Producing Leisured Laborers: Developing Higher Education Courses for the Digital Creative Industries

This article attempts to detail the range of assumptions and challenges in designing an undergraduate university degree in digital creative industries. Leaders in digital industries, who bemoan the general skills shortage and lack of “industry-ready” graduates, have identified the need for post-secondary education in this area. But in developing these new courses, how do we reconcile the traditional reflective, critical modes of academic practice with the fast and dynamic pace of the dot.com industries? How can slower-paced higher education and lifelong learning be meaningful to the current and future generations of digital natives who thrive on “just-in-time” knowledge? These important issues are analyzed and built upon to showcase the unique qualities and opportunities associated with tertiary education in this area. Overall, the article develops these high-level considerations practically by applying them to a pioneering undergraduate course in Australia that was launched in 2014.