Daily Archives: 24 August 2016

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Why we need more book awards

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Jason Potts, RMIT University

Arts and culture are part of the broad subset of economic activities that are afforded special treatment – usually within the ambit of a government ministry – by some claim to special circumstances or importance. Defence, transport infrastructure, sports and education are other examples. What these sectors have in common is the claim that they produce public goods, or experience substantial market failure, justifying public support.

In this view, the problem with the arts and cultural economy is on the supply side. If left to the market, too few resources will be devoted to arts and cultural production. Hence government support is necessary to arrive at a socially optimal level of arts and cultural production.

But a different way of understanding the problems in the economics of arts and culture is from the perspective of the consumer (not the producer). Here the problem is simply that choice is hard because quality is uncertain. Markets can fail when producers lack the incentives to produce enough exciting new work, but markets can also fail because consumers don’t know how to choose over the set of new things, and find it easier to choose nothing. That is, they stay away.

By definition, art produces something novel and unique. This is something that economists call an experience good. You only know what you think of it after you’ve consumed it. This means that demand and purchase occurs before you know whether you will like something. Markets fail here because they don’t carry enough information.

Market-making in these industries invariably involves creating mechanisms to deal with the quality uncertainty problem. Often the economic success of a sub-sector depends upon the extent to which it can solve this problem.

There are several such mechanisms. One is a minimum quality standard, of the sort imposed through industrial regulations, licenses or certifications. These are used extensively in restaurant and tourism to signal minimum cleanliness, safety or service. Another is the use of a brand, which functions as a reputational hostage. Publishing Imprints and Galleries use this mechanism. Another mechanism is social network markets, where the pooling of the choices of other consumers fill in the information gaps. Box office sales and consumer reviews are examples of such.

But another important mechanism is awards. Awards are characterised by disinterested expert assessment of quality. Indeed, industries with substantial quality uncertainty problems (e.g. wine, movies, architecture, advertising, science, complex engineering) also tend to have high profile, high prestige awards (e.g. the Academy Awards for film, the Emmy’s for television).

So awards matter. But how do they actually work? And do they work differently in different industries?

A new study by Erwin Dekker and Marielle De Jong, both cultural economists from Erasmus University in the Netherlands, has examined a long and deep new data set on book awards in three countries: the US, France and the Netherlands. Their new paper called What Do Book Awards Signal? alights on a surprising finding, namely that book awards don’t work the same way that, as a prime comparison, movie awards work.

Why don’t book awards work in the same way as movie awards?
AAP Image/Daniel Munoz

The basic difference is that with movie awards there is a relatively strong correlation between the assessments of different award juries (say Cannes, Sundance and the Oscars), and between these awards and popular consumer perceptions of quality, as measured with audience ratings. Relatively strong here means on the order of 50% correlation, which still leaves a lot of room for disagreement.

But with books, the overlap between different expert assessments of quality, i.e. consensus of expert opinion, is much lower: Dekker and De Jong find that it is 10% in the US, 7% in the Netherlands and just 3% in France.

So it seems that award winning books do not represent expert consensus about quality. So what are book awards doing? Dekker and De Jong suggest, following the work of Lucien Karpik, that book awards are signalling not a shared consensus on quality, but a judgement of distinctiveness.

Indeed, such awards work to precisely signal that a particular award winning book will not correspond to a common opinion assessment of quality.

An award winning book carries the signal that the reader will be consuming more than just a good book, but something more precious in a social context, namely a book of distinction, a quality that then carries over to the reader.

Why do book awards work this way? One reason is that books require more investment (i.e. time) than do movies. A second reason is that many more people need to agree that a movie is good through the production process in order for it to be made at all, so higher expert consensus is more likely.

Suppose now you’re a public benefactor of the arts and culture, or specifically that you were Mitch Fifield, Australia’s Arts Minister. One thing you can do is direct subsidy. That’s the producer-side market failure model. But while that makes the recipients happy, it doesn’t actually solve the quality uncertainty problem. The risk with that strategy is that all you’ll do is make some producers happy and leave the consumers of arts and culture no better off at all.

To solve that problem, consider setting up an award. Or rather, another new type of award. Can there be too many awards? Probably. But we are nowhere near that margin yet, and certainly not with high distinctiveness arts such as books, theatre, and dance. And the fun thing is you even get the legacy effect when you name the award after yourself.

The Conversation

Jason Potts, Professor of Economics, RMIT University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Author: Katharine McGee

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How Australia’s children’s authors create magic on a page

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Elizabeth Hale, University of New England

For a prime example of Australia’s innovation economy in action, look no further than the humble picture book. Staple of bedtime reading, offering textual delights beyond the verbal, picture books are a hidden treasure.

Australian picture books sell around the world, and are translated into many languages — take for instance, Jackie French’s iconic Diary of a Wombat (2002), which appears in French, German, Korean, and many more. But though the words need translating, the images, (in French’s book by Bruce Whatley), communicate across language barriers.

The interplay between words and images is one of the magic ingredients in a show-stopping picture book. Achieving that magic requires serious innovation. Writers, illustrators and editors work hard to balance word with image, and to carry the story or message through both.

It takes time, dedication, and care to make a picture book, and though some may be flipped through in minutes, others repay repeated reading and looking. Next time you pick one up in a bookshop or library, look at its design, the way the pictures engage with character, or setting, or contribute to mood, theme, and the controlling idea.

Dirty Dinsoaur by Janeen Brian
Viking

Ann James’s illustration of I’m a Dirty Dinosaur (2013) (text Janeen Brian) is a recent example. James’s lively dinosaur invites children in to the story, acting out the rhymes:

I’m a dirty dinosaur
with a dirty snout.
I never wipe it clean
I just sniff and snuff about.

Simple but evocative line drawings of this muddy dinosaur (made using Victorian mud!) connect beautifully with the energy of the rhymes, and provide young readers with visually engaging and memorable ideas.

Kevin Burgemeestre’s wonderful handmade dioramas on the cover of the recent Hush Treasure Book (2015) show that illustrations don’t have to be drawn to be lively and vivid. Indeed, in another of his books, B is for Bravo (2003), they provide a realistic but imaginative romp through an excitingly three-dimensional alphabet of Australian Aviation.

Illustrators conduct specific research to find just the right images for particular stories. Anne Spudvilas’s illustrations for the picture book version of Li Cunxin’s Mao’s Last Dancer (2003) use traditional watercolour, and collage from old newspapers, to convey the wealth and variety of Chinese culture.

Experimentation, consultation, imagination, teamwork and individual interpretation are the name of the game. And they demonstrate the incredible care writers and illustrators take to make books that speak to the text, and to the reader. You can see Ann James talk here about how she conveys emotion in collaboration with the author:

Jeannie Baker, meanwhile, takes collage to its highest level in her carefully crafted books. Her Window (1991), and Where the Forest Meets the Sea (1987) use layered and detailed images and to convey a powerful environmental message.

Sometimes words are unnecessary. Shaun Tan’s The Arrival (2007) tells a moving story about immigration through sepia pictures arranged as if in an old photo album. Any words would break the spell cast by these pictures, which call for a slow and thoughtful reading. Indeed, the only words that appear in the book are in a made-up font. Their unrecognisability symbolises the challenges facing new immigrants who have yet to learn the local language.

Gregory Rogers’s comic wordless story The Boy, the Bear, the Baron, the Bard (2004) is a wonderful contrast. Full of pace, fun, and historical detail, in company with the boy, bear and baron of the title, it takes us through the streets and theatres of Elizabethan London, pursued by the bard.

The Arrival by Shaun Tan
Hodder & Stoughton

And Nick Bland challenges the form of the picture book altogether, with The Wrong Book (2009), in which monsters, pirates, royalty and animals intrude on the protagonist’s attempts to tell a story. (It’s available as a lovely app)

Exact statistics as to the number of Australian illustrators are hard to come by: like authors, they receive royalties of up to 10% (sharing this figure, in the case of co-creation). And so, like so many creatives, to survive and flourish they have to be extremely energetic, professional and passionate about their work. To survive, they have had to innovate. Publishing opportunities are increasingly competitive, as the digital economy hits traditional publishers, though the development of the app-book offers new and interesting opportunities.

Many illustrators give classes, workshops, do school visits, are part of exhibitions, and support literacy initiatives at home and abroad. They find new ways to promote their work, and cross-fertilise with other industries.

I’ve only touched on a few of the many wonderful Australian creators of picture books for young (and not so young) readers. Next time you read one (to yourself or to others), you could think about the innovation economy that is the illustration industry. But hopefully, and more likely, you could settle back and enjoy the story – words, images, and all.

This week is Children’s Book Week. And the Children’s Book Council of Australia will announce a swag of prizes in various award categories, including picture books.

The University of New England has hosted many illustrators over the years through a Copyright Agency Cultural Fund supported residency program. The work they did is on display at the University Library.

The Conversation

Elizabeth Hale, Senior Lecturer in English and Writing (children’s literature), University of New England

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.