Technology and Creativity

Production, Mediation and Evaluation in the Digital Age

Jesper Strandgaard Pedersen, Barbara Slavich, Mukti Khaire, Jesper Strandgaard Pedersen, Barbara Slavich, Mukti Khaire

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9783030175658
• eBook ISBN:
  9783030175665
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

This edited book explores the digital challenge for cultural-creative organizations and industries, and its impact on production, meaning-making, consumption and valuation of cultural-creative products and experiences. Discussing digital changes such as user-generated content, social media, business model innovation and product development, the chapters challenge deep-seated definitions of creative individuals, organizations and industries, offering insights into how this creative aspect is argued and legitimized. Placing an emphasis on research that deals with the digital challenge, this collection theorizes its significance for the nature and dynamics of creative industries as well as its impact on the mediation of experiences and the creation and consumption of cultural-creative products.

© The Author(s) 2020

J. Strandgaard Pedersen et al. (eds.)Technology and Creativityhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17566-5_1

Begin Abstract

1. Technology and Creativity: Production, Mediation and Evaluation in the Digital Age

Jesper Strandgaard Pedersen¹ , Barbara Slavich² and Mukti Khaire³

(1)

Department for Organization, Copenhagen Business School, Københavns, Denmark

(2)

IÉSEG School of Management, Paris, France

(3)

Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

Jesper Strandgaard Pedersen (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

Barbara Slavich

Mukti Khaire

Email: [email protected]

End Abstract

Introduction

Technology and creativity seem to be two core constructs that have dominated recent debates for understanding the driving forces in twenty-first-century economies, and in particular capitalist economies, debated under such terms as ‘Experience Economy ’ (Pine & Gilmore, 1999) or ‘Name Economy ’ (Moeran, 2003) or the more general term ‘New Economy ’ to mention but a few of the terms coined. On the connection between technology and creativity, Lampel, Shamsie and Lant (2006) outline their view on the role of technology in the evolution of the cultural industries by stating that,

Cultural industries owe their existence to a series of technical innovations such as electrical sound recording, motion picture photography, television broadcasting and the Internet. These technologies opened new frontiers that grew into great industries. The expansion phase, however, was championed not by the technologically knowledgeable, but by the creative and business talent. (Lampel et al. 2006: 12)

Thus, emphasizing the significance of the technology as a driver, but not as an end in itself, Lampel et al. (2006) also emphasize the importance of content and that the technology at the end of the day is in the minds and hands of creative individuals and business organizations. The editors sympathize and concur with this view, but also propose that it is important, nonetheless, to understand the implications and influence on creative and cultural industries of technological advances , especially recent digital technologies , which have had far-ranging and rapidly evolving impact. This volume attempts to shed light on these changes, while still placing them in the broader historical, institutional, cultural and economic context in which these industries operate.

Recent economic transformation, technological advances and globalization seem to continue to alter how organizations and individuals define and organize work and how societies consume what organizations and individuals produce. The development of the Internet, in particular, has played an increasingly important role in such economic and sociocultural change. An array of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools has allowed for increased digitalization of information media and social interactions, and consumers are turning to digitally mediated communication in their social and professional connectivity, decision-making as well as to digital channels for consumption (Munar et al. 2013).

These recent technological advances have increasingly influenced organizations and individuals in creative industries, by leading to a ‘disintermediation’ and resulted in a loss of power of traditional actors, such as critics and producers (Hirsch & Gruber, 2015), as well as in an increased power of consumers. Indeed, the development has taken place by bringing (traditionally conceived) passive consumers of creative products to being active agents in the creative process . This takes place through different processes and developments. For example, by opening up new opportunities for collaborations and by offering new ways of consuming cultural products (Munar & Gyimóthy, 2013). Examples of these changes include for instance the high-end restaurant industry¹ where diners post online comments on their experiences on platforms such as TripAdvisor, influencing restaurants’ reputation and reducing the traditional impact of critics’ reviews (Müller, 2018). In music and performing arts, online platforms such as YouTube give artists the opportunity to publish their music and contents online entering into a direct contact with the audiences.

The current digitalization has also pushed a deinstitutionalization of media conglomerates, which leads to new opportunities for creators to reach wider audiences (Hirsch & Gruber, 2015). Furthermore, new business models, made possible by digital technologies , allow creators to generate and appropriate more value from their own work. Social media platforms grow by creating value from users’ contributions. This is made possible due to the digitization of, for example, text, sound and images. Users contribute with knowledge and creativity in a fast-expanding global upload–download phenomenon, and user-generated content (UGC) has become massively popular, shaping and changing the public perception of products and organizations. Thus, ICT and social media change the traditional production function to co-create value across historical producer–consumer boundaries and redefine the role of intermediaries , gatekeepers and experts, which has greater implications in the creative industries than in others, due to their very nature, described below.

Creative Industries: Creativity at the Center

The broad term ‘creative industries’ refers to a number of sectors that derive value through the creativity involved in the products developed and the processes used (Jones, Lorenzen, & Sapsed, 2015). These industries, for example, such as architecture, advertising, fashion, design, film, the fine arts and haute cuisine, encompass individuals and organizations that produce, develop and distribute products or experiences that convey symbolic and aesthetic value (Caves, 2000; Lampel et al., 2006). Several studies have tried to understand what industries should be seen as creative, and there has been a lot of debate around the use of the term ‘creative’ versus ‘cultural industry,’ with several scholars agreeing on the view of cultural industries as a subset of creative industries (Jones et al. , 2015). In his influential work, ‘Creative industries: Contracts between art and commerce,’ the economist Richard Caves (2000) suggested a number of properties defining what characterizes creative industries—‘Nobody knows,’ ‘Art for art’s sake,’ ‘Motley crew,’ ‘Infinite variety,’ ‘A list/B list,’ ‘Time flies’ and ‘Ars longa’ (Caves, 2000: 2–10)—in an attempt to define and capture the creative industries. Based on these properties, Caves came up with the following list of creative industries,

They include book and magazine publishing, the visual arts (painting, sculpture), the performing arts (theatre , opera, concerts, dance), sounds recordings, cinema and TV films, even fashion and toys and games. (Caves, 2000: 1)

In spite of this ground-breaking and influential work, Caves’ list from 2000 also illustrates very well the problem of such a list. Rather than asking, ‘what is the creative industries?’ another approach (and probably a more interesting question to ask) is to contextualize to a particular time and place—‘who is considering what goods and activities to be creative expressions and therefore belonging to the creative industries?’ Therefore no final or universal list of the creative industries makes sense or could meaningfully be listed, as it is a social construction and a dynamic one at that. Creative industries develop due to industry change and become more (or less) artistic and experience-driven over time (e.g., the culinary field) and new industries emerge driven by new technologies (e.g., video games and virtual reality). Finally, what is considered to belong to the category of creative industries is ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Technology and Creativity: Production, Mediation and Evaluation in the Digital Age
• 2. Innovators’ Acts of Framing and Audiences’ Structural Characteristics in Novelty Recognition
• 3. The Alchemy of Painting: How the Technology of Oil Paint Transmuted Art
• 4. Industry or Field? The Value of the Field Construct to Study Digital Creative Industries
• 5. The Internet as Liberating Space for the Visual Arts: Political Hopes and Sociological Realities
• 6. Evaluation and Producers’ Attention to Ratings in the Chocolate Confectionery Markets
• 7. Alone or in Concert? Creative Entrepreneurs and the Role of Multiple Institutional Logics in Crowdfunding Pitches
• 8. Museums and Technology for Value Creation
• 9. Reassembling Cultural Journalism in the Digital Age
• 10. Digital Transformation and Business Model Innovation in the Film Industry: The Case of Movieday.it
• 11. Afterword
• Correction to: Innovators’ Acts of Framing and Audiences’ Structural Characteristics in Novelty Recognition
• Back Matter