Constructing Value for Culture : The Evolution of Local Cultural Industries’ Policies and Governance in North-East Italy

The purpose of this paper is to delve into the processes whereby cultural industries are interpreted by cultural, political and administrative actors, generating diverse and often unpredictable cultural, economic and social effects. By drawing evidence from a field project on the movie and audiovisual sector in North-East Italy, I explore the actual practices and micro-dynamics of local audiovisual policies formation, examining how they emerge from a continuous and complex interaction between (purposive) cultural actors and (interactive) policymakers and institutions through time. The results from a comparative case study analysis show how different patterns of interaction lead to different outcomes in terms of the effective functioning of the local cultural industry sector, and how this relationship – albeit a complex, multifaceted one – is mediated by the internal networking capability and proactivity of cultural actors. In the two patterns found, in fact, local actors were differently capable to influence institutions and by consequence to act upon the local audiovisual and movie sectors