (Van
Der Borg et al, 2005). Amsterdam is also a good example that presents a successful creative urban
transformation.
People (Social sphere) who stay in this area are mostly retailers. The area was more or less excluded
from elegant city life or flourishing cultural backgrounds even though the location is in a centre. A crowd
of them, therefore, don’t matter culture and nor do matter creative industries. In case of this, to pull out
social sphere in the front line, it is not enough to change the outdated hardware, being required to
strengthen social interaction amongst them in the creative economy context.
In Governance sphere, local administration organized a two-stage urban development planning in the
context of creative economy. The first stage is to encourage people to realize cultural value such as local
identity of the site. Renting out six empty stores, the local administration let the space out to young
artists for temporary use, with a focus on branding the working class airs, and arranged a guided tour
program regularly in order to get attention from Social sphere.
On the one hand, local government categorized tangled manufacturing businesses into five industrial
categories: light, tile, tools, sewing, and molding. Improving physical infrastructure, revitalizing through
cultural activities, governance plays a role to generate impact for the regional development. On the
other hand, by lowering regulations, they support renovation projects of the old complex.
With regard to Market sphere, as the original function still operates, economic value is generated.
Through the overall public investment, industries in this area expects to boost their businesses,
accordingly, economic returns would turn out economic value.
In Oikos, value might come about in a secondary stage, for instance, people who work here share values
at home, however, in this case it functions in the background.
Impact analysis
When it comes to measurement of regional imbalance, the existing index such as Gini’s coefficient,
GRDP (Gross Regional Domestic Product) or Cost-benefit model has been commonly used in economics.
However those approaches, according to Figure 1, matter simply economic value embedded in
economic capital. In the creative economy, those cannot include a variety of value-motivated behaviour,
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which is determined by the dynamics of interaction rituals (IRs). Thus it should be considered in a
different sphere (Collins, 2004; Durkheim 1964). It, therefore, requires an alternative impact analysis
model including the social and cultural context.
This study collected a cross-sectional data to assess the relation of multi-faceted factors of cultural
capital, with a macro-economic perspective. We use industrial data to measure the agglomeration
degree from LQs (Location Quotients), from which we determine what kind of people agglomerate in
Jung-gu, and datasets related to labour markets to investigate regional economic activity rate. This is the
first step of impact analysis.
Step 1. Defining physical space: local context and industrial agglomeration from secondary data
Every region has a unique context, which exerts its discourse to determine whether something to
become meaningful or not. In general, the context is created by mainly people who stay in that area.
Thus to investigate the crowd of a region provides an important signal.
To begin with we calculate LQs to verify industrial agglomeration. Location quotients measure the
concentration of a sector or occupation in the economy of a given city compared to the national average.
The indicator provides industrial specification of a region relative to national employment. Following this,
we infer the occupational concentration, that is, we can decide what kind of people gather in a region.
Where: ei =Local employment in industry i, e=Local total employment, Ei =Reference area employment in
industry i, E=Reference area total employment.
An LQ of over 1.0 in mining means that there exists a specific concentration which is higher than average
in that region, which denotes the specific labour force of the region, whereas an LQ below 1 indicates
below average levels of specialization. With the Korean examples, we can get LQs of Seoul Metropolitan
City as below.
According to Figure 4 and Figure 4-1, in Seoul Metropolitan City, nine(in 2015) or ten(in 2013)industries
present specific agglomeration. Amongst them, Information and communications industry is the most
highly concentrated as the proportion 2.48(in 2013). Professional scientific and technical activities, and
Financial institution and insurance industries are followed as 1.79 and 1.65 respectively (in 2013).
Although arts business sector doesn’t result in the meaningful level, mostly creative industries are
specified. In addition, during two years, it is not observed a distinct decrease in the labour force.
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[Figure 4. Industrial agglomeration(LQ) of Seoul (2013)]
(Source: Elaborated from stat.seoul.go.kr/ kostat.go.kr)
[Figure 4-1. Industrial agglomeration(LQ) of Seoul (2015)]
(Source: Elaborated from stat.seoul.go.kr/ kostat.go.kr)
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[Figure 5. Economic activity rate (2013 and 2015)]
(Left) analysis in 2013
2015.11
2015.09
2015.07
Employment
rate
Unemplyme
nt rate(%)
2015.05
2013.11
2013.09
2013.07
2013.05
2013.03
2013.01
Unemplyme
nt rate(%)
Economic
Participatio
n rate (%)
2015.03
Economic
Participation
rate (%)
70.0
60.0
50.0
40.0
30.0
20.0
10.0
0.0
2015.01
70.0
60.0
50.0
40.0
30.0
20.0
10.0
0.0
Employmen
t rate
(Right) analysis in 2015
(Source: stat.seoul.go.kr)
Even though the continuous economic recession, the economic activity rate in 2013 remains constant
through 2015. The question is whether a socio-economic change takes place. Can we find an indicator
which is more attuned to socio-economic conditions in the transitional city?
Jung-gu is indeed the smallest one in the whole jurisdiction, yet the district holds the largest share in
terms of the number of firms, as Figure 6 indicates. In addition, the number of floating population is
about 11 millions per day in average based on data in 2013. For one thing, Gangnam-gu is a rising star
where people and many industries gather.
[Figure 6. Industrial proportion of Jung-gu in Seoul]
8.3%
8.0%
13.5%
8.1%
rest
Junng-gu
Gangnam-gu
(Left) ratio: the number of firm
(Right) ratio: the number of employees
(Source: Elaborated from stat. Junggu.seoul.kr/ stat.seoul.go.kr/ kostat.go.kr)
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[Table 2. Industrial proportion of Jung-gu in Seoul]
Classification
Total
Agriculture, Forestry and fishery
Manufacturing
Electricity gas steam and water supply
Sewage, waste treatment, resource recycling and
environment remediation
Construction
Wholesale and retail
Transport industry
Accommodations and restaurant business
Publishing, imaging, broadcasting and communications
information and service industries
Finance and Insurance industry
Real estate and Rent business
Professional science and technology service industries
Business facility management and
business support service industries
Public administration, defense and
social security, administration
Education service industry
Health, social welfare and service industries
Arts, sports and leisure related service industries
Association and group, fixing and other personal service
industry
The number of
firms
ratio to
ratio to
Jung-gu
Seoul
8.3%
0.0%
5.6%
15.4%
17.0%
0.0%
4.9%
0.0%
2.0%
The number of
employees
ratio to
ratio to
Jung-gu
Seoul
8.1%
0.0%
4.3%
7.2%
9.7%
0.2%
6.4%
0.0%
2.1%
0.6%
53.5%
2.6%
9.1%
1.4%
1.9%
15.3%
1.8%
4.8%
4.9%
2.0%
24.9%
3.4%
8.1%
7.4%
2.6%
11.1%
5.0%
6.8%
8.7%
1.9%
2.3%
4.4%
2.0%
12.3%
4.3%
8.4%
10.3%
14.5%
2.2%
9.5%
7.3%
20.9%
5.8%
8.8%
7.5%
0.1%
5.8%
5.5%
15.2%
0.8%
1.0%
0.0%
3.8%
1.6%
2.7%
0.0%
3.4%
2.1%
2.2%
1.0%
2.6%
2.4%
2.9%
4.7%
4.6%
(Source: Elaborated from stat. Junggu.seoul.kr/ stat.seoul.go.kr/ kostat.go.kr)
According to Table 2, Manufacturing, and Wholesale and retail industries are concentrated in Jung-gu,
as indicating over 10 percent, and accommodation and restaurant business ranks the third.
In accordance with occupations, the number of employees in Finance and Insurance industries ranks top
two in the local area, and shares more than 20 percent to the whole city, while the number of firms of
those industries in Jung-gu is less than 2 percent, though. It can be interpreted that the labour force of
financial sector concentrates in this area, and financial industrial agglomeration is a significant indicator
in estimating the creative capacity as creative professionals are active in a broad range of knowledgeintensive industries such as high-tech and financial services. Additionally, this implies that the presence
of creative people does not always follow the firms of creative industries.
In the creative economy, to be specific in urban areas, it appears that labour force of creative industries
is a more important determinant for employment growth than firms of creative industries. One
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universal tacit assumption is that cultural activities contribute to generating creativity and innovation,
which represents the productive capacity in the creative economy. Firms in the creative industries are
more innovative than firms in other industries (Jacobs, 1961; Florida, 2004, Stam et al., 2008).
As indicated in Table 2, the labour force comprises a combination of mostly manufacturing, retail, and
finance. In the creative industrial category, we can observe that the workforce in professional science
and technology service industries presents relatively high, whereas workers in arts, sports and leisure
related service industries can be seen only one percent. Even to the whole city, the proportion is more
or less close to zero.
Findings of Jung-gu:
- Compare to the whole city, even if there exists considerable cultural capital, it appears that creative
cluster doesn’t exist except for financial and tourism related industries, and that creative people are
deficient. However, the local area has the advantage of a good location. In general, metropolitan
environments hold intensive social and cultural activity than other cities. Urban environments can
benefit the local amenity. Urban amenity effects from cultural capital outweigh any ‘innovation
spillovers’ (Bakhshi, Lee, Mateos-Garcoa, 2004). Furthermore, creativity inspires other economic
activities as well (Jacobs, 1961).
- Manufacturing and retail businesses are distinctly strong, and the working places are mostly outdated.
On account of regional context, the notion of urban regeneration should entail social ties amongst
working places in the course of transition into a creative place. It is worth noting that the creative
industries are very heterogenous, which implies that convergence between mechanics and culture could
make a creative results.
Moreover, cultural activities generate innovative interactions (Storper and Venables 2004), and physical
encounters increases trust and cooperation (Frank, 2014). In this sense, the governmental scheme
seems to be a good starting as befitted cultural activities such as design, arts, and crafts.
Comparison with civic entrepreneurialism example
In addressing a good practice of developing cultural capital, this paper compares the city of Amsterdam
in brief. In so doing, we recall the value-based approach referred as Figure 1 and Table 1.
Amsterdam Metropolitan city is one of the representative creative urban places. They hold tremendous
cultural capital (Cultural sphere), define the role of ‘creativity’ in the part of a broad set of policies, and
inspire citizens as city-makers (Social sphere) in promoting them.
In the urban regeneration, the city government (Governance) focuses on the valorisation of creativity
and civic engaged urbanism at the local level, rather than a powerful-state-led-scheme, whereas, in
1980s and 1990s the urban development was carried out through the authoritative power of the central
government, and powerful bureaucracies (Savini, 2012).
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After the credit crunch in times of austerity, the local government (Governance), appealing to creative
economy, has highlighted on more self-organized and small-scale civic led projects aimed at triggering
spatial change for the sake of the urban regeneration, in turn, it functions as a magnet to attract
creative people, accordingly generates new markets (Market sphere) beyond tourism.
Figure 7 presents that Arts sports and recreation related services in Amsterdam is the most specified,
indicating 3.17, while in Seoul Information and communications industries are the most agglomerated.
Other creative industries such as information and communications or professional scientific and
technical activities are also highly concentrated.
[Figure 7. Industrial agglomeration(LQ) of Amsterdam and Seoul (2015)]
(Source: Elaborated from stat. Junggu.seoul.kr/ stat.seoul.go.kr/ kostat.go.kr/ LISA.nl/ oscity.nl)
Step 2. Finding underneath the surface: Social media analysis from Big data
The fundamental reason why social network is important is that networking generates intralocational
interactions amongst firms and workers. A notable tacit as well as a question has been about the value
of social networking. Literatures across sociology have researched into ways of making it much visible
and measurable. What if people can estimate the result of social networking? What can we infer from it?
Could people sell and buy it?
Implicit is the assumption that the indirect effects are detectable as the firms that are better connected
in social networks perform better across a range of performance measures. Other empirical evidence
shows that according to a research on the U.S region, there is likelihood that dealmakers have an
organizing effect on local social capital, yielding specific kinds of benefits for the firms to which they
become affiliated (Kemeny et al., 2015). Hence, social networking affects on the economic activity as the
unseen way (Klamer, 2004).
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In the step 2, we focus on networking analysis to determine the effects of cultural capital, as cultural
activities increase social interactions. This approach enables to recognize the real network that operates
underneath the surface. Social Network Analysis (henceforth referred to as SNA) allows a variety of
relationships to be visible and get data from primary source. SNA is useful to figure out patterns of a
structure or a micro relation. However, types of relation and the size of graph are so various that, for
this reason, comparisons across networks are limited (Scott, 1991).
In order to overcome the drawbacks and to detect the signal in the network, this paper endeavours to
manipulate a different type of quantitative data, so called big data from social media network. One
strong point of big data is, literally saying, able to collect the huge amount of data such as all text that
people have been talking online for a whole year. A weak point is that if we cannot clean the huge data
properly, too much information would hamper convergence of dataset. In this vein, we employ three
filters with regards to geographical, here especially focused on Jung-gu in Seoul, cultural, to be specific,
language and local context so that we used two channels of Korean social media networks, and time
span, a year.
First, we collected data from two different ways such as a global based social media network (Twitter)
and a local based social media network (Naver news, Naver Jisik IN). However, for some of reasons,
Twitter couldn’t reflect local context, and even the focus was distracted. Accordingly, we selected data
from only local based social media. Additionally we considered different context of Korean social media
networks, that is to say, a channel (henceforth referred to as Channel A) that G sphere uses is different
from that (henceforth referred to as Channel B) S sphere connects. Below is the result of these
approaches.
[Figure 8. Korean Social media network keyword data analysis (2013)]
Channel A (G)
(Source: Elaborated from Naver.com, ConciergeSoft)
Channel B (S)
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Left one is the former, and the right one shows the latter. Even though it was written in Korean, at least
we could recognize them as image, and we can notice that totally different letters are centred between
the two. 5
[Figure 8-1. Korean Social media network keyword data analysis (2015)]
Channel A (G)
Channel B (S)
(Source: Elaborated from Naver.com, ConciergeSoft)
When it comes to the difference, a comparison of the results in Governance sphere in 2013 and in 2015,
it should note the size of letters. With regard to channel A, in 2013, only political terms are big, the size
of other letters is not very distinct, whereas in 2015 non political terms such as new development
scheme, education, and cultural issues are meaningfully presented aside from the political matters. The
social issues became more diversified, and interests in cultural activities have increased.
In accordance with the results of channel B, in 2013 the size of different words is more or less equal,
contrary to this, in two years it can be observed that social interests on travel and cultural activities are
much increased. What does this lecture us? What can we get the two different data analysis?
Comparison with globalised example
As aforementioned, in order to analyze social media network in Korean context we selected Korean
domestic social media networks. Meanwhile, Figure 9 presents places where people are talking in the
social media network on Twitter in Seoul (left) and Amsterdam (right), in which this paper does not
5
The author translated important key words into English in Appendix 1.
17
consider what people are talking, since as noted above, the conversation of Twitter in Seoul does not
provide meaningful information that is consistent to a real issue in the local area.
Instead, in this section we only give a salience to a frequency of using the global based social network
between the two cities. One of the strengths of social media network, it enables to connect people
beyond a spatial limitation. According to Figure 9, it can be observed that people in Seoul less use the
globalised network than people in Amsterdam do.
Needless to say, local context should be an important determinant; be that as it may, it would be
somewhat desirable to encourage taking the advantage of social media by making interactions active in
a global based perspective, to figure out where and what kind of people meet.
[Figure 9. Social media network traffic, Seoul vs Amsterdam (2015)]
(Source: Elaborated from twitter, oscity.nl)
Step 3. Impact configuration
From step 1 and step 2, we investigated impact of cultural capital on a productive capacity and social
sphere. To this end, this study combined secondary data with social media data, and configured the
relationship between cultural activities and socio-economic impact. Following the discourse, this
methodology provides a complementary and overall illustration.
According to Table 3, this study detected a subtle change from Figure 8 and Figure 8-1, whereas, there
was no distinct change of economic activity rate between 2013 and 2015 in Figure 5.
18
[Table 3. Configuration]
Source
Secondary data
Social media data
Availability
Analytic focus
Methodology
∙ long-term span analysis
∙ Overall context
∙ Causality / Variable
∙ Generic economic
analysis
∙ mid-term and
short-term span analysis
∙ Real-time context
∙ Subtle and nuanced analysis
∙ Relationship between
economic subjects
∙ Big data analysis
∙ Diverse analysis
Findings from social media data indicates that in 2015 people in Seoul get more interests in cultural
activities than in 2013. This implies that people have more willingness to spend on cultural goods. In
general, during the economic depression, consumption on cultural activities is getting decreased.
A similar indicator is observed in Channel A. Public investment on culture is in progress actively. In the
financial crisis or economic recession, public supporting for the arts and culture rigorously cuts back,
though (Pratt, 2010).
In common with other local jurisdictions in advanced capitalist countries, the city government in Korea
has highly stressed the transformation into the creative economy since 2013, with a view to contributing
to the local economy. As we can see many examples that cities successfully transformed (Landry and
Bianchini, 1995;Bontje and Lawton, 2013), specifically these days capturing what is important to Social
sphere is an important determinant to evaluate impacts, though, only generic analysis with secondary
data provides a limited interpretation. In our approaches, to consider more nuanced and qualitative
results, this study has explored combining analyses of social media data, and noticed a signal in the
underneath.
5. Conclusion
This paper has explored the effects of cultural capital to determine impacts in the real world of the
creative economy. A host of qualitative and quantitative studies have highlighted impacts of culture or
creative industries. Literatures demonstrated a correlation between economic impact and cultural
activities, and that the economic development inspires the development of another cultural capital (Bille
and Schulz,2006 6; Cooper et al, 1993; Cwi and Lyall, 1977; Landry and Bianchini, 1995; Radich, 1993;
Throsby, 2001, 2013), this study tried to shed light on the overall impact analysis, taking a different
perspective to evaluate the capacity of cultural capital, using a value-based approach.
6
Ginsburgh, V., & Throsby, C. D. (2006). Handbook of the economics of art and culture (1st ed.). (Handbooks in
economics, 25; Handbooks in economics, bk. 25). Amsterdam: Elsevier North-Holland.
19
It is less likely to be conducive to evaluating socio-economic impacts of cultural capital with a single
account, as culture itself is a multi-faceted notion, and cultural capital, creativity, innovation, and even
the creative economy can be interpreted differently, depending on different aims and surroundings in a
regional context.
In generic impact analyses it misses the relationship between invisible hands (as a meaning of
determinants underneath) of Social sphere, and a tentative determinant that would affect economic
impact, though. Hence, this study has tried to figure out a nuanced change with a new quantitative
analysis.
In designing the methodology, this paper has combined two different data sources: a regional industrial
data to verify the local context and the productive capacity, and social media network data to analyze
the effects of social impact as well.
Following the discourse, our findings in Korean case indicate that creative industries are agglomerate in
Seoul, a primate city. We considered two examples from one of twenty five districts, Jung-gu(district)
located in a very centre of Seoul. In that smallest district, ironically there coexist old-fashioned
manufacturing industrial complex and tourism, high-technological and financial industrial sectors.
During the last five years the local administration has been struggling to regenerate the old town to
make a balance (in the endogenous aspect), by increasing awareness of cultural value. Furthermore,
organizing socio-economic projects, the local government has tried to revitalize their own ambience
through the valorisation of cultural capital, yet the subtle change could not capture only with normative
analysis.
In accordance with the evaluation, as noted in Table 3, social media data enables to reflect a meaningful
signal, and recognize interstices of social and economic activity with a nuanced approach. In Korean
society, especially, using local social media has been incredibly popular so that social media data
provides a meaningful and nuanced indicator of a change.
Two examples mentioned have been going on so far thus, at this interim stage, it would be rash to make
a conclusion of the final evaluation. In the course of analysis, we made a comparison with a good
practice, Amsterdam case, in order to suggest some implications for the people of Seoul.
In practice, economic analyses through an interdisciplinary methodology will make economic researches
robust. The limitation of this research is the risk of reverse causality between social media data and
secondary data.
In conclusion, it notes that this study has been based on the important cultural economic assumption
that economic value is distinguished from cultural value, which eventually contributes to economic
development. The contribution of this study is to explore a way to diversify data source and
methodology beyond generic economic analysis, and to get closer to find out a subtle change of the
creative economy by quantitative analysis. Value is invisible, but truly it is valuable to interpret indicator
of what people want. More research is needed to uncover the mechanism of cultural capital and to
visualize the creative economy.
20
Appendix 1. Words interpretation and local context
[Figure 8. Korean Social Media Network keyword data analysis (2013)]
Korean
English
Information
시장
mayor
political meaning
시의회
city council
political meaning
시청
city hall
political meaning
지원
supporting
related to political and social issues
문화
culture
interests in culture
호텔
hotel
interest in travel, culture
부탁
request/ ask
exchanging opinions in social sphere
지역
region/ local area
interest in local context or travel information
생각
opinion/ thoughts
exchanging opinions in social sphere
대학교
university
interest in education
마을
town/ village
interest in travel, culture or local development
시장
market
related to economic and social issues
대통령
president
the presidential election took place in December, 2012
21
[Figure 8-1. Korean Social Media Network keyword data analysis (2015)]
Korean
English
Information
시장
mayor
political meaning
시의회
city council
political meaning
시청
city hall
political meaning
지원
supporting
related to political and social issues
누리과정
public education system
in elementary school level
interests in education
예산
budget
interest in public service
경제
economy
interest in the economy
지역
region/ local area
interest in local context or local government
사업
project
governmental projects
시민
citizen
political meaning
문화
culture
interest in travel, culture
여행
travel
interest in travel, culture
코스
course
interest in travel, culture
22
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