Creativity and creative industries: from romanticism to idiosyncratic agency, social networks and knowledge systems

Dayan Thussu writes that ‘with the revolution in digital distribution, a whole range of new revenue earning opportunities has surfaced as the media and telecommunications sectors intersect globally’ (2006: 99). Some refer to the industries, both traditional and new, that have taken advantage of these developments as creative, cultural or copyright industries (Hartley, 2005: 30-31). Terry Flew writes in his recent book The Creative Industries: Culture and Policy (2012), terminology in reference to these industries ‘changes across countries, with some referring to the cultural industries, the copyright industries, the digital content industries, and even the cultural and creative industries or – as in China – the cultural creative industries’ (2012:4). As Flew argues, no matter what the nomenclature each shares the same issues, concerns and ‘underlying questions opened up by the creative industries debate’ (ibid). Since the notion of creativity is central to these debates it would be pertinent to understand what is meant by this term. The first step in that process is to ask; what do we already know about creativity? This question necessitates a perusal of the research literature on creativity. In surveying this literature (McIntyre, 2012) there appears to be some emerging consensus that the structures that characterise social networks and knowledge systems coupled with the application of idiosyncratic agency produce creativity; in other words what we may be looking at is the idea that creativity emerges from a system in action (Hennessey and Amabile 2010). Armed with these research efforts this paper makes a comparison of this body of literature with the literature coming from creative industries. In doing so it observes the correspondences and disjunctures found there since the term creativity appears to have been conceived differently, at different times, by the various scholars who pursue the issues that swirl around the notion of creative, cultural or copyright industries. Nonetheless the narrative trajectory or movement of thought for each body of literature seems to be similar. The paper concludes by addressing what appears to the current destination for both bodies of literature, that is, the idea that creativity is systemic.