Book review: Researching Creativity in Media Industries

Using the term creativity in relation to journalism has traditionally proved problematic for practitioners, if not scholars as well. But in recent years, there has been more of an interest in the role of creativity in media industries with scholars such as Witschge et al. (2019) using creative methods to understand journalism roles, and examining the role of creativity itself (Deuze 2019).

Andersen’s book seeks to help those who may be interested in this area – arguing that although media scholars may not always use the word creativity, theories about creativity could easily inform and supplement the existing tradition of looking at media production processes (p. 3). It also seeks to challenge assumptions and misconceptions of how creativity works. The book does so by engaging in theoretic discussions around creativity, followed by chapters on methodology for those interested in studying creativity with a final look at a case study of television production followed by a chapter discussing gaps in our current knowledge.

Chapters 1-3 are concerned with theory of which Chapter 2 is a thorough discussion of what Andersen calls the five key research traditions and understandings – individualistic, sociocultural, pragmatic, artistic and social constructivist. It attempts to move on from the global West’s myths about creativity – that either it’s the product of divine inspiration or inexplicable talent. Andersen particularly draws on the work of Csikszentmihalyi in the sociocultural tradition, drawing parallels with his domain-field-individual systemic approach with that of the work of Bourdieu, whose theoretic approach has long been associated with journalism studies. The work of such theorists as Hesmondhalgh and Schlesinger with their interest in the area of creative labour studies is also investigated. Andersen does not neglect theorists either who look at the dark side of creativity in the social constructivist tradition such as Chris Bilton and Andreas Reckwitz who point out how the pressure in media industries for workers to be radically creative can lead to huge amounts of stress.

For news journalists, there can be a struggle to be creative because of short-sighted processes and tight rules about style and format and because of the concept of gatekeeping pace Lewin (1943) and White (1950) although this is also true of longer form media products.

The next chapters turn to methodologies, most notably production studies approach in Chapter 4 – following in the footsteps of newsroom observations by theorists such as Schlesinger (1979), Gans (1980) and Cottle (2007) with the issues around access, data collection and time that these approaches throw up. Chapter 5 unpicks the various challenges that can arise – for example, how would a researcher empirically document creativity or passing on their own normative evaluations of what creativity is? (Andersen quotes Csikszentmihalyi who asked the question of whether creativity can ever be ‘found’ at all). The chapter goes on to give useful advice about how to document, interview and observe creativity, using either qualitative or quantitative methods.

This then leads to Chapter 6 in which it’s explained in depth that the five traditions mentioned in Chapter 2 each have certain expectations around study design and how to interrogate these most usefully. As a specific example, Chapter 7 gives an in-depth case study of the author’s research into a Danish public service television channel DR between 2016 and 2019 and how media processes are often ‘collective, complex and ambiguous’ (p. 7). In this case, Andersen utilised observations of preproduction and idea development processes and interviewed editors and freelance employees. This is a part of programme development which often does not receive as much attention as the programme itself, but Andersen’s findings show that for this creative process, the gatekeeping powers of editors are so powerful that often risk-averse choices were made despite calls for radicalness and originality.

The final chapter aims to synthesise the reflections and hypotheses and considers the current gaps in the field. Andersen calls for more comparative work across different media industries, in particular looking at how streaming has affected these, as well as a more intense look at podcasting. More work also needs to be done to contrast use of creativity between long forms of production such as film and certain television genres and short forms such as news journalism and podcast productions. Andersen also wants to see more work on studies of creative failure and differing level of expectations – for example, the difference between a failed video game and news article – and discussions about creative labour and working conditions.

The book is thus a useful handbook for anyone who is interested in applying a concept of creativity to their research, and argues for a more nuanced approached to how we understand it. It offers a variety of tools and practical advice along with a challenge to media studies researchers not to neglect what is an increasingly important part of understanding how media industries work.