Cultural and Media Policy Studies News and Events

Respected music industry magazine, Music Week, reports on project work undertaken by a team of current students on the MA in Creative and Media Enterprises for the Association of Independent Festivals as part of their Creative Business Project module. The team have just embarked on the project to analyse the economic impacts of music festivals and will be reporting their findings to AIF and its members in June.

Edited by Jeremy Ahearne and Oliver Bennett, a special issue of the International Journal of Cultural Policy, on the subject of religion and cultural policy, has now been published. Building on their earlier work on 'implicit' cultural policies, this issue follows three broad approaches. First, it looks at the cultural polices of religious bodies themselves; secondly, it examines the interplay and conflicts between the polices of modern states and those of religious bodies; and thirdly, it considers the relations between certain arts, heritage and media organisations and questions of religion. The issue brings together contributors from Turkey, Egypt, Australia, the US and the UK. As well as including articles by Jeremy and Oliver, the issue also publishes a contribution from Jane Woddis, one of the Centre's Associate Fellows. Oliver's article is the second publication arising from his ongoing enquiry into the institutional promotion of optimism.

Oliver Bennett's article 'Cultures of Optimism' has now been published in Cultural Sociology (OnlineFirst, April 2011). Drawing on material from a broad range of fields, the article identifies an ‘optimism of everyday life’ and proposes that it performs significant psychological, social and cultural functions. These functions are reviewed, with particular reference to psychological and physical health, family and social relationships and the achievement of goals in different contexts. The article argues that the necessity of optimism has given rise to a complex of optimism promoters, which function as agents of implicit cultural policy. The family, religious institutions, the medical profession, psychotherapists and counsellors, businesses and political leaders are, amongst others, all seen to be part of this complex.

This is the first publication arising from an ongoing enquiry that Oliver is undertaking into the institutional promotion of optimism.