Print journalism and the creative process: examining the interplay between journalists and the social organisation of journalism

There has been little emphasis in journalism research on the creativity of individual journalists. This paper explores how the social structure of print journalism, what creativity researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls the field, influences print journalist’s creativity as well as journalists’ interaction with the field and what effect this interaction has on journalists’ practices.This paper is generated from the results of an ongoing project1 that is investigating how print journalists in Australia produce their work. Csikszentmihalyi suggests that creativity is systemic and can be found in the confluence of three elements: a structured body of knowledge (domain), a social system that understands the domain (field) and an individual. These three elements make up his systems model of creativity and each are equally important for a creative outcome. The project is applying Csikszentmihalyi’s systems model to print journalism to examine how cultural, social and individual influences affect how print journalists produce, or create, their work. Data analysis of semistructured interviews conducted with journalists and editors has indicated that, as per Csikszentmihalyi’s proposal, the field is a crucial element in the creative production of news texts. This paper is testing out the notion of creativity in print journalists’ everyday news practices and aims to demonstrate how the field supports these practices.