How digital technology is upending the traditional creative industries—and why that’s a good thing
The digital revolution poses a mortal threat to the major creative industries—music, publishing, television, and the movies. Cheap, easy self-producing is eroding the position of the gatekeepers and guardians of culture. Does this revolution herald the collapse of culture, as some commentators claim? Far from it. In
Digital Renaissance
, Joel Waldfogel argues that digital technology is enabling a new golden age of popular culture—a digital renaissance. Analyzing decades of production and sales data, as well as bestseller and best-of lists, Waldfogel finds that the new digital model is just as powerful at generating high-quality, successful work as the old industry model, and in many cases more so.