Cultural Policies and How They Affect My Business

 Cultural policies in the UK are government actions and laws which protect the creative industry across all sectors. This can be through promotion, legal protection or funding support for those specific industries. The whole idea of cultural policies came around in the 1960s, as introduced by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.) The two main subjects of cultural policies at the moment are COVID-19 and Brexit.

Funding for cultural policies arose from the National Lottery in 1995, which has been one of the main sources of creative funding ever since. This, along with government funding supports the Catalyst fund, which is a 100m pound private giving investment for the arts. 

The DCMS (Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport) are a ministerial governmental organisation who work alongside other organisations such as the National Lottery to support cultural policies. In their mission statement, they claim that they "protect and promote [the UK's] cultural and artistic heritage and help businesses and communities to grow by investing in innovation" within the UK. They claim to be supported by 45 agencies and public bodies. As my business is in the creative industry - more specifically the media sector - the DCMS will be of the most importance to me as they are arguably at the centre of everything - funding, regulating etc. In order to protect my business legally and financially, I will need to seek help through the DCMS from organisations such as Arts Council England, as well as relying on them as a regulatory body. 

In terms of how the government has used cultural policies to offer support for creative businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic, the DCMS has offered useful resources to businesses most affected; they have articles about dealing with mental health that has been impacted by the pandemic and how you can seek emergency funding. 

The creative industry was one of the worse-hit industries as a result of the pandemic, with thousands of companies having to shut due to loss of funding. Had my business been up and running during the pandemic, I don't think it would have been affected too much, although the subjects of my work would have obviously changed to best fit the relatability of my audience, which would have been on the subject of the pandemic and Brexit. Funding would not have been lost as online ads are protected and would not have been affected. 

To conclude, in terms of how current cultural policies will affect my business, the two main policies are Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic. Working in the creative industry, both have had a widely negative impact on the industry as a whole, with examples being new limitations on travel abroad (Brexit) and the inability to work in close contact with others due to the pandemic. As I would be working online, for the most part, my business shouldn't be too affected by current cultural policies; in fact, as more people would be at home with more free time, there most likely would be an increase in website traffic to my blog, which would improve its reputation and help make it more known. The main thing I would have to change about my business in direct relation to the pandemic are my intellectual properties, being the actual work on my blog in order to make them more relatable to my audience. However, in terms of Brexit, the stock of merchandise and merch shipping times would be very delayed due to the fact that companies are still adjusting to Brexit limitation laws on imports and exports. Thus, I may have to temporarily pause my outgoing merchandise and such which would have a massive impact on my income and finances. As a result, I may have to take it in my best interest to invest more into online advertising until the issue with merchandise is resolved.

Alternatively, the biggest impact that current cultural policies would have on my business are indirectly related to my blog, being the musicians and artists that I would be writing about/interviewing. As concerts and gigs have been put on hold, there has been little going on in terms of music news and new releases, so the content I produce will be affected in this way. Lastly, should I need to travel abroad in the future for interviews and such, Brexit would impact this hugely. As travel laws have had stricter impositions placed upon them, this is something that should be considered in the future.

SOURCE - About us - Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

                     Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport - Wikipedia