“Hoary old cultural studies tropes with reference to disproven psychological models, ascientific garbage, misunderstood statistics and even horoscopes”.

First off, there is basically no cultural studies now that isn’t deeply parlayed into the creative industries model. There’s a few holdouts here and there, but essentially you are cultural studies. The media arts elves like me have gotten on our boats to the east. You, personally, are more identifiable as cultural studies than the above. I don’t think thats a stretch in the least though I’m sure you’d be horrified to hear it.

Second, as someone who uses disproven psychological models, ascientific garbage, misunderstood statistics and horoscopes in my work, I’d like to point out that it is the most superstitious and flowery of my writing that has gained me the most traction inside industry. My three peak industry contact moments were themed around 1) horoscopes 2) octopi and ghosts and 3) glam rock. The idea that I might go and perform sober research with industry people isn’t bad because it would inherently taint the research – far from it. In my case, they don’t even want it – and make fun of the academics who do (oh my, how they laugh.)

I just want to drill down to this idea of “academics who decry researchers who work within corporate world as inevitably tainted by the structural pressures” because I think this is important. Again, this description fits me. But, to be fair, I love decrying – I’ll decry my own shoes on a good day. There are a fair few people in media, cultural and policy work now who think both (to generalise in the same way you did) cultural studies and creative industries approaches are essentially indistinguishable. We can’t of course admit that to those who are still fighting tooth and nail, but generally, younger people beginning PhDs now (or MAs, or younger) are rolling over good cultural studies knowledge together with creative industries practicalities without ever really thinking where they fit – because most degree programs in the area have both. So what are we going to do with this discussion then?

Finally, as I said in response to comments on the original piece; the push by Universities to replace hoary old cultural studies with super cashgun WOW creative industries is likely to be changing the types of people who come into research environments quite a bit.

I, like you, think thats probably largely a positive. Even though some consultancy-driven academic practice is, lets be generous and say, mind-bendingly harmful to both academy and industry – the flipside is that core activity done by highly trained people (such as yourself) is showing new ways of working and engaging bodies outside the campus – even if for you that has meant staying outside but still working.

But by no means is this a neutral apolitical shift, and this is the one thing that people across the spectrum are intent on never discussing. “Cui Bono”, because its not always the usual suspects.

More professional development work has to happen with postgrads preparing them for working in industry.