Supporting the cultural industries using venture capital: a policy experiment from South Korea

This paper explores the interface between the state, the cultural industries and the financial market by focusing on a policy experiment from South Korea: using venture capital for public cultural investment. This policy experiment has significantly increased capital injection to the cultural industries and has provided a fertile ground for the industries to quickly grow. Challenging the dichotomist understanding of the state-market relations, this paper views the government's use of venture capital as a "state-led regulated financialisation" project, in which the cultural ministry has created, expanded and "tamed" the cultural venture capital market. Venture capital companies' profit maximisation is seriously limited by not only government regulations but also strategic behaviour of private investors (cultural distributors). Yet, the paper points out that involving the financial market further complicates cultural industry policy, which already entails tension between culture and industry.