Phillip McIntyre, Janet Fulton, Elizabeth Paton (Eds.) - The Creative System in Action - Understanding Cultural Production and Practice-Palgrave Macmillan UK (2016) PDF

The Creative System
in Action
Understanding Cultural Production
and Practice
Edited by
Phillip McIntyre, Janet Fulton and
Elizabeth Paton
The Creative System in Action
This page intentionally left blank
The Creative System
in Action
Understanding Cultural Production
and Practice
Edited by
Phillip McIntyre
University of Newcastle, Australia
Janet Fulton
University of Newcastle, Australia
and
Elizabeth Paton
Monash University, Australia
Palgrave
macmillan
THE CREATIVE SYSTEM IN ACTION: UNDERSTANDING CULTURAL PRODUCTION AND PRACTICE
Selection, introduction, conclusion and editorial matter © Phillip McIntyre,

Janet Fulton and Elizabeth Paton 2016
Individual chapters © Respective authors 2016
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2016 978-1-137-50945-1
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DOI: 10.1057/9781137509468
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: McIntyre, Phillip, 1953– editor. | Fulton, Janet, 1964– editor. |
Paton, Elizabeth, 1979– editor.
Title: The creative system in action : understanding cultural production and
practice / Phillip McIntyre, Janet Fulton, Elizabeth Paton [editors].
Description: Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York : Palgrave
Macmillan, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015038155 |
Subjects: LCSH: Mass media and culture. | Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.)
| Creative ability—Social aspects.
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Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s ideas resonate
throughout the pages of this book. We would like
to dedicate this book to him and all the students,
colleagues and creative practitioners who engaged
with us and helped form our ideas.
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
List of Figures ix
Acknowledgements x
Notes on Contributors xi
1 Introduction 1
Phillip McIntyre, Janet Fulton and Elizabeth Paton
Part I Theory
2 General Systems Theory and Creativity 13
Phillip McIntyre
3 The Systems Model of Creativity 27
Janet Fulton and Elizabeth Paton
Part II Research Using Systems Approaches
4 Songwriting as a Creative System in Action 47
Phillip McIntyre
5 The Creative Development of Sampling Composers 60
Justin Morey
6 Scalability of the Creative System in the Recording Studio 74
Paul Thompson
7 Print Journalism and the System of Creativity 87
Janet Fulton
8 The Practice of Freelance Print Journalism 100
Sarah Coffee
9 The Dynamic System of Fiction Writing 113
Elizabeth Paton
10 Reconceptualizing Creative Documentary Practices 125
Susan Kerrigan
11 Film and Media Production as a Screen Idea System 139
Eva Novrup Redvall
12 Distributed Creativity and Theatre 155
Stacy DeZutter
vii
viii Contents
13 Comedy, Creativity, Agency: The Hybrid Individual 169

Michael Meany
14 The Arts and Design: From Romantic Doxa to
Rational Systems of Creative Practice 185
Phillip McIntyre and Sarah Coffee
15 Conclusion: Future Directions? 200
Index 207
List of Figures
3.1 The systems model of creativity 29

6.1 Revised systems model of creativity scaled to an
individual level 80
6.2 Revised systems model of creativity scaled
to a group level 84
10.1 ‘A Systems View of Creative Practices’ 127
11.1 The systems model of creativity 145
11.2 The Screen Idea System 148
13.1 Nested structures 170
13.2 Atomic and Romeo’s user interface 174
ix
Acknowledgements
Phillip McIntyre: I would like to express my eternal gratitude to Mihaly

Csikszentmihalyi for bringing these ideas to our attention and for put-
ting up with us at lunch. I would especially like to thank Janet and
Elizabeth for their grace under pressure and for remaining calm and
convivial through it all. I would also like to thank my friends and col-
leagues in DCIT and also acknowledge the assistance of the Australian
Research Council in supporting parts of this research. Most of all I’d like
to thank my big fat family and their matriarch, Julie, who has always
had theirs and my best interests at heart.
Elizabeth Paton: In addition to Janet and Phillip, who have been dream
collaborators through this experience, I would also like to thank my for-
mer colleagues at Monash University, Shane Homan and Brett Hutchins,
for their camaraderie and guidance and for the opportunity to reshape
a Communication and Creativity subject around a theorist with a name
no-one could pronounce. Most of all, I would like to thank my husband
Bryan for his support, and our son Augie for sharing his mum with this
project even when ‘Mummy’s work’ meant fewer bedtime stories.
Janet Fulton: Thanks to Phillip and Elizabeth for taking a little throw-
away idea about our research passion and pummelling it into a book – a
book we can be proud of. It’s also a pleasure to be able to work with people
who are friends as well as colleagues. For their ongoing encouragement
of my work, I would like to thank my fellow University of Newcastle
Communication academics, with particular thanks to Susan Kerrigan,
Judith Sandner, Melanie James, Prue Robson, Michael Meany and Mark
Balnaves, and our Head of School Anne Llewellyn. To my lovely husband
Steve, our children Jade and Pete, and our precious grandbabies Asha and
Will, thank you for your love, understanding and support.
We would like to acknowledge and thank the School of Design,
Communication and IT at the University of Newcastle for their support
throughout our research and the writing of this book. The professionals
at Palgrave Macmillan, as always, have done a sterling job. We thank
them for the faith they displayed in us.
Finally, we’d all like to acknowledge and express our deep gratitude to
the contributors to this book who are working at the cutting edge of this
research area. Their contributions have enabled us to form a community
of scholars around systems research and creativity.
x
Notes on Contributors
Sarah Coffee is a tutor in Communication and Media and Creative and

Performing Arts at the University of Newcastle, Australia. She holds a
PhD in Media and Communication from the University of Newcastle.
Her thesis ‘Profiling Creativity: An Exploration of the Creative Process
Through the Practice of Freelance Print Journalism’ consisted of a series
of feature articles on individual creative practitioners and an exegesis
that used these articles and the documented process of writing them
as the basis of a practitioner-based enquiry into the nature of creativity
and cultural production.
Stacy DeZutter is an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology

at Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi, USA, where she also chairs
the Department of Theatre. She holds a PhD in the Learning Sciences
from Washington University in St. Louis and an MA in Theatre and
Performance Studies from the University of Pittsburgh. Drawing on her
background in professional, ensemble-based theatre, her work focuses
on the creativity of collaborative groups. In particular, she aims to
understand the interactional processes by which a collaborative group
can function as a single, distributed cognitive system in which the
system, rather than the individual, is the locus of creative production.
Her current research examines the affordances of distributed creativity
as a theoretical framework for facilitating innovation within teachers’
professional learning communities.
Janet Fulton is a Lecturer in Communication and Media at the

University of Newcastle, Australia, and teaches and researches in the
area of journalism, creativity and cultural production, social media,
journalism education and the future of journalism in the digital
domain. Janet holds a PhD in Communication and Media. Her PhD
research project, ‘Making the News: Print Journalism and the Creative
Process’, applied creativity models to print journalism and investigated
how journalists interact with cultural and social structures when they
produce, or create, their work. Her research in this area has appeared
in books, journals and presentations at conferences. She has also
taught the capstone course of the Bachelor of Communication at the
University of Newcastle, which is a course that employs the theories
described in this book.
xi
xii Notes on Contributors
Susan Kerrigan is a Screen Production Scholar who specializes in

creative screen practice through practice-led research. Susan is a cur-
rent recipient of an ARC Linkage Grant titled Creativity and Cultural
Production: An Applied Ethnographic Study of New Entrepreneurial
Systems in the Creative Industries. She is a member of the Communication
and Media Research (CAMR) group and is a member of the Hunter
Centre for Creative Industries and Technology (HCIT). During 2012/13
Susan was President of the Australian Screen Production, Education
and Research Association (ASPERA) and in 2014 she convened the
annual ASPERA Conference ‘Screen Explosion’. She has examined PhDs
and Masters (by research) for Screen Production, Screenwriting and
Television practices.
Phillip McIntyre is an Associate Professor in Communication and

Media at the University of Newcastle, Australia, researching creativity
and innovation. Phillip has published widely in this area with a particu-
lar focus on the creative processes involved in various aspects of music
including songwriting, sound engineering and producing. His recent
book, Creativity and Cultural Production: Issues for Media Practice, was pub-
lished by Palgrave Macmillan in 2012. Previously, Phillip was involved
in the music industry where he was a songwriter, instrumentalist, musi-
cal director and manager for various groups, dealing with promoters,
record companies and distribution labels. His work as a music journal-
ist entailed interviewing and writing feature stories on a wide range of
musicians, including David Bowie, John Fogerty, Paul Kelly, Don Walker,
Daniel Johns, Mandawuy Yunupingu, Tim Rogers and many others. He
has active Facebook, LinkedIn and academia.edu accounts and his web-
site is: www.texasradio.com.au/pages/mcintyre_p.html
Michael Meany is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Design,

Communication and IT at the University of Newcastle, Australia. His
background includes careers as a freelance writer, typesetter and publi-
cation designer, and as a playwright. From these varied careers, Michael
brings to his research an eclectic mix of skills. His research interests
include: comedy and humour, scriptwriting and narrative/interactive
media design. Drawing on these interests, his PhD research examined
the performance of comedy by artificial intelligence agents. His journal
and conference publications span a range of disciplines including infor-
mation technology, design practice, creativity theory, humour theory
and the humanities.
Justin Morey has a background in sound engineering and music pro-

duction, having run his own recording studio in London from 1995
Notes on Contributors xiii
to 2003. As a co-writer and producer of dance music, he has had records

released through labels including Acid Jazz, Lacerba (Sony) and Ministry
of Sound. He has been teaching in higher education since 2001, and
has been a member of academic staff at Leeds Beckett University, UK
(formerly Leeds Metropolitan University) since 2004, where his teach-
ing specialisms include music production and the music business. His
main research interest is in sampling as a creative practice within British
dance music. His research has been published in the IASPM Journal and
Journal on the Art of Record Production, including co-authorships with
Phillip McIntyre (University of Newcastle, Australia).
Eva Novrup Redvall is an associate professor in the Department of

Film, Media and Communication at the University of Copenhagen
where she is Head of the Research Priority Area on Creative Media
Industries. She holds a PhD in screenwriting as a creative process and
has published a number of articles on Nordic film and television, pro-
duction studies, screenwriting and creativity in books and journals.
Her latest books are Writing and Producing Television Drama in Denmark:
From The Kingdom to The Killing (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) and Danish
Directors 3: Dialogues on the New Danish Documentary Cinema (with Mette
Hjort and Ib Bondebjerg, 2014).
Elizabeth Paton is senior education and outreach officer for the

Australia Research Council Centre of Excellence for Integrative Brain
Function (Monash University node). Previously, she taught communica-
tion, media and creative industries subjects at Monash University and
the University of Newcastle at both undergraduate and postgraduate
levels. Elizabeth has published in a range of scholarly journals on topics
including sociocultural models of creativity, the social system of creativ-
ity in Australian fiction writing, media influence on creativity, writer’s
block, flow and motivation, teaching creativity in higher education, and
practice-led research in scriptwriting. She previously worked as a broad-
cast journalist for the Austereo network and as a freelance writer for
specialist magazines and streetpress. She is an active social media user.
Paul Thompson is a professional recording engineer with over ten years

of experience working in the music industry. He is currently a senior lec-
turer at Leeds Beckett University, UK, where he teaches acoustics, pyscho-
acoustics and studio production on the Music Technology and Music
Production programmes. His doctoral research investigated creativity
and collaboration inside the recording studio and his ongoing research
interests include popular music and audio education, informal music
learning practices, creativity and cultural production in popular music.
1
Introduction
Creativity. Nothing is as it seems. Or so it appears. Underneath the sur-

face events of our lives, entwined with the beliefs that we have about
the way the world works and the myths we use to prop them up, are
forces at work that we may not recognize or even dare acknowledge. At
the same time the choices we make as human beings in our everyday
lives, and the creative decisions they entail, are not just simply imposed
on us by those deep forces at play. This complex interplay of agency and
structure can be explained in a number of ways. As an example, against
the belief that creativity is an individually based phenomenon centred
on extraordinary people are ranged a series of theories, concepts and
evidence bases that serve to bring Western myths about creativity into
sharp relief. This book tries to set aside the myths and often uncriti-
cally held beliefs, the things Pierre Bourdieu referred to as doxa or ‘the
collective adhesion to the game that is both cause and effect of the
existence of the game’ (Bourdieu 1996, p. 167) – as important as these
appear to be in driving everyday creative action (Hesmondhalgh 2011,
p. 20) – and attempts to provide evidence that creativity, as it occurs
within the creative industries, can be best explained using a primarily
rational approach.
In pursuing this rational explanation for creativity across a range of
disciplines pertinent to the creative industries, including fiction and
non-fiction writing, journalism, popular music, film and documentary,
theatre, digital media, and the arts and design, this book has taken
a very particular view, that is, that of the systems approach initially
developed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. This approach to creativity
incorporates not just individual creators but also the social and cultural
1
2 Phillip McIntyre, Janet Fulton and Elizabeth Paton
contexts in which they work. In many ways it attempts to satisfy

Csikszentmihalyi’s call for an amalgam of the psychological and the
sociological (1988, p. 336). The book argues that cultural production is
a multidimensional phenomenon and the research work presented in it
provides, we hope, a comprehensive exposé of this process. Each author
in this collection offers either an empirically based instantiation of the
theory or an amplification and extension of it. Some do both. Either
way, the work of Csikszentmihalyi, and as it turns out quite a number
of other researchers, provides the springboard for these explorations of
creativity.
Initially, the book attempts to give an ordered overview of systems
theory to give the broad context of the development of these ideas. It
then sets out a trajectory of the research literature on creativity as it has
moved towards this systems approach. For much of the book there is
then a focus on current systems-based research into cultural production
and media practice, giving an overview of empirically based studies
that use and test the systems approach. This set of collected research
accounts not only provides evidence to support the theory through
proffering empirical accounts of it but also demonstrates how differ-
ing research methods have proved useful in providing an alternate and
more holistic way to describe and analyse a cultural producer’s creative
output. As such, this book serves to provide an account of creative
action that has seldom been applied to these selected areas of the crea-
tive industries. In doing this, the book demonstrates what we believe to
be a fundamental idea about knowledge: some thoughts, ideas, theories
or concepts reach a point where they move beyond their original insti-
gator and become part of a larger paradigmatic shift in thinking. Each
person who supplies confirmation of the ideas may add something new
to it, thereby giving the initial idea a life of its own.
The first part of the book provides the theoretical background to the
ideas described, tested, rethought and discussed in the later empirically
based studies. The first chapter in this section, Chapter 2, situates the
research on creativity in the broader context of general systems theory.
It argues that one cannot fully understand complex entities by simply
considering the individual parts. Many systems in the natural world
contain multiple components interacting in dense, extensive and
interrelated networks. These include social and cultural systems. As
Keith Sawyer suggests, ‘social systems are complex systems that share
many systemic properties with other complex systems, including the
human mind’ (2010, p. 368). If so, there is a possibility that complex
social systems could be understood to generate novelty just as readily
Introduction 3
as individuals do and in this case ‘a complete scientific explanation of

creativity would have to include detailed accounts of both psychologi-
cal and social mechanisms’ (Sawyer 2010, p. 368). Of course while this is
only one possible explanation, this chapter briefly outlines the principal
concepts of general systems theory and also sets out the paradigmatic
shift towards systems thinking that has occurred within the research
literature on creativity and cultural production. What needs pointing
out here is that the initial work on creativity remained, in the words
of Dean Keith Simonton (2003), largely psychologically reductionist.
It was also eventually discovered that just concentrating on societal or
cultural structures, in opposition to a concentration on the individual
alone, would also not give us complete access to what is happening in
a creative act. As Hennessey and Amabile (2010) suggested, what we
need to do in order to understand how creativity actually happens is to
include all of these processes, individual, social and cultural, as part of
a creative system in action. They argue that:
only by using multiple lenses simultaneously, looking across lev-

els, and thinking about creativity systematically, will we be able to
unlock and use its secrets. What we need now are all encompassing
systems theories of creativity designed to tie together and make sense
of the diversity of perspectives found in the literature. (2010, p. 590)
Keeping Hennessey and Amabile’s suggestion in mind, in Chapter 3

Janet Fulton and Elizabeth Paton provide a detailed description of the
systems model developed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. The systems
model is an example of an approach that incorporates multiple ele-
ments which must be present and active in order for creativity to occur
since ‘what we call creative is never the result of individual action
alone; it is the product of three main shaping forces’ (Csikszentmihalyi
1988, p. 325). For him, a domain, individual and field are all necessary
but not sufficient component parts of the system in action. Instead of
reducing our understanding of creativity to the separate components
within this system, Csikszentmihalyi argues that we should be seeing
these components as elements incorporated into an interactive and
non-linear system. In addition, Fulton and Paton also briefly describe
Pierre Bourdieu’s ideas on cultural production, pointing to some of the
similarities and differences between these two complex sets of ideas,
and provide evidence that applying Csikszentmihalyi’s and Bourdieu’s
ideas can deliver a more comprehensive explanation of cultural produc-
tion. If these ideas have any veracity, then it would be demonstrated
in empirical research that presents evidence to support them. In the

second part of this book various researchers do just that.
Phillip McIntyre in Chapter 4, for example, applies the systems model
to creativity in contemporary Western popular music songwriting. He
does this through an extensive ethnographic research study. Exploring
the data collected in that study, Chapter 4 examines: the domain of
songwriting; how songwriters acquire that domain in order to gain the
habitus of songwriters; how the field operates in contributing to the
selection of certain material over others; and, finally, how songwrit-
ers, as the person in the system, contribute to this systemic process
and are located as agents within their own idiosyncratic sociocultural
background. While McIntyre has explored elsewhere the tensions nego-
tiated between the domain, field and agents involved in creativity, in
particular questions of power and its application in the recording studio
(2008), this chapter presents a complex account of the interdependence
of agency and structure within the workings of the creative system.
Using qualitative interview data, Justin Morey discusses in Chapter 5
the extent to which the systems model of creativity is helpful in explain-
ing the development of creative practice amongst dance music produc-
ers (he calls them sampling composers) who use samples in their work.
He demonstrates how their creative processes can alter in response to
the demands of both the field and the domain. Morey’s research reveals
a dedicated practice regime for sampling composers of collecting, listen-
ing to, playing and making recordings, often from an early age, result-
ing in significant immersion in the domain of music production before
producing work that may be validated by the field. For Morey, this field
includes the music industry and their peers. He concludes that sampling
composers have an extensive interaction with both the domain and the
field and also acknowledges that the opportunities and constraints of
technology, the music industry and copyright law are crucial in shaping
these composers’ creative practice.
Paul Thompson also undertook an ethnographic investigation of
the systems model of creativity incorporating some ideas from Pierre
Bourdieu’s work on cultural production and Keith Sawyer’s work on
group creativity, both of which can be seen to be allied to the systems
approach. In Chapter 6, Thompson applies these ideas to the produc-
tion of a popular music recording undertaken by a group of musicians,
an engineer and a record producer in a recording studio in Liverpool
in the UK. Through participant-observation, multi-perspective film
recording and in-depth interviews, the dynamic interaction of the
system’s interdependent factors of domain, field and the individual
Introduction 5
were exposed. In taking a scalable approach to individual and group

dynamics, that is, moving from micro to macro levels, Thompson con-
cludes that an agent’s ability to make decisions during the recording
process is both enabled and constrained by their knowledge of both
the field and the domain of record production, further illuminating the
interrelated elements of agency, an ability to make choice, and struc-
ture, those things seen to determine action, within the creative system
of record production.
Janet Fulton, on the other hand, sets out to answer the following
question in Chapter 7: how do print journalists produce, or create, their
work? Fulton states that journalism is seldom thought of as a creative
form of writing. This situation may be primarily because it is conven-
tional to associate the idea of creativity with artistic forms of cultural
production. Journalism is not an ‘artistic’ profession and some see it as
constrained by rules and conventions, or structures, giving little licence
for a journalist to exercise agency, that is, it is thought that the exist-
ence of these structures leaves little room for print journalists to make
creative choice. However, by applying the systems model of creativ-
ity suggested by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi to print journalism, as this
chapter does, it can be clearly seen that journalism is a creative activity
in the same way as such writing genres as poetry and fiction writing.
Rather than differentiating between different forms of writing as high
and low culture, or creative and non-creative, it is more productive to
recognize that all forms of writing are creative. The chapter demon-
strates that in print journalism, as in other forms of cultural production,
creativity occurs when there is a confluence of an individual’s genetic
make-up, personality traits, cognitive structures, home and family
environment, education and life experiences, as well as the journalist’s
interaction with the field and immersion in the domain of journalism.
Couple these individual traits, and the idiosyncratic agency they imply,
with the rules, conventions, techniques, guides and procedures of the
domain, the collection of previously written stories, and the expertise,
judgement and support of print journalism’s field and there is ample
evidence presented here to indicate that each component of the system,
field, domain and person, is necessary but not sufficient by itself for crea-
tivity to occur. From this we can see how creativity in print journalism
occurs within a system of print journalism in action.
Using an innovative Practice Based Enquiry (PBE) approach to
examining creativity as a system in operation, Sarah Coffee’s research,
outlined in Chapter 8, included writing a series of 20 feature articles,
titled Profiling Creativity, with each feature article based on a different
creative practitioner and their experience of the creative process. The

individuals profiled were drawn from a variety of practices, some tradi-
tionally associated with creativity and others not, in order to demon-
strate the diversity of creativity as detailed in current literature on the
subject. Each profile highlighted a different concept or aspect within
the scholarly literature, as demonstrated by that particular practitioner’s
experience. Engaging in the practice of freelance print journalism in
this way provided Coffee with two sources for exploring creativity: the
accounts of the 20 practitioners interviewed for the profiles and her
own experience of the creative process in writing the series. In this way,
she was able to compare her experience of creativity with that of the
practitioners interviewed for the profiles and apply current literature on
creativity to these findings. Her research confirmed for her the necessity
of accounting for all three components of the system, field, domain and
agent, in explanations of the creative process.
Based on ethnographic methods, including in-depth interviews with
40 published fiction writers with over 400 publications between them,
and seven publishing industry professionals, the research presented
by Elizabeth Paton in Chapter 9 shows that the systems model is also
relevant to fiction writing. Paton’s study provides evidence, firstly,
of how writers adopt and master the domain skills and knowledge
needed to be able to write fiction through processes of socialization
and enculturation. Secondly, the individual’s ability to contribute to
the domain depends not only on traditional biological, personality and
motivational influences but also socially and culturally mediated work
practices and processes. Finally, the contribution of a field of experts
is also crucial to creativity occurring in Australian fiction writing. This
social organization, comprised of all those who can affect the domain, is
important not only for its influence on and acceptance of written works
but also for the continuation of the system itself.
Susan Kerrigan extends the idea of the creative system to documen-
tary practice in Chapter 10 and she offers a reconceptualization of
the model. Her research investigated the creative production of two
documentary works on an Australian historical site, Fort Scratchley.
She reflectively interrogated her own creative processes in making
those documentaries and concluded that it was necessary to more fully
locate creative practice at the centre of the system. Furthermore, her
work here aligns the confluence approach of the creative system as
complementary to two other creativity theories: the group creativity
model proposed by Paulus and Nijstad (2003) and staged creative pro-
cess theories as they relate to production processes. Kerrigan’s chapter
Introduction 7
is simultaneously about a practitioner drawing on their intuitive and

embodied knowledge while also outlining their engagement in collabo-
rative, social and cultural practice.
Also working in the area of film, Eva Redvall proposes in Chapter 11
that the complex production processes in the film and media industries
take place within a screen idea system, where variations emerge based
on a constant interplay between: the talent who possess certain train-
ing and a pertinent track record, who propose new ideas; the existing
tastes, traditions and trends in a specific production culture; and the
commissioners who have a certain mandate, ideas of management and
amounts of money at their disposal. Redvall argues that while nobody
knows exactly what might work in terms of finding success in the film
and media market, Csikszentmihalyi’s ideas of creativity emerging from
highly social and contextual processes provide an excellent framework
for conducting case studies of the production of new variations and the
way in which different conceptions of creativity, quality and value are
constantly discussed during this kind of creative work.
Working in the related area of improvisational theatre, Stacy DeZutter
shifts attention from the individual as the locus of creativity to creativ-
ity as the emergent product of interactions within a system. Her work
on distributed creativity is an extension of these ideas and she demon-
strates that when individuals collaborate to produce a shared product,
the creative process does not reside in the cognition of individuals but
rather is distributed across the members of the group, who form a cogni-
tive system. Chapter 12 reviews DeZutter’s previous research (conducted
in collaboration with Keith Sawyer), where she articulated the theory
of distributed creativity and elaborated a method for studying it based
in interaction analysis. She observes that certain creative actions are
emergent from a group’s interaction and these may happen on multiple
time scales. She also suggests additional ways scholars might employ
the theory of distributed creativity to better understand, and potentially
enhance, group creative processes.
New media scriptwriting is the area Michael Meany works in. His
general focus is on humour. As he points out in Chapter 13, via Graeme
Ritchie, ‘there is little doubt that the construction of humor is gener-
ally regarded as creative ... and any general theory of creativity should
have something to say about humor’ (2009, p. 71). Meany suggests
that most work on humour and creativity has focused at the level of
text construction but he argues that creativity theory, in particular the
systems model of creativity, provides a much needed framework for
examining the making of comedy. Meany’s chapter describes a Practice
Based Enquiry (PBE) project that employed artificial intelligence agents

(chat-bots) as comedy performers. The interactions and relationships of
the human and non-human actors encountered in this project affected
both the creative process and the resulting product. Viewed in this
manner, Meany concludes that creativity emerges from a network of
complex relationships.
Finally, building on the research work already conducted into crea-
tivity and the arts and design, summarized more recently by Keith
Sawyer (2012) and Anthony Williams et al. (2010), in Chapter 14 Phillip
McIntyre and Sarah Coffee explore, through a set of semi-structured
in-depth interviews, a comparison of the views of arts and design prac-
titioners themselves with the recent systemic accounts of creativity.
McIntyre and Coffee recognize that a number of irrational motives,
myths and beliefs are often uncritically accepted as real by many crea-
tive actors and these have had an effect on particular forms of cultural
production. They conclude that while there is a traditional set of beliefs
that generally form the doxa of these fields for many of these practi-
tioners, most art and design practice could be best reconceptualized as
systemic.
From the evidence briefly outlined above, and more fully elaborated
on in the following chapters, it can be reasonably concluded that the
complex relationships that occur in many forms of cultural produc-
tion are part of multidimensional and interactive phenomena, that is,
a creative system in action. As such the systems model of creativity, as
dealt with here, supported by extensive work on cultural production,
provides a much needed and comprehensive view of creativity of the
type called for by Beth Hennessey and Teresa Amabile (2010).
References
Bourdieu, P. (1996) The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field
(Cambridge: Polity Press).
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1988) ‘Society, Culture, and Person: A Systems View
of Creativity’, in R. Sternberg (ed.) The Nature of Creativity: Contemporary
Psychological Perspectives (Cambridge University Press), pp. 325–9.
Hennessey, B. and Amabile, T. (2010) ‘Creativity’, Annual Review of Psychology,
61, 569–98.
Hesmondhalgh, D. (2011) The Cultural Industries, 2nd edn (London: Sage).
McIntyre, P. (2008) ‘The Systems Model of Creativity: Analyzing the Distribution
of Power in the Studio’, paper presented at the 4th Art of Record Production
International Conference, University of Massachusetts, Lowell, November:
published in Journal of the Art of Record Production, 4: Supplement to ARP08,
Introduction 9
The Peer-Reviewed Proceedings of the 2008 Art of Record Production

Conference, www.artofrecordproduction.com/content/view/214/126/.
Paulus, P. and Nijstad, B. (2003) Group Creativity: Innovation through Collaboration
(Oxford University Press).
Ritchie, G. (2009) ‘Can Computers Create Humor?’, AI Magazine, 30(3),
pp. 71–81.
Sawyer, K. (2010) ‘Individual and Group Creativity’, in J. Kaufman and
R. Sternberg (eds) The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity (Cambridge University
Press), pp. 366–80.
Sawyer, K. (2012) Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation, 2nd edn
Simonton, D. (2003) ‘Creative Cultures, Nations and Civilisations: Strategies and
Results’, in P. Paulus and B. Nijstad (eds) Group Creativity: Innovation Through
Collaboration (Oxford University Press), pp. 304–25.
Williams, A., Ostwald, M. and Askland, H. (2010) Creativity, Design and Education:
Theories, Positions and Challenges (Sydney: ALTC Press).
Part I
Theory
2
General Systems Theory and
Creativity
Phillip McIntyre
The biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy declared in the 1930s that a

general systems theory could be applied to ‘any “whole” consisting of
interacting “components”’ (1981, p. 109). This declaration was prem-
ised on the understanding that one couldn’t fully comprehend how
material or social systems worked by simply taking a mechanistic and
atomistic view of them. One needed to look at the relationships and
interactions involved rather than just simply isolating the component
parts. However, the idea that the universe was like a giant machine had
a firm grip on the imagination of many thinkers. Following Descartes,
this mechanistic understanding:
guided all scientific observation and the formulation of all theories

of natural phenomena until twentieth century physics brought
about a radical change. The whole elaboration of mechanistic science
in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, including
Newton’s grand synthesis, was but the development of the Cartesian
idea. Descartes gave scientific thought its general framework – the
view of nature as a perfect machine, governed by exact mathematical
laws. (Capra and Luisi 2014, p. 25)
This conception of ‘an exquisitely designed giant mechanism, obey-

ing elegant deterministic laws of motion’ (Laszlo 1972, p. 11) was a
largely reductionist notion applied to what was thought to be a highly
ordered, primarily static clockwork universe. It relies on the determinis-
tic processes of linear cause and effect and remains an extremely useful
predictive approach to knowledge. It has as its central methodology
the use of experimentation. This tool has not only proven effective in
the establishment of the classic scientific method but has delivered to
13
14 Phillip McIntyre
humankind a marked degree of control over the natural world. It has

remained effective in its simplicity and coupled with a high degree
of predictability has maintained a status that is difficult to dislodge.
Nonetheless, the Cartesian worldview’s emphasis on the atomistic and
the mechanistic became its major limitation.
Once the process of looking for smaller and smaller building blocks of
the material world led into another space altogether, that is ‘the strange
reality of atomic phenomena’ (Capra and Luisi 2014, p. 68), some doubt
was cast on classical science’s ability to gain a complete understand-
ing of all phenomena. Using the tried and tested ideas of Newtonian
physics could only get you so far. With his insights into special relativ-
ity, Albert Einstein ([1905] 2014) started what Thomas Kuhn called,
in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1970), a major paradigm shift.
Biologists began searching for solutions to the complexity of life while
physicists were led into a world they struggled to understand. What
they eventually revealed was a deeply intricate world that existed at
the level of the quantum. Researchers recognized that they could ‘never
predict an atomic event with certainty; we can only predict the likeli-
hood of its happening’ (Capra and Luisi 2014, p. 72). In the quantum
world individual events do not always have a well-defined cause. These
realizations certainly presented problems for Newtonian physics with
its reliance on a linear chain of particular causes that determine specific
effects. Much more broadly, this seemingly strange situation allowed
the development of a new way to explain the world apart from seeing
it as a finely tuned machine.
Without abandoning the insights of the Newtonian worldview alto-
gether, general systems thinking began to be seen as a new scientific
paradigm and quickly progressed. In 1948 Norbert Weiner published
Cybernetics or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine.
Weiner, John von Neumann and others had begun to try to understand
systems mathematically through their cybernetics project. Their work
eventually gave rise to the poorly named chaos theory (Gleick 1987). In
addition, sociologist Talcott Parsons published The Social System in 1951
which described society as ‘a set of interconnected parts which together
form a whole’ (Haralambos and Holborn 1995, p. 867). For Parsons
a society’s ‘various parts are understood primarily in terms of their
relationship to the whole’ (Haralambos and Holborn 1995, p. 867). By
1954 thinking on systems had progressed far enough to allow for the
foundation of the International Society for General Systems Theory
(ISGST) (Skyttner 2005, p. 39). At around the same time, in 1956, the
economist Kenneth Boulding published his paper ‘General Systems
General Systems Theory and Creativity 15
Theory: The Skeleton of Science’. And then in 1968, although his ideas

were developed in the 1930s, the biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy
published his book General System Theory: Foundations, Development,
Applications. At this point systems thinking had arrived as a serious sci-
entific paradigm. But what were the researchers who were developing
these ideas saying about the world?
Ervin Laszlo, for one, argued that the emerging contemporary
approach to understanding organized complexity, systems thinking,
was ‘one step beyond the Newtonian view of organized simplicity, and
two steps beyond the classical world views of divinely ordered or imagi-
natively envisaged complexity’ (1972, p. 15). The concepts that became
important were holistic and the emphasis moved away from mechanis-
tic simplicity towards understanding interrelations, interdependence,
hierarchical structures, contingency, networks, self-organization, non-
linear dynamics, scalability and emergence.
The mathematician Alfred North Whitehead, although not com-
monly recognized as a systems thinker, pointed out that each entity in
the universe has some relationship to all other things (Whitehead 1985,
p. 39). Each is constrained by the structures of its existence but always
has the ability to act. These actions are unpredictable to the extent that
the exact conditions of their existence cannot be plotted precisely nor
be fully determined by any mechanistic or causal processes (Whitehead
1978, p. 21). Whitehead had rejected the idea that molecules and elec-
trons, for example, were the fundamental building blocks of matter,
instead choosing to see the relations between packets of energy as the
primary condition of existence. His insight is linked to the idea that
the essential properties of systems are derived from their intercon-
nectedness (Capra and Luisi 2014, p. 2). Each system, while seemingly
independent with apparently well-defined borders, is nonetheless
dependent on other systems. Quite simply, nothing exists in isolation.
For Lars Skyttner:
Systems are wholes which cannot be understood through analy-

sis inasmuch as their primary properties derive from the interac-
tions of their parts. Thus awareness grew that everything in the
universe ... which seems to exist independently, was in fact part of
an all-embracing organic pattern. No single part of this pattern was
ever really separated from another. (2005, p. 38)
This situation means that we are dealing with multilayered systems

within systems where, using biology as an example, ‘the web of life
16 Phillip McIntyre
consist of networks within networks’ (Capra and Luisi 2014, p. 68). In

addition ‘a system in one perspective is a subsystem in another. But the
system view always treats systems as integrated wholes of their subsidi-
ary components’ (Laszlo 1972, p. 14). Trying to explain this multilay-
ered interconnectedness and scalability, Arthur Koestler (1975) coined
the term ‘holon’ and used it to describe the idea that a system is both
a part of something and itself a whole system at exactly the same time.
For Koestler, these parts and wholes, or holons, exist in a hierarchy of
systems. This ordering of systems, one within the other, he termed a
holarchy. Avoiding the temptation to apply a hierarchical status, for
Koestler no nested system is more or less important than the others
operating above or below it.
Not only are systems part of these vertically arranged holarchies but
they are also often connected horizontally through complex networks
to many other similar systems. A slight change in one may result in
a cascading of sudden changes, formally known as perturbations, in
many other systems in any direction. Furthermore, these changes were
often difficult to predict. Each change, fluctuation or perturbation is
thus a contingent event, that is, an unforeseen occurrence that may
not have happened in this precise way before as its results cascade
across and within the web-like pattern of organization that typifies the
interconnected networks of the system. This contingent and networked
existence appears in nature again and again. Those using general sys-
tems thinking began to realize that there were ‘systems of organized
complexity wherever we look. Man [sic] is one such system, and so are
his societies and his environment’ (Laszlo 1972, p. 12). But there was a
caveat. As Capra and Luisi explain:
human social systems exist not only in the physical domain but
also in a symbolic social domain. While behaviour in the physical
domain is governed by the ‘laws of nature’ behavior in the social
domain is governed by rules generated by the social system itself.
(Capra and Luisi 2014, pp. 136–7)
In this case we can’t say with any confidence that human systems
operate by a predictable set of universally applicable formal laws as the
material world had appeared to do. However, since we can say they are
largely self-referential systems we can also assume they do behave as
most other systems would. As in all systems it is increasingly difficult
to understand complex entities, like the social world, just by consider-
ing the individual parts or even by assuming one perspective such as a
structuralist account or a phenomenological explanation. As Bourdieu’s

work later suggested (Johnson in Bourdieu 1993, pp. 4–9), a meaningful
grasp of reality needs to consider the relationships that exist between
objective structures and subjective experiences not just conceiving of
things as atomistic details and isolated events (Laszlo 1972, p. 13).
While social systems exist in real time and real space they are premised
on the experiences of the conceptual and the symbolic. Identities are
built around sharing the ideas embedded in the symbolic domain of
culture and communication and this identification creates the bounda-
ries of the social system while allowing the system to organize itself
around those shared cultural and social identities. Social systems are
thus autopoietic or self-organized culturally as networks of communica-
tion (Luhmann 1990).
Remembering Raymond Williams’s (1981) formulation that culture
equals a whole way of life plus the intellectual activities that typify
particular societies, we can see that:
culture arises from a complex, highly nonlinear dynamics. It is cre-

ated by a social network involving multiple feedback loops through
which values, beliefs and rules of conduct are continually com-
municated, modified, and sustained. It emerges from a network of
communication among individuals; and as it emerges, it produces
constraints on their actions. In other words the social structures,
or rules of behaviour, that constrain the actions of individuals are
produced and continually reinforced by their own network of com-
munication. The social network also produced a shared body of
knowledge – including information, ideas and skills – that shapes the
culture’s distinctive way of life in addition to its values and beliefs.
Moreover, the culture’s values and beliefs affect its body of knowl-
edge. (Capra and Luisi 2014, p. 310)
Manuel Castells suggests in his book The Rise of the Network Society
that we should acknowledge ‘the self-organising character of nature
and of society. Not that there are no rules but that rules are created,
and changed, in a relentless process of deliberate actions and unique
interactions’ (2010, p. 74). The crucial difference between physical
and social systems is that ‘human beings can choose whether and
how to obey a social rule; molecules cannot choose whether or not
they should interact’ (Capra and Luisi 2014, p. 307); in doing so,
both types of systems produce properties that are not just simply
the sum of their parts but emerge from the processes of interaction.
18 Phillip McIntyre
Emergence, then, is a crucial concept in systems thinking. Capra and

Luisi state that:
emergent properties are the novel properties that arise when a higher
level of complexity is reached by putting together components of
lower complexity. The properties are novel in the sense that they are
not present in the parts: they emerge from the specific relationships
and interactions among the parts in the organized ensemble. The
early systems thinkers expressed this fact in the celebrated phrase,
‘The whole is more than the sum of its parts.’ (2014, pp. 154–5)
In summary, complex systems produce behaviours and characteristics

that are not reducible to the parts. Life itself, for example, is an emer-
gent property of a biological system. If this is the case we can also claim
that creativity, the bringing into being of novelty that is appropriate
and valued, is the emergent property of a system at work. To pursue this
idea further, Keith Sawyer contends that:
Many systems in nature contain hundreds, thousands, or millions of

components, all of which interact in dense, overlapping networks.
Many such systems are chaotic, highly nonlinear and essentially
impossible to explain and predict from mechanisms and laws ... Such
systems manifest many features that make them difficult to explain
using a reductionist approach that would first analyze and explain
the components, and then the components’ interactions, to derive
an explanation of the higher level pattern ... more recently, com-
plexity scientists have argued that many social systems are complex
systems that share many systemic properties with other complex
systems, including the human mind (Sawyer, 2005). This raises the
possibility that complex social systems could generate novelty (cf.
the concept of ‘distributed creativity’ (Sawyer & DeZutter, 2009).
If so, a complete scientific explanation of creativity would have to
include detailed accounts of both psychological and social mecha-
nisms. (2010, p. 368)
This shift towards systems thinking to explain creativity can be observed

within the story of how particular ideas about this phenomenon devel-
oped. It demonstrates in many ways the larger paradigm shifts towards
systems thinking discussed very briefly above.
Noting that this is primarily a Western narrative (Niu and Sternberg
2006), the story about creativity begins with the inspirationist ideas
appended to the Greek muse (Plato 1937). Much later, ideas about
aesthetics (Kant 1982) shifted the locus of creativity away from an
externally located power and situated it within the special abilities of
genii, those creative individuals who were thought to possess a gift that
was not available to mere mortals (Howe 1999). These ideas became
part of the Romantic paradigm (Watson 2005, pp. 606–23, Sawyer 2012,
pp. 23–5), a way of seeing the world that suggests creativity is linked
to the extraordinary and is primarily about individuals engaging with
the numinous. These ideas became part of the common imagination.
However, figures such as Sir Francis Galton began eschewing the mysti-
cal by adopting a Newtonian approach to their work. Galton ([1892]
1950) investigated in a systematic way the idea that genius was herit-
able. In his own empirical studies Cesare Lombroso linked insanity and
genius (in Rothenberg and Hausman 1976) and presented evidence that
he believed demonstrated the veracity of his assumptions. The image of
creative individuals as deviant became commonplace. Sigmund Freud
accepted these ideas uncritically (Petrie 1991, pp. 4–5) while taking
on what were fundamental Romantic and inspirationist assumptions
which themselves led to a view of artists as quasi-neurotic individu-
als engaged in a form of classic Romantic agony (Zolberg 1990). These
imaginative constructs quickly became ingrained myths about creativ-
ity but they have performed poorly under sustained research scrutiny
(Boden 2004, p. 14). It is, then, a major irony that the worldview that
permeated the emergence of science and technology, and the wealth
of creativity and innovation that emergence involved, took the myths
on board as though they were true. Even Karl Popper, in his pioneer-
ing work The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1959), argued that ‘there
was no logic or rationality – essentially no rhyme or reason – to the
creative process’ (Montuori 2011, p. 420). Popper appeared to be saying
that creativity was a process that was not amenable to reductionist or
mechanistic thinking (Montuori 2011, p. 420) but with this early work
presenting more questions than it answered, serious researchers had
begun to concentrate their empirical investigations of creativity on the
biological and psychological attributes of individuals.
While there have been a number of speculative and commercially
successful understandings applied to creativity, the veracity of the
ideas being sold, such as lateral thinking, have been subject to minimal
empirical scrutiny (Sternberg 1999, pp. 5–6). There have been other
ideas that also became fashionable but have now fallen out of favour
in the research world. For example, Joseph and Glenda Bogen’s research
on lateral dominance in the sixties (in Rothenberg and Hausman 1976,
20 Phillip McIntyre
pp. 256–61) was used to ‘extrapolate wildly from fairly restricted data
until every human polarity [was] ascribed to hemispheric difference’
(Truax 1984, p. 52). But this popular adoption of left-brain/right-brain
attributions tended to read too much into very little evidence and has
found little recent support in the research literature (Pope 2005, p. 115).
Apart from these examples, the field of psychology, including a wide
array of the sub-disciplines within it, that is the neuro, cognitive, psy-
choanalytic, behavioural and social variants, has produced a remarkable
body of work as its contribution to a scientific understanding of creativ-
ity (Sternberg 1999, Runco and Pritzker 1999, Sawyer 2012, Kaufmann
and Sternberg 2010). Starting with the psychodynamic school based
on the ideas generated by Sigmund Freud and others (see Sternberg
1999), the exploration of creativity initially centred on the conscious
and unconscious drives thought to be involved. Following a concerted
positivist approach via psychometrics (for example Torrance 1974),
which attempted to measure creativity quantitatively (Sawyer 2012),
the question these approaches revealed led, in part, to further devel-
opments. Skinner and the behaviourists saw creativity as a cognitive
behavioural pattern largely unconscious to the individual (Bergquist
2006). Cognitive psychologists examined ‘the representational struc-
tures of the mind, their interconnections, and the mental processes that
are shared by individuals’ (Sawyer 2012, p. 87). Some, such as Robert
Weisberg (1993), began to study the ordinary cognitive processes appli-
cable in everyday situations that, to him, provided the most appropri-
ate solution to understanding creativity. As this extensive array of work
developed, those exploring social-personality approaches also suggested
that personality variables, motivation and the sociocultural environ-
ment were critical drivers of creativity (Sternberg 1999). Operating
deeper within the Newtonian paradigm, neuropsychology attempted to
explain creativity in terms of the relationship between neurochemical
processes and certain cognitive states (for example Ashby et al. 1999;
summarized in Sawyer 2012, pp. 185–207). It focused on connections
between the action of neurotransmitters, such as dopamine and seroto-
nin, and how these are believed to relate to individually focused forms
of creativity. These approaches in total were primarily psychologically
reductionist (Simonton 2003, p. 304). As such their individually ori-
ented investigations have been necessary but have not been sufficient
by themselves to fully explain creativity.
If the search for the truth about creativity at the level of the indi-
vidual was problematic then what other factors may be involved? If
Graeme Wallas’s notion that creativity occurs across a set of stages,
that is preparation, incubation, elaboration and verification, is true

(in Rothenberg and Hausman 1976, pp. 69–73), while noting that
his ideas have been modified and contested (Csikszentmihalyi 1997,
pp. 80–1, Bastick 1982, pp. 310–11), then one could argue that prepara-
tory work, that is gaining knowledge, and evaluation of ideas, that is
making judgements about them, are just as important to understand-
ing creativity as the moments of incubation and illumination are. This
recognition suggests that sociocultural factors may indeed be impor-
tant to creativity. Dean Keith Simonton (2003, pp. 304–25), for one,
has pursued these ideas at the macro level. Building on the work of
Sorokin and Kavolis, Simonton provides a large-frame view of complex
historical factors at work on periods of creative efflorescence. Karl Marx
(2009) also understood that all art is a social product, with this maxim
becoming the starting point for many investigators. Adorno’s ([1941]
1992) critique of the culture industry is a case in point where he, and
others, attempted to marry the individually focused ideas of Freud with
the larger structural concerns of Marx. Other sociological critiques have
also conceived of art as primarily a collective practice. Howard Becker’s
(1982) work on art worlds, while it lacked an account of objective social
structures similar in intent to that of Pierre Bourdieu (1993), did sup-
ply a fresh perspective at the time (Zolberg 1990, pp. 124–6, Alexander
2003, pp. 68–75). Janet Wolff (1981) also contends that creative work
must be seen as a collective enterprise but argues that individuals,
as decisive agents, are highly dependent on the structures that both
enable and constrain their activity. She argues, similarly to Bourdieu,
that ‘structures enable human practices, by providing the conditions of
action and offering choices of action’ (1981, p. 24). The production of
culture approach espoused by Richard Peterson (1982, 1985) also sup-
ports these contentions. Peterson argues that ‘the nature and content of
symbolic products are shaped by the social, legal and economic milieu
in which they are created, edited, manufactured, marketed, purchased
and evaluated’ (1985, p. 46) in an increasingly complex network of
influence (1985, p. 45).
Philosophers such as Briskman (1980) and Hausman (1987) have
explored the relationship between novelty and value, two elements
that form the basis of most current definitions of creativity (Isaksen
et al. 1993, p. 149), and the ideas of Plato, Kant, Nietzsche and many
others have been more recently summarized by Paul and Kaufman
(2014). However, it is the poststructuralists, the least Newtonian of this
group of researchers, who have posed the most radical alternative to the
individual-centred and largely mechanistic approach taken to creativity.
22 Phillip McIntyre
They especially targeted the genius model. Roland Barthes (1977),

who in a famous polemic suggested the author was dead, argued that
meaning-making occurs at the point where reading and texts intersect.
For Barthes, interpretation was the primary creative act. With support
from Michel Foucault (1979) in his elaboration of the author-function,
these poststructuralist positions began to pervade areas of thought such
as literary criticism. However in counterpoint it was argued that while
there is certainly a need to reconceptualize understandings of individu-
alistic approaches to creative production (Wolff 1993, p. 147), works of
art, as well as scientific innovations, do not give birth to themselves in
some sort of parthenogenetic process (Zolberg 1990, p. 114). An inves-
tigation of what producers of culture do is still necessary. Nonetheless,
we can’t simply fall back into claiming that cultural products are, as was
previously thought, works of individual genius. The research suggests
that there is something happening apart from the author-genius figure
acting as a simple conduit for the acts of creative interpretation that
readers of texts engage in.
To put this in Hegelian terms, the synthesis of the thesis of the
individual Romantic genius and the poststructuralist antithesis of
interpreters as ultimate creator, may be found in conceptions of crea-
tivity that have a more Copernican conception than a Ptolemaic one
(Csikszentmihalyi 1988, p. 336). This position recognizes that individ-
ual producers are involved but they do so as part of a much larger sys-
tem in operation. Fortunately, the advent of what has been labelled ‘the
confluence approach to creativity’ eschews the focus on the individual
alone, moves beyond sociocultural reductionism (Simonton 2003,
p. 304) and recognizes that multiple and interrelated factors must come
into play for creativity to emerge (for example Gruber 1988, Sternberg
and Lubart 1991, Weisberg 1993, Amabile 1996, Feldman et al. 1994,
Dacey and Lennon 1998, and Simonton 2003).
In summarizing how far all of these investigations into creativity have
come, Beth Hennessey and Teresa Amabile, in the 2010 Annual Review of
Psychology, revealed that research into creativity:
has grown theoretically and methodologically sophisticated, and

researchers have made important contributions from an ever-
expanding variety of disciplines. But ... investigators in one subfield
often seem unaware of advances in another. Deeper understanding
requires more interdisciplinary research, based on a systems view of
creativity that recognizes a variety of interrelated forces operating at
multiple levels. (2010, p. 571)
The idea that research can be best conceptualized using a systems

view of creativity has been given significant impetus by the work of
American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1988, 1997, 1999,
2014). Coupled with the research of European empirical sociologist
Pierre Bourdieu (1977, 1990, 1993, 1996), we believe that this way of
seeing creativity supplies the most comprehensive attempt so far to
explain creativity as a system in action. It is to this work that we will
now turn.
Acknowledgements
Some of this material has been reproduced from P. McIntyre (2009)

‘Rethinking Communication, Creativity and Cultural Production:
Outlining Issues for Media Practice’, in T. Flew (ed.) Communication,
Creativity and Global Citizenship: Refereed Proceedings of the Australian and
New Zealand Communications Association Annual Conference, Brisbane,
8–10 July, www.proceedings.anzca09.org. This research has also been
supported by an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant in conjunc-
tion with industry partners TechnicaCPT and Newcastle Now.
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3
The Systems Model of Creativity
Janet Fulton and Elizabeth Paton
Introduction
The previous chapter demonstrates the importance of a systems

approach to understanding creativity and gives a brief overview of the
literature. This chapter describes and analyses the systems model of
creativity developed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1988, 1990, 1994,
1997, 2003) and provides context for the analyses of creative systems in
Part II. What is clear from the previous chapter is a gradual movement
in thinking away from a focus on the individual towards confluence
or systems approaches to creativity. With one or two notable excep-
tions, pre-twentieth-century ideas concentrate on creativity as divinely
inspired, as the product of an extraordinary individual or genius or as a
symptom of mental illness. These ideas were criticized in the twentieth
century within the discipline of psychology, and others, as attempts
were made to make creativity the subject of scientific study. Working
under many of the same assumptions as those they criticized, this
intensive period of research did little to alter the fundamental belief
that creativity is located in the individual.
Csikszentmihalyi (2003) contends that psychologists, for example,
have traditionally viewed creativity as a mental process only and this
is an injustice to the complexity of creativity; it needs to be examined
within cultural and social milieus as well (Csikszentmihalyi 2014,
p. 58). In a similar fashion, sociologists have focused primarily on social
and cultural structures determining creativity, where a producer is seen
to have little or no agency, and cultural studies scholars have generally
focused on creativity as a form of interpretation from an audience-
oriented perspective, while tending to discount a cultural producer’s,
the so-called author-god’s, contribution to creativity. Evolving from
27
28 Janet Fulton and Elizabeth Paton
these studies and gaining momentum in the last 20 years in the

disciplines of biology, psychology, sociology, education, literary criti-
cism, philosophy, business and cultural studies, however, was a grow-
ing awareness that factors outside the individual were also influencing
creativity. Confluence, or componential, approaches consider more
than one element must be present to produce a creative outcome. The
systems model of creativity is an example of a confluence model, with
research showing that it provides a straightforward structure to analyse
creativity in cultural production in a form that is simple and elegant.
Furthermore, the systems model can be coupled with Bourdieu’s (1977,
1990) ideas on cultural production to provide a comprehensive account
of creativity.
Csikszentmihalyi’s systems model of creativity
Csikszentmihalyi answers the question of where creativity can be

located (1997, p. 24, 1990, p. 200) by stating that, rather than being
found in an individual’s production process, it is systemic and can be
found when three elements interact: a domain of knowledge (the cul-
tural context), an individual who understands and uses that knowledge
to produce a novel change, and a field (the social context) that under-
stands the domain and uses that knowledge to judge that an individual
contribution is novel and appropriate. All three elements, domain,
field and person, are equally important in producing creativity, or, as
Csikszentmihalyi contends metaphorically, ‘the spark is necessary, but
without air and tinder there would be no flame’ (1997, p. 7). In other
words, an individual as agent interacts with the structures of a system
of cultural production, thus providing evidence of how structure, those
things that are seen to determine action, and agency, the ability to make
decisive choices, support each other in creative production (Figure 3.1).
Csikszentmihalyi describes the systems model as:
a dynamic model, with creativity the result of the interaction

between three subsystems: a domain, a person, and a field. Each
subsystem performs a specific function. The domain transmits infor-
mation to the person, the person produces a variation, which may
or may not be selected by the field, and the field in turn will pass the
selected variation to the domain. (1990, p. 200)
To explain how the system works, Csikszentmihalyi (2003) claims

there must be an existing culture, with traditions and conventions in
The Systems Model of Creativity 29
Figure 3.1 The systems model of creativity (Csikszentmihalyi 2003, p. 315)
place for an individual to refer to, before a difference can be produced

and that creativity is inherently social. Csikszentmihalyi uses the term
domain to describe the element that encompasses existing traditions
and conventions and field to describe the social group responsible for
verification of creativity. A domain is defined as the body of knowledge,
the set of rules and procedures, the symbolic system, which is used
by the individual agent to produce variations. There are hundreds of
domains in a culture (Gardner et al. 2001). Sawyer describes the domain
as ‘the set of conventions, past works, and standard ways of working’
(2012, p. 265). Without this language it would be impossible for an
individual to produce an innovation or for an audience to understand
it. As Boden points out: ‘To be appreciated as creative, a work of art or
a scientific theory has to be understood in a specific relation to what
preceded it’ (2004, p. 74).
Another element in the system is the individual agent who is the
producer of a variation within the systems model, and Csikszentmihalyi
contends that a person’s background, personal traits and motivation
to produce enables that person to generate creativity along with their

ability to internalize the rules of the domain and the expectations of the
field. Finally, the field is the social structure of the system and is com-
posed of all individuals who possess domain knowledge, who recognize
the value of the individual’s contribution. Sawyer defines the field as
‘a complex network of experts, with varying expertise, status, and power.
After a person creates a product, it is submitted to the field for considera-
tion, and the field judges whether or not it’s novel, and whether or not
it’s appropriate’ (2012, p. 216). If the field accepts the novel contribu-
tion, it is included in the structures of the domain for other individuals
to use in their production, thus continuing the process.
Csikszentmihalyi calls the systems model a map (1988, p. 329)
and notes that the system is a model of circular causality. By moving
past the idea of circular causality and replacing it with the notion of
emergence (Sawyer 2012, p. 432), the system can then be described as
non-linear, complex and scalable, reinforcing the idea that each ele-
ment in the system ‘affects the others and is affected by them in turn’
(Csikszentmihalyi 1988, p. 329).
To compare Pierre Bourdieu’s ideas on cultural production to the sys-
tems model we can say that the field of works, that is all the work pro-
duced in a field to this point in time, has common characteristics with
the domain. Similarly, the habitus, which is characterized in this case by
an individual’s possession of varying degrees of capital (social, cultural,
economic, symbolic), is related but not identical to the individual element
in the systems model. Furthermore, in order to be part of the system
a person must acquire a certain level of cultural capital, found in the
domain, and also possess a degree of social capital in order to operate
in the field. The field as described by Csikszentmihalyi aligns well with
Bourdieu’s understanding of the field as an arena of social contesta-
tion. It is here that the wielding of symbolic and economic capital also
becomes important.
It should be noted, however, that there are differences between these
sets of ideas. They cannot simply be mapped directly one to the other.
One must, for example, consider the antecedents of each. As McIntyre
points out:
Although these two authors are dealing in similar territory and may
be describing essentially the same phenomenon, Csikszentmihalyi’s
prime concern is to pinpoint the phenomenon of creativity itself and
explain the mechanisms which surround it. Unlike Bourdieu, his con-
cerns are primarily rooted in Darwin rather than Marx. (2012, p. 74)
Bourdieu’s prime concern, on the other hand, was to resolve the

apparent oppositions he saw between the structuralist and phenom-
enological traditions he had encountered in his early intellectual life
in Paris. His pursuit became to marry an objectivist view of the world
with an understanding of subjectivist accounts. He not only developed
concepts such as the habitus to do this but introduced the notion of
a doxa in order to explain the idea that creative actions within certain
fields are premised on the beliefs and values espoused by that field and
this has become so naturalized as to be unseen by the actors who reside
there (McIntyre 2013, pp. 4–5). This doxa is, in effect, a collective set
of myths recognized by the field as real that both drive and reinforce
the ideas central to that field (Bourdieu 1996, p. 167). Csikszentmihalyi
does not make this observation nor does he draw the same conclusions.
Keeping these similarities, convergences and differences in mind, the
following sections describe in further detail each of the elements of the
systems model as set out by Csikszentmihalyi which provides the con-
text for the chapters in Part II.
Domain
Csikszentmihalyi defines the domain as the cultural component of the
system. It ‘consists of a set of symbolic rules and procedures’ (1997,
p. 27). Sawyer takes this definition further by including, in a manner
similar to Bourdieu’s conception of the field of works, ‘all of the created
products that have been accepted by the field in the past’ (2012, p. 216).
The domain provides a set of structures that an individual learns and
draws on to produce a creative product and these structures must be
learned before a variation can be made. As Sawyer explains,
creativity researchers think of the domain as a kind of creativity

language. Of course, you have to learn a language before you can
talk; it’s impossible to communicate without sharing a language. In
the same way, it’s impossible to create anything without the shared
conventions of a domain. (2012, p. 265)
According to Gardner, Csikszentmihalyi and Damon (2001), there are

hundreds of domains in a culture, including the domains of such dis-
ciplines as chess, mathematics, cooking and information technology,
as well as the areas of cultural production discussed in Part II of this
book. Indicating the scalability of the system, domains can include
discrete subdomains because of different procedures in work practice
between different styles in a domain. In writing domains, for instance,
different forms of poetry have distinct rules – haiku, with its 5-7-5
syllable format, versus limericks or sonnets – as do different genres of
literature – romantic fiction versus children’s literature versus science
fiction writing.
Csikszentmihalyi (1997) lists several ways a domain can encourage
or inhibit creative contributions. Firstly, how clear and accurate is the
symbol system? If a domain has clear rules and procedures, it is easier to
learn past knowledge, but, equally, if the knowledge within a domain is
opaque and difficult to decipher, then few people will be able to achieve
a sufficient level of cultural literacy in order to produce a creative work.
While it is arguable that the fields of various sciences are not any less
subjective about value judgements than the arts, Csikszentmihalyi
asserts that the greater the clarity or internal logic of the domain, the
easier it is to make decisions about what constitutes creativity within it.
He suggests that the sciences or mathematics, that is those with a ‘quan-
tifiable domain with sharp boundaries and well defined rules’ (1997,
p. 40) for example, are often more clearly structured than domains
such as psychology or the arts: ‘The symbolic system of mathematics is
organised relatively tightly; the internal logic is strict; the system max-
imises clarity and lack of redundancy’ (1997, p. 39). The heavy reliance
on formal rules in areas such as physics and chemistry means novelty
is recognized and accepted more quickly than in the arts, where subjec-
tive appraisal of content and technique is often required and agreement
about what is judged to be an original contribution may take some time.
Secondly, Csikszentmihalyi asks whether the domain is central to the
culture. If a domain is important within a culture, the opportunities
it can provide will attract talented people as well as the allocation of
resources from governments or private institutions, which would result
in a higher chance of support for innovation. For example, we now see
brain research coming to the forefront following a focus on the space
race and the human genome in previous decades. Neuroscience’s cen-
trality in the current political, social and cultural climate has seen an
increase in support, including large-scale, government-funded research
projects such as the BRAIN Initiative (USA), the Human Brain Project
(Europe) and the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence
for Integrative Brain Function (Australia) as well as institutions such as
the Allen Institute for Brain Science (Seattle, USA), a non-profit insti-
tute established in 2003 with a $100 million donation by Microsoft
co-founder Paul Allen. This dramatic increase in funding has led to
the development of new resources and research technologies, more
research facilities and job opportunities as well as early intervention

and education programmes to encourage students to take up careers in
this domain.
Thirdly, how accessible is the domain? Greater access to information
within a domain, for example, increases the speed by which innova-
tion is accepted and reproduced and then used as the basis for further
creativity. Individuals exposed to this novelty at a slower rate will take
longer to accept and incorporate it into their understanding of the
domain. For example, in academia, it typically takes several years for a
book to be published, which could lead to slower access to new ideas
if other means of access to this knowledge are unavailable. This ease of
access is increasingly the case with the advent of the Internet. In other
areas, restricted access to archives (particularly government archives
made inaccessible for reasons of national security or Parliamentary
rulings) may mean exposure to historical documents is low and could
restrict work in some domains such as history. In Australia, for exam-
ple, the Archives Act 1983 limits access to Commonwealth government
records for 20 years (National Archives of Australia 2014). In the United
Kingdom, the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 has
introduced a 20-year limit on access to government records (transition-
ing from 30 years) and exempts some members of the royal family from
the Freedom of Information Act (The National Archives 2011).
Pierre Bourdieu introduced the term field of works to describe the
tools of an area of cultural production, including the structure and
form of its past work held in all the works completed to that point
in time. He described this culture as ‘a space for possibles, that is as
an ensemble of probable constraints which are the condition and the
counterpart of a set of possible uses’ (Bourdieu 1996, p. 235). The rules,
conventions, techniques, tools, guides, procedures and previously
produced works of the domain thus provide the necessary set of ‘possi-
bles’ and support for individuals to refer to. These necessary structures
enable action on the part of individuals. In this case, an examination
of the individual and what the individual element brings to the crea-
tive system is necessary.
Individual
In earlier studies of creativity, and in the common understanding of crea-
tivity in Western culture, the individual has been seen as central to crea-
tive action. However, while they may be necessary they are not sufficient
to account for the emergence of creativity. Csikszentmihalyi strongly
contends that the importance of the individual is not paramount, but

neither is the individual irrelevant:
It is important to point out the tenuousness of the individual contri-

bution to creativity, because it is usually so often overrated. Yet one
can also fall in the opposite error and deny the individual any credit.
Certain sociologists and social psychologists claim that creativity is
all a matter of attribution. The creative person is like a blank screen
on which social consensus projects exceptional qualities. Because we
need to believe that creative people exist, we endow some individu-
als with this illusory quality. This, too, is an oversimplification. For
while the individual is not as important as it is commonly supposed,
neither is it true that novelty could come about without the contri-
bution of individuals. (1997, pp. 46–7)
Csikszentmihalyi argues the systems model accounts for the lack in

universal characteristics across all creative individuals. If creativity is
systemic, and not solely the province of an individual, then,
the personal contribution will vary according to the states of the

other subsystems. Hence it is possible to imagine that at some pecu-
liar conjunction of social and cultural conditions creative variations
will be produced by persons who are unlike any other ‘creative’
person who lived earlier or later. (1994, p. 151)
According to Csikszentmihalyi, for the individual, personal qualities

and background are important as is access to the field and domain,
what McIntyre succinctly calls ‘nature, nurture and access’ (2008,
p. 3), and an interest in the domain. As well as these criteria, the
individual must also be well trained, open to experience, curious,
interested in the work they are doing and possess or accumulate what
Bourdieu calls capital. An individual’s level of capital allows the agent
to operate within a field of cultural production. Johnson (1993) high-
lighted two particular forms of capital as important: symbolic, how
much prestige, honour or celebrity an individual has within a field,
and cultural, ‘an understanding of the rules, regulations and values
of the field’ (Webb et al. 2002, p. xi). Other forms of capital include
educational, economic, what assets an individual has accumulated,
and social, which encompasses who an individual knows in the field.
Whether an individual’s amount of capital and other factors are
appropriate to the sphere of production the individual is working in is
dependent on the domain, with different domains requiring different

qualities.
Csikszentmihalyi notes several personal qualities that can contribute
to an individual’s propensity to creativity (2003, pp. 329–32). Are there
any special talents? For example, an ability to use language well may
influence whether or not a child is encouraged in writing domains. Is
the individual curious and intrinsically motivated? Although there are
issues surrounding the notion of intrinsic motivation (Eisenberger and
Shanock 2003), Csikszentmihalyi (1997, 2003) claims that without any
motivation, it is difficult for someone to spend the amount of time
needed to acquire the expertise in the domain to generate novelty. Are
cognitive abilities such as divergent thinking present? Again, although
divergent thinking is a term that is problematic (Weisberg 2006),
flexibility in thinking style and problem-solving abilities provides an
individual with the necessary tools to produce a creative outcome,
and in areas such as journalism this is necessary to work within con-
ventions such as deadlines. Are the individual’s personality traits suit-
able for the domain? Csikszentmihalyi states: ‘To be able to innovate
successfully, a person needs to have appropriate traits – which may
vary depending on the field and the historical period’ (1997, p. 330).
However, he also listed, with extensive qualification, ten seemingly
contradictory personality types he found in his study’s cohort of emi-
nent individuals: the creative personality is energetic/restful, smart/
naïve, playful/disciplined, imaginative/rooted in reality, extroverted/
introverted, humble/proud, masculine/feminine, rebellious/traditional
about the rules of the domain, passionate/dispassionate about their
work, and sensitive about/but enjoy their work (Csikszentmihalyi 1997,
pp. 58–76).
While personal qualities are important, an individual’s background
is equally significant and adds to the person’s cultural and social
capital, which then gives the individual a greater chance to succeed in
their sphere of cultural production. Csikszentmihalyi observes that the
family situation, economically and socially, has an effect on an indi-
vidual as does the family’s attitude to learning and its ability to provide
support in both informal learning and formal education. Furthermore,
whether the family situation can provide access to the field plays a
role. Looking outside the family, it can be seen that schooling and
other learning opportunities through mentors and the community,
and the availability of resources, such as books and computers, pro-
vide an individual with important resources (Csikszentmihalyi 2003,
pp. 328–9).
Bourdieu accounts for these personal qualities and background in

his conception of cultural production as habitus. Habitus explains why
an individual acts in a certain way in certain contexts and how they
have come to act in that way. It is considered to be ‘the result of a long
process of inculcation, beginning in early childhood, which becomes a
“second sense” or a second nature’ (Johnson 1993, p. 5) and stays with
the agent throughout their life; it is durable and transposable (Bourdieu
1990, p. 53).
Csikszentmihalyi is very careful to highlight that while these personal
qualities and background are necessary for creativity, they are not suf-
ficient. He maintains that if
creativity were a strictly individual trait, then one would expect

every creative person to exhibit more or less the same characteristics.
But if it is a systemic trait, then the personal contribution will vary
according to the states of the other subsystems. (1990, p. 206)
In this case, the creative system needs to be internalized, which, of

course, is seen in the operation of the habitus, and this internalization
occurs in two ways: immersion in the domain and absorption of the cri-
teria of the field. Without this information, the individuals cannot then
go on to produce a novel variation of the products within the domain
and convince the field of that variation’s value.
Field
Change in a domain occurs when new products, processes or ideas are
added to the stock of common knowledge, transforming the domain
for the individuals who follow. In order to gain entry into the domain,
however, the new work must be judged as appropriate or valuable.
Csikszentmihalyi explains,
most novel ideas will be quickly forgotten. Changes are not adopted
unless they are sanctioned by some group entitled to make decisions
as to what should or should not be included in the domain. These
gatekeepers are what we call here the field. (2003, p. 315)
These individuals, groups and organizations act to stimulate or filter

innovation according to an (often internalized) set of criteria for judg-
ing what is good or bad, valuable or useless, acceptable or unacceptable,
new or old. A field, Csikszentmihalyi says, ‘is necessary to determine
whether the innovation is worth making a fuss about’ (1997, p. 41).
In this way, creativity is also the product of social systems making
judgements about individual agents’ contributions.
In a similar way, Bourdieu’s field is a space of cultural practice that
has ‘its own laws of functioning and its own relations of force’ (Johnson
1993, p. 6), each with its own goals, rules, logic, institutions, conven-
tions, hierarchies and peculiarities, and includes all those involved in
the production and legitimization of a cultural product. These fields
are maintained and reproduced, and evolve by interactions and com-
petition among its participants. In this way, fields can be considered
arenas of contestation for the tools, resources or status Bourdieu (1977)
describes as capital, whether cultural, economic, social or symbolic.
Fields engage in a constant struggle for power based on each field’s own
use of symbolic capital, but the agents within the fields are also in a
struggle for position, also dependent on their accumulation of the vari-
ous forms of capital.
In the systems model, Csikszentmihalyi defines the field as the ele-
ment of the system that ‘has the power to determine the structure of
the domain. Its major function is to preserve the domain as it is, and its
secondary function is to help it evolve by a judicious selection of new
content’ (1990, p. 206). This explanation of the field points to the non-
linearity of the systems model with the definition including both the
field’s interaction with the domain and its impact on the individual. All
three components are active and important; each is necessary but not
sufficient. Rather than focusing on either the producer or the receiver of
culture as the principal source of creativity, for example as communica-
tion studies theories such as the transmission model and the cultural
context model have done, the systems model allows both the producer
and the receiver to be examined as equal components within a creative
system. In the systems model, an audience is identified as the receiver
of a created product, process or idea: ‘creativity is a phenomenon that
is constructed through an interaction between producer and audience’
(Csikszentmihalyi 2003, p. 314). In other words, when an individual
produces something, it is presented to an ‘audience’ for social validation
that it is, indeed, a creative product.
According to Csikszentmihalyi, there are three ways the field can
influence the incidence of creative production. Firstly, is the field reac-
tive or proactive? Csikszentmihalyi contends: ‘A reactive field does not
solicit or stimulate novelty, while a proactive field does’ (1997, p. 43).
Actively seeking novelty may create a larger pool of works from which
to choose as well as the potential to influence the direction creativity
takes. In comparison, a reactive field is more limited in the scope of
potential works but is better able to preserve its resources and maintain
the status quo of its domain.
Secondly, is there a narrow or broad filter to select a creative product?
Csikszentmihalyi (1997) argues that a field using a broad filter will accept
more novelty, changing the domain at a faster rate than those using a
narrow filter that accepts fewer products as creative. Csikszentmihalyi
(1997) argues that too narrow a filter can starve a domain of novelty
by not allowing enough new ideas, which therefore leads to stagnation,
but too broad a filter is just as dangerous; a balance between the two
is required. Taken to the extremes, domains can stagnate without fresh
novelty or become chaotic and collapse from a glut of new ideas and
products where value is no longer recognizable. A domain may lose
credibility if ‘a field is too open and accepts every novelty indiscrimi-
nately’ (Csikszentmihalyi 2003, p. 326), and conversely, there may be
problems if one is in possession of too much capital for a domain and
field. That is, gatekeepers in the field may choose to reject something
that is too innovative or controversial for the field to accommodate.
Finally, how connected is the field to the rest of society?
Csikszentmihalyi (1997) claims that a well-connected field is more
likely to draw new members as well as greater financial support from
private enterprise, not-for-profit organizations, institutions or govern-
ments. A field’s connection to or autonomy from other domains or
social groups may also negatively affect their ability to attract new
members or accept new products, especially if a field is seen as an exten-
sion of a political or religious affiliation because of funding or shared
ideology. Csikszentmihalyi illustrates this idea by using the former
Soviet Union as an example where ‘specially trained party officials had
the responsibility of deciding which new paintings, books, music, mov-
ies, and even scientific theories were acceptable, based on how well they
supported political ideology’ (2003, p. 326).
Sawyer (2012) suggests that creative outcomes are more likely in
a field that has structured training procedures in place, systems to
identify creative young people, experienced practitioners to pass on
the domain’s knowledge systems, both formally and informally, and
opportunities and challenges for new practitioners. However, this con-
tention depends on the requirements of the domain. Domains such
as mathematics and physics require structured training procedures
such as formal education due to the immutable laws and constants of
those domains, whereas a domain like painting or literature has a less
apparent set of structured rules (Bourdieu 1996). Regardless, creative
outcomes will not occur without a synergy between the three elements
of the systems model: the domain, individual and field.
How the system works

Following the systems model, the production of a creative work is, at
all moments, inherently individual, social and cultural. Even when
the primary work processes seem solitary as in writing, painting or
computer programming, Csikszentmihalyi argues that individuals are
not isolated from the other two components in the systems model, but
constantly draw on their knowledge of the field and domain during
that process:
There are four main conditions that are important during this stage
of the process. First of all, the person must pay attention to the
developing work, to notice when new ideas, new problems, and new
insights arise out of the interaction with the medium. Keeping the
mind open and flexible is an important aspect of the way creative
persons carry on their work. Next, one must pay attention to one’s
goals and feelings, to know whether the work is indeed proceeding
as intended. The third condition is to keep in touch with domain
knowledge, to use the most effective techniques, the fullest informa-
tion, and the best theories as one proceeds. And finally, especially in
the later stages of the process, it is important to listen to colleagues in
the field. By interacting with others involved with similar problems,
it is possible to correct a line of solution that is going in the wrong
direction, to refine and focus one’s ideas, and to find the most con-
vincing mode of presenting them, the one that has the best chance
of being accepted. (1997, pp. 104–5)
In this way, the creation of a product represents a series of complex

interactions between the individual, the field and the domain. The
starting point of these interactions is no longer solely located with
the individual. While traditional views of creativity assume it is the
individual’s inspiration or desire for self-expression that is the locus of
creativity, the field and domain are both capable of initiating novelty.
One might start from the ‘person’, because we are used to thinking
in these terms – that the idea begins, like the lighted bulb in the car-
toon, within the head of the creative individual. But, of course, the
information that will go into the idea existed long before the creative
person arrived on the scene. It had been stored in the symbol system
of the culture, in the customary practices, the language, the specific
notation of the ‘domain’. (Csikszentmihalyi 1988, pp. 329–30)
Instability or technological advances within the domain raise prob-

lems for individuals to solve and provide opportunities for creativity.
Csikszentmihalyi (1997) argues that the field can also be the impetus
for creativity in several ways. The field may not only offer training,
resources and rewards to encourage creativity in a particular area but
directly commission specific works. In the Renaissance era, for exam-
ple, many great works of art were initiated by the church or the state,
controlling not only the content of paintings but also the materials,
techniques and colours to be used (Csikszentmihalyi 1988, 1994, 1997).
In the domain of writing, publishing houses often commission fic-
tion and non-fiction books based on predicted or sales trends as well
as stories for themed collections. In this way, either the domain, the
field or the individual could be considered the starting point. However,
according to Csikszentmihalyi the interdependence of each of the three
components means choosing a starting point is often ‘purely arbitrary’
(1988, p. 329).
Defining creativity
As well as providing a theoretical framework, the systems model of

creativity can also act as a guide for defining creativity. Definitions
of creativity have evolved from ideas of divine inspiration, through
concepts of genius and extraordinary individuals, to confluence
approaches that believe creativity comes into being via the confluence
of multiple components. One of the earliest definitions of how things
come into existence is provided by Aristotle in his treatise ‘on being’
in Metaphysics.
Of things that come to be, some come to be by nature, some by art,

some spontaneously. Now everything that comes to be comes to
be by the agency of something and from something and comes to
be something. And the something which I say it comes to be may be
found in any category; it may come to be either a ‘this’ or of some size
or of some quality or somewhere. (Aristotle 1928 [350 BCE], p. 791)
Creativity comes into being through the agency of someone by taking

existing materials and ideas and giving them new form. Phillip McIntyre
(2006, McIntyre and McIntyre 2007) used Aristotle’s ideas in combina-

tion with Csikszentmihalyi’s view of creativity, as the result of interac-
tions between the individual, field and domain, to derive a rational
definition of creativity as
a productive activity whereby objects, processes and ideas are gener-

ated from antecedent conditions through the agency of someone,
whose knowledge to do so comes from somewhere and the resultant
novel variation is seen as a valued addition to the store of knowledge
in at least one social setting. (McIntyre 2008, p. 1)
This additional element of value has been incorporated into many

definitions of creativity (see, for example, Bailin 1988, Csikszentmihalyi
1988, Gardner 1993, McIntyre 2008, Negus and Pickering 2004), and
discussed by philosophers such as Briskman (1980) and Hausman
(1987), reflecting the idea that a work must not only be novel but con-
sidered valuable or useful in order to be deemed creative.
Using this definition of creativity, the research that follows in Part II
will look at each of the component parts in order to portray a complete
picture of creativity in sound production, songwriting, journalism,
freelance journalism, fiction writing, children’s literature, fine art and
design, documentary making, improv theatre and online media. The
studies of creativity that follow involve the examination of people,
processes and products as well as their interactions with and reactions
to and from other people, processes and products within a systems
approach to creativity.
Acknowledgements
Some of this material has been reproduced from the following:
Fulton, J. and McIntyre, P. (2014) ‘Futures of Communication: Communication
Studies~Creativity’, Review of Communication, 13(4), pp. 269–89 (with permis-
sion from Taylor and Francis).
The following works are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share
Alike 2.5 Australian License.
Fulton, J. (2011) ‘Print Journalism and the Creative Process: Examining the
Interplay Between Journalists and the Social Organisation of Journalism’,
Altitude: An e-Journal of Emerging Humanities Work, 9, 1–15.
Fulton, J. (2013) ‘The Evolution of Journalism’, in T. Lee, K. Trees and R. Desai
(eds) Refereed Proceedings of the Australian and New Zealand Communication
Association Conference: Global Networks–Global Divides: Bridging New and
Traditional Communication Challenges, Fremantle, WA, ISSN 1448–4331.
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Part II
Research Using Systems
Approaches
4
Songwriting as a Creative System
in Action
Phillip McIntyre
Introduction
An exposé of the existence of systemic structures and their relation-

ship to the agency of songwriters working in contemporary Western
popular music was the primary aim of this research project. Instead
of focusing on the lived experience of the songwriters and musicians
involved in the study and how the author interpreted those, or on the
tensions elicited by the power relationships each was involved with
(McIntyre 2008), this chapter focuses on exposing: the domain of song-
writing, its codes, conventions and rules; how songwriters acquired
that domain in order to gain the habitus of songwriters; how the field
operated in contributing to the selection of certain material over oth-
ers; and, finally, how songwriters, located as agents within their own
shared yet idiosyncratic backgrounds contributed to this systemic
process. It is posited that each of these interrelated and interdepend-
ent elements contributed in some way to the system of creativity that
produces songs.
Methodology
In order to test these ideas, a comprehensive ethnographic study

(Hammersley and Atkinson 1995) of the songwriting system at work
was undertaken. Research of this type includes ‘describing a culture
and understanding a way of life from the point of view of its par-
ticipants: ethnography is the art and science of describing a group or
culture’ (Punch 1998, p. 157) and produces a picture of a spatio-tem-
porally located culture-bearing group (Wolcott in Punch 1998, p. 160).
The sorts of complex objects ethnographers study, such as the one
47
48 Phillip McIntyre
researched here, ‘must be understood as whole systems, not isolated

parts’ (Priest 1996, p. 25).
The methodological techniques used for this ethnographic research
included participant observation, a number of in-depth interviews,
access to secondary interview material, a limited survey and the exami-
nation of a variety of relevant artefacts, documents and songwriting
procedures. There were a total of 87 in-depth interviews undertaken
with an aggregate of 71 of that group being conducted with work-
ing songwriters. Twelve interviews were also conducted with various
popular music industry functionaries. Access to the interview subjects
was limited to those songwriters who were touring and promoting new
material at the time of the research and those who were known to the
researcher or his contacts within the industry. As such they constituted
a convenience sample (Lull 1990, p. 19).
This sample included writers who had been working at the inter-
national level of the contemporary Western popular music industry
for some time, who had an impact on the domain of songwriting as
evidenced by their awards, chart successes and international tours.
For example, Andrew Farris, the major songwriter for INXS, had one
of the highest selling albums in the North American, European, Latin
American and Asian charts. Rob Hirst from Midnight Oil was also suc-
cessful in the North American charts and many of their album releases
in Australia went straight to number one on release. There were a num-
ber of writers of this type included in the study such as Greg Ham from
Men at Work and Dave Faulkner from the Hoodoo Gurus. Six writers
had received recognition in the form of lifetime achievement awards at
events such as the Australasian Recording Industry Association (ARIA)
Hall of Fame awards or received national recognition through other
awards such as Australian of the Year. These included songwriters such
as Paul Kelly, Rick Brewster, Chris Bailey and Mandawuy Yunupingu.
These songwriters have been the source of entries in various popular-
music histories and anthologies, academic articles and video docu-
mentaries (for example Hayward 1992, Wilmoth 1993, Walker 1996,
Creswell and Fabinyi 1999, ABC 2001, Cockington 2001, Homan 2003,
Whiteoak and Scott-Maxwell 2003). Many of the writers in the study
were regional performers. Some of them remained at the local level.
The majority of respondents were of Euro-Australian origin, and out
of the entire sample of 71 songwriters interviewed 13 per cent were
women and 87 per cent were men, reflecting gender ratios typical of the
music industry. The primary-source in-depth interviews were coupled
with secondary interview material accessed from a variety of sources
Songwriting as a Creative System in Action 49
(for example Flanagan 1986, Zollo 1997). This secondary material

included interviews from significant American, British and Australian
songwriters. As such, a relatively broad and representative sample of
interview material from the contemporary Western popular-music tradi-
tion was accessed.
The survey was conducted early in the research and was used to give
an indication of what the domain of popular song was considered to be
by some users. The sample consisted of 115 tertiary-level students who
were attending classes where songs were either being directly dissected
or being used as programme information. In addition to this survey
and the block of in-depth interviews described above, the cultural prac-
tices of contemporary Western popular-music songwriters were studied
through a process of participant observation.
Participant observation is not an easy option since identifying ‘pat-
terns of authentic human activity requires substantial immersion in its
natural contexts’ (Lull 1990, p. 19). Building up good relations with
people, particularly those in the music industry, and gaining access
to their lives can ‘require considerable investment of time and emo-
tion’ (Cohen 1993, p. 125) in order to gain the necessary contextual
references (Spradley 1979). In this regard it is pertinent to describe
in detail how the participation was undertaken. The researcher has
been involved in the milieu of songwriting and popular music for the
past 30 years. He has been a self-published songwriter, instrumental-
ist and musical director for various musical groups. He also worked in
music retail where he sold and repaired various instruments and was
instrumental in purchasing stock and organizing promotional events.
During the period of this research he also produced and presented
a local music community radio programme in Newcastle, Australia.
He was also a teacher of songwriting in a number of tertiary institu-
tions. His ongoing work as a music journalist was also crucial to the
research as it afforded him access to writers from beyond the local area
with this contact occurring over an extended time frame. During the
period of the research his position as a band manager also allowed the
researcher access to levels of the industry not normally afforded others
in observing songwriting and recording sessions, organizing and par-
ticipating in video shoots, dealing with radio and television operatives,
flying interstate for promotional ventures, dealing with agents and pro-
moters and acting as tour manager for the group he managed while they
were touring. This situation provided an insider’s viewpoint difficult for
others to obtain. For example, his time at a world-class studio in Sydney
in 2002 where the band were being produced by an award-winning
50 Phillip McIntyre
producer provided the opportunity to observe and discuss this activity

and its effects on the songs being recorded from an industry insider’s
perspective. At the beginning of the research period, which started in
1994 and concluded in 2004, the researcher was also operating an audio
production company hiring public address systems to various musical
acts across most genres, ranging from metal to country to hip-hop, and
worked as Front-of-House (FOH) operator and stage manager for local
and national touring rock and pop acts. A number of music videos were
made by the researcher during this period which were broadcast on
national television in Australia. At the latter end of the research period
he moved this activity towards studio work, producing and engineering
demos and commercial CD releases for a number of local writers. In this
way the researcher was involved as a participant observer in, as Punch
recommends, ‘understanding a way of life from the point of view of its
participants’ (1998, p. 157).
The use of triangulation, although rooted in a scientifically naïve
notion that multiple perspectives can reveal a single true reality, has
the advantage of ‘constructing a more encompassing perspective on
specific analyses, what anthropologists call holistic work’ (Jankowski
and Wester quoted in Jensen and Jankowski 1991, p. 45). The material
used to triangulate the research (Hsia 1988, p. 49) involved observa-
tion and analysis of documents such as recordings of press conferences
with songwriters, the examination of songwriters’ own workbooks,
tour booklets and itineraries, demonstration CDs supplied by publish-
ers, minutes of meetings, email correspondence, teaching materials,
pamphlets from relevant organizations, videotaped footage of record-
ing sessions and other pertinent artefacts and documents. These were
treated as bearers of clues to then make inferences from. The artefacts
revealed methods of operation not available from interview discussions
or participant observation and verified to an extent the data gathered
from the interviews and other observations. All of this material was
then analysed in relation to the systems model of creativity as outlined
above in Chapter 3.
The domain
The domain of popular music, its conventions, rules, techniques and

knowledges, while critical to many songwriters and their audiences,
is often placed against a contradictory attitude to popular musicians
who are seen to have low status but high importance (Merriam 1964,
p. 137). Economically, the income derived from popular music indicates
this particular domain of Western culture is important, if not central,

allowing access for those concerned with this domain to significant
resources to contribute to creative endeavours within it. For example
‘in 2012, the value added by the total copyright industries to [US] GDP
exceeded $1.7 trillion ($1,765 billion), accounting for 11.25% of the
U.S. economy’ (Siwek 2013). However, not all songwriters in general
have had access to these funds.
In terms of the clarity of structure of the domain, that is the
knowledge system a creative individual uses, contemporary Western
popular-music songwriting appears to be governed less by precise
rules than it is by convention. This situation can be ascertained by an
exploration of the legal/industrial framework that songwriters work
with, coupled with an attempt to appreciate what an audience com-
prehends as songs, and also contemplating the sociohistorical nature
of cultural change and, significantly, delineating the methods that
bring those songs into being (McIntyre 2001). From this research, a
number of these conventions and elements of the song have been
identified.
The first of these is the formal structure, conceptual schema or set
of generative conventions that organize the experience of music into
song. These conceptual frameworks, the song’s structure, cannot be
directly observed except as the song is used and reproduced in its pro-
duction and consumption. In all efforts to delineate the components
of a ‘song’, lyric and melody are primary as constituent elements in
all definitions and descriptions found in this research. All manifesta-
tions of a song are versions of it but these various permutations consist
of elements that do not essentially disturb that song’s basic melody
and lyric. These elements include simple and complex harmonic and
rhythmic features such as accompaniment, arrangement or orchestra-
tion and also, dependent on the perspective used, include performance
characteristics and production elements. While these latter elements
may have a decreasing order of importance, especially to the legal
industrial framework, any pragmatic definition of song must include
the other components identified above as these enable the work to be
manifest in a material form: ‘It is these elements that constitute, for
most practical, if not legal, purposes, the component and constitutive
aspects of a “musical work”’ (McIntyre 2001, p. 110). These compo-
nents make up the conventions of the symbol system, the knowledge
structure, the cultural capital residing in the field of works, that is, the
domain that songwriters draw on to produce a contemporary Western
popular song.
52 Phillip McIntyre
Domain acquisition
In order to acquire a working knowledge of this symbol system, the song-

writers interviewed and observed experienced a wide-ranging immer-
sion in the domain usually as an extension of training for performance
(Lilliestam 1996, Green 2002). This training or process of education for
these songwriters occurred both informally and formally (Green 2002,
p. 6). The majority of these writers’ domain acquisition occurred via a
variety of sources, including, in no order of priority: having access to
poetic skills seen as akin to lyric-writing skills in the formal education
process; having access to elementary music lessons as part of the compul-
sory schooling system; receiving semi-formal instruction from musicians
engaged in private tuition; learning songs as part of learning an instru-
ment; learning songs for performance; engaging in a degree of auto-
didacticism through access to peer information and ad-hoc mentoring
within a form of oral transmission of domain knowledge; absorbing their
familial influences; and absorbing the information stored in multiple
numbers of songs through their access to popular-culture transmissions
of what Bourdieu would call the field, or space, of works (1996, p. 235).
Each songwriter had become so thoroughly immersed in the domain
of contemporary Western popular-music songwriting that it appeared
to them to have become ‘second nature’ (Schön 1983), so much so
that a ‘feel’ (Braheny 1990) for how to write songs was evident. This
development of a songwriter’s ‘habitus’ (Bourdieu 1977, 1990, 1996) as
an intuitive use of information appears to support Tony Bastick’s (1982)
conception of intuition. Bastick counters the notion of intuition as a
mystical, metaphysical or psychic phenomenon, with a very specific
understanding of it. He sees intuition as a fundamental process of cog-
nitive practice where a form of non-linear parallel processing of global
multicategorized information occurs (1982, p. 215). This information is
derived from learned experience. It can thus be claimed that the process
of domain acquisition has resulted in an available body of knowledge
readily and, in Bastick’s terms, intuitively accessed and processed by
these songwriters. In Bourdieu’s terms they have simply acquired the
habitus of songwriters and as a result could operate within the field of
contemporary Western popular-music songwriting.
The field
A field is seen as a structured space organized around domain knowl-

edge where the ‘production, circulation, and appropriation of goods,
services, knowledge, or status’ (Swartz 1997, p. 117) takes place. They

are vital components of the system of songwriting. Songwriters are
socialized into the field of contemporary Western popular songwriting
and this field is inhabited by other agents who understand the struc-
tured domain knowledge. These agents, as members of the field, have
the essential function of determining whether an innovation in domain
knowledge can be selected and itself incorporated into the domain
(Csikszentmihalyi 1997, p. 41, 1999). In this case, a song’s existence is
dependent on a complex structure of many socially active participants
(Becker 1982, p. 9). These include a musician’s peers, members of the
recording and publishing arm of the industry, operatives within the
live performance arena (McIntyre 2003) and the various functionaries
of management, with each of them deploying degrees of social, cul-
tural, symbolic and economic capital (Bourdieu 1993) in the form of
networks, contacts, demonstrable skills, awards, sales figures and con-
tracts with financial imperatives attached. Many working in these areas
are cultural intermediaries (Negus 1996, p. 62) existing within specific
institutional structures. They are proactive in demanding novelty, bal-
anced against tradition, from the songwriters concerned and do so in
order to maintain the field’s economic base. The filters the field uses are
relatively broad, dependent on genre and current commercial requisites,
and the field is relatively liberal in allowing new ideas into the domain.
As a result, the domain changes rapidly at the superficial level of con-
tent but maintains relatively formal structures overall. The instigation
of song ideas may come initially from the field in many cases, giving
support to the notion that this system of creativity operates within a set
of non-linear dynamics.
The media also operate as a constituent element of the field of
popular music. Decisions are made about playlists on radio (McIntyre
2006a) or, increasingly, streaming services and video play on television
and now YouTube. These decisions regulate, through an iterative and
recursive feedback process, the ability of songwriters to continue to
operate in this creative field. The press, as an adjunct to the industry, is
also vital in this process (Brennan 2006). New media, that is websites,
email, webcasts and social media, have also enabled these songwriters
to find alternative methods of engaging with the field for contemporary
Western popular music (McIntyre and Sheather 2013).
The audience for contemporary Western popular music is also a
significant part of this field (Sawyer 2006, pp. 126–33) especially if
the field is seen as ‘all those who can affect the structure of a domain’
(Csikszentmihalyi 1988, p. 330). The move from conceptualizing
54 Phillip McIntyre
audiences for popular music as passive receivers of information to that

of active participants (McQuail 1997) indicates that the audience is a
vital constituent in creative action. Not only have they used songs for
purposes that the writers or manufacturers did not intend, as in the case
of sampling producers (McIntyre and Morey 2012), but they are also
active participants in the act of making meaning (Barthes 1977, Lewis
1992). Audiences through their actions in the marketplace, once again
in an iterative and recursive feedback process, have the ability to regu-
late the life of a recorded song. This ability therefore partially governs
the longevity of a songwriter’s continuing activity. In an indication of
the complexity of the system, the songwriters themselves may also be
included in the field as they are also capable of recognizing the validity
of domain reorganization, making decisions on this basis as they work.
The person
Musicians are the individual agents who comprise the third major com-
ponent of the systems model of creativity. While it is recognized that
within the category of musician there are performers who are not song-
writers, all of the writers investigated in this research were performing
musicians. Anthropologically the occupation of musician carries with it
a prescribed set of norms and values and is perceived as being of a low-
status occupation that is also, at the same time, thought to be highly
important (Merriam 1964). Songwriters also have a high importance, if
low status, within Western culture. Access to the financial resources of
this sociocultural milieu, while more easily facilitated by those within
the industrial framework, is ameliorated by the fact that the majority
of musicians do not prove commercially successful (IFPI 2003). It is the
resultant lack of financial stability for the vast number of musicians that
contributes to the low status they often hold. These combined elements
that make up the perceived characteristics of the occupation are bound
to the social behaviour of the popular musician in that the roles and
norms adopted by musicians predispose them to a set of behaviours
that correlate with that occupation; whether the musician was engaged
as a wage labourer, contractor, partner in a small business or acts as
company director, the status, roles, norms and accompanying adopted
behaviours both limit and enable certain ways of operating. In addition,
the differing financial disbursements afforded songwriters means they
themselves hold a special status within the community of musicians.
These musicians’ ability to carry out their chosen occupation
is inflected, but not solely determined, by both biological and
environmental factors that create conditions for action. Their biological

attributes may partially create the necessary conditions to allow creativ-
ity to occur (Martindale 1999) but investigations that have examined
the link between personality types and a musician’s creativity have con-
cluded that ‘existing research is inadequate and unpersuasive’ (Woody II
1999, p. 248). These conclusions, however, don’t rule out either genetics
or personality as factors in creative activity but, instead, indicate that
certain predispositions may, in part, provide the grounds against which
creativity may occur. Similarly, the process of enculturating and social-
izing musicians into their occupation, as outlined above, may provide
a predictive set of general behaviours, coupled with the accumulation
of a songwriter’s habitus, making these a set of predispositions to act
rather than necessarily determining the action of the musician in writ-
ing songs.
Each of the songwriters studied had an idiosyncratic background. In
immersing themselves in the knowledge system and rearranging aspects
of it to create novel and valued cultural products, they make choices.
They act as agents in this process whose essential task it is to produce
some variation in the field’s inherited information or domain (McIntyre
2006b). The limitations on autonomous decision making are, however,
provided by the field and domain acting as both a set of constraints and
enabling factors making creative choice possible (Giddens 1979, 1984,
Wolff 1993, Bourdieu 1996, Toynbee 2000). Without the knowledge
of songs being in place, the person cannot act within the field. The
choices they make may be centred around the basic cognitive practice
of non-linear parallel processing of global multicategorized informa-
tion (Bastick 1982), or come about through the application of skill and
discipline in working at implementing creativity (Bailin 1988, Weisberg
1993). These modes of creation can be summarized as intuition or dis-
ciplined work and correlate with the writing methods employed and
described by many of these writers.
At the same time it has been argued that agency develops in conscious-
ness when the entity of ‘the self’ develops and begins to make choices
that may partially override the biological and social programming of
the individual (Csikszentmihalyi and Csikszentmihalyi 1988). What
may motivate ‘the self’ to engage in creative activity is the desire to
experience a state commonly referred to as ‘flow’ (Csikszentmihalyi and
Csikszentmihalyi 1988). While this state may be the result of particular
neuro-chemical processes at work (Marr 2006) rather than the various
mystical, metaphysical, religious or other phenomenological bases that
have been ascribed to it, the phenomenon does, nonetheless, exist.
56 Phillip McIntyre
This hyper-aware and focused state was reported widely within the
creative activity of these songwriters. The experience is linked to an
immersion in the domain to the extent that the knowledge of song-
writing becomes intuitive or ‘second nature’ (Bourdieu 1993), making
it easy for these writers to enter the flow state. They develop a feel for
what works, exemplifying Wolff’s assertion that ‘all action, including
creative and innovative action, arises in the complex conjunction of
numerous structural determinants and conditions’ (Wolff 1981, p. 9).
Conclusion
For these songwriters, all the conventions and techniques of Western

popular music are significant parts of the domain. Songwriters draw on
the specific domain of songwriting and rearrange it in unique and novel
ways. Other songwriters, fellow musicians, record producers, engineers,
A&R directors, publishers, record company executives, music video
makers, distributors, concert promoters, tour managers, agents, fans
and audience members are the individuals who make up the network
of interlocking roles within the structures that constitute the field of
songwriting. It is the social organization of the field that decides, firstly,
whether a song is a song in the first place and, secondly, how closely
that song adheres to or departs from the tradition of contemporary
Western popular music. The field decides how a song ‘fits’ in relation
to all other songs existing within the space of works. Contemporary
Western songwriters, as choice-making agents, therefore work within
a structured system that shapes and governs their creativity while they
contribute to and alter that system.
The interdependence of the domain, field and agents involved in the
production of contemporary Western popular music allows the conclu-
sion, at the more philosophical level, that agency, the ability to make
choice, and structure, those things that are seen to determine action,
are interdependent. Rather than these two being seen as oppositional to
each other, there exists a mutual dependence between them that serves
to make the actuality of both agency and structure possible. Since it is
observed that creativity cannot be fully explained solely by singular
characteristics of individuals as there are too many variables involved,
that is the store of knowledge, the social organization and the variable
characteristics of individuals and all the permutations thereof, it is
pertinent to conclude that creativity for songwriters can be reconcep-
tualized as an emergent property of a complex and dynamic system in
action.
Acknowledgements
This chapter is an edited version of: McIntyre, P. (2008) ‘Creativity and

Cultural Production: A Study of Contemporary Western Popular Music
Songwriting’, Creativity Research Journal, 20(1), 40–52.
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5
The Creative Development of
Sampling Composers
Justin Morey
Introduction: expert performance, success and creativity
Using qualitative interview data, this chapter will explore the develop-
ment of creative practice amongst dance music producers who use sam-
ples in their work (hereafter sampling composers), and consider a range
of factors that have helped them to become successful (short biographies
of the interviewees appear at the end of the chapter). It will be argued
that while deliberate practice, or immersion in a domain, is fundamental
to an individual’s creative evolution and chances of success, it is difficult
for that individual to reach their creative potential without the opportu-
nity to put in the hours to develop expertise. In addition, the importance
of opportunity, or being in the right place at the right time, cannot be
ignored in an individual’s creative journey. As Csikszentmihalyi asserts:
The Romantic idealisation of the solitary genius is so solidly lodged

in our minds that to state the opposite – that even the greatest genius
will not accomplish anything without the support of society and cul-
ture – borders on blasphemy. But the reality appears to be different.
Favorable convergences in time and place open up a brief window
of opportunity for the person who, having the proper qualifications,
happens to be in the right place at the right time ... The point is not
that external opportunities determine a person’s creativity. The claim
is more modest, but still extremely important: No matter how gifted
a person is, he or she has no chance to achieve anything creative
unless the right conditions are provided. (1997, p. 94)
In terms of immersion in the domain and the conditions necessary to

foster success, Ericsson, Krampe and Tesch-Römer’s article ‘The Role of
60
The Creative Development of Sampling Composers 61
Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance’ (1993)

sought to establish a framework for acquiring expert performance by
studying the deliberate practice regimes of violinists at an elite music
school. They then tested the initial data by comparing the practice
regimes of a group of young expert pianists with a group of amateur
pianists. Results in both studies predict ‘a monotonic relation between
the current level of performance and the accumulated amount of
deliberate practice for individuals attaining expert performance’, with
the conclusion being that there was strong evidence for ‘the 10-year
rule of preparation to attain international-level performance’ (Ericsson
et al. 1993, p. 387). In the same article, reference was also made to
‘10,000 h of deliberate practice extended over more than a decade’
(Ericsson et al. 1993, p. 394), which is taken up by Malcom Gladwell
in his book Outliers as the ‘magic number’ (2008, p. 40), in terms of
hours of practice, required to attain expertise. Ericsson, in particular,
had some issue with this interpretation of his research: in a letter to the
APS Observer, he objected to a journalist ascribing the 10,000-hour rule
to his research, claiming that ‘Gladwell cited our research on expert
musicians as a stimulus for his provocative generalization to a magi-
cal number’ and he ‘does not even mention the concept of deliberate
practice’ (Ericsson 2012, p. 3). However, Gladwell’s focus differs from
that of Ericsson et al. in that he is looking at a range of factors that
contribute to individuals becoming successful, rather than just explor-
ing expert performance, and while Gladwell does not actually use the
phrase ‘deliberate practice’ he is clearly discussing the kind of relevant
practice that contributes towards proficiency, with such practice being
directed towards a specific goal. For example, he argues that the reason
that The Beatles were so far ahead of their peers by 1964, when they
were at the forefront of the ‘British Invasion’ of America, was due to
their five residencies in Hamburg clubs between 1960 and 1962, playing
sets of up to eight hours and working on a wide range of material to
fulfil those commitments:
All told, they performed just over 270 nights in a year and a half. By
the time they had their first burst of success in 1964 [in the USA],
in fact, they had performed live an estimated twelve hundred times.
Do you know how extraordinary that is? Most bands today don’t
perform 1200 times in their entire career. (Gladwell 2008, p. 49)
Other examples cited by Gladwell include Bill Gates and Bill Joy
(co-founder of Sun Microsystems), both of whom had an obsession with
62 Justin Morey
computers, but in addition, through a number of fortunate events, had

the opportunity to spend significant time on mainframe computers at
a point (1968–71) when this would have been available only to a tiny
number of young people of their age in the world. As with The Beatles,
these opportunities afforded thousands of hours of practice, and gave
them a distinct advantage in comparison to their peers. Another key
point is the way in which an accident of birth can also present an
opportunity: when a new paradigm in business or culture emerges, it
would be ideal to have sufficient knowledge of the current field to be
able to embrace new developments, but not to be so old as to be part
of the status quo (Gladwell 2008, pp. 62–7). For example, the birth of
the personal computer revolution is claimed to be January 1975, when
the Altair 8800 was launched, and it is argued that if you were in your
mid–late 20s in 1975 and were a computer expert, you would be likely
to have a settled career that you would probably not want to abandon,
while if you were still a teenager in 1975, you would probably not have
had the chance to have practised sufficiently to take advantage of this
new opportunity. The ideal age to ‘get in on the ground floor’ of the per-
sonal computer revolution would be 20 or 21 in 1975, that is, to be born
in 1954 or 1955 (Gladwell 2008, p. 64), and it is noted that Bill Gates
was born on 28 October 1955, Steve Jobs on 24 February 1955 and Bill
Joy on 8 November 1954. Although not mentioned by Gladwell, it has
been identified that The Beatles had a similar advantage in being born
at the right time to avoid undertaking National Service (18 months to
two years in the armed forces from the age of 18); musical groups in
the UK in the 1950s struggled to get going because ‘any time teenag-
ers got together and tried to form a pop band, as soon as one of them
reached eighteen, their call-up papers would arrive’ (Napier-Bell 2014,
p. 177). The cut-off date for conscription in the UK was set at being
born on or before 1 October 1939; although both Paul McCartney and
George Harrison (born 1942 and 1943 respectively) were comfortably
young enough to avoid conscription, John Lennon (born 9 October
1940) and Ringo Starr (born 7 July 1940) would have had a two-year
absence from playing and practising music at crucial times in their
development had they been born a year or so earlier. While Gladwell’s
focus is on expertise and success, rather than creativity per se, if we
consider Csikszentmihalyi’s systems model, creativity can be seen as the
by-product of an individual’s sufficient immersion in a domain to be in
a position to produce a novel variation on work within that domain,
which is then validated by the field. This validation or selection by the
field and subsequent adoption as part of the domain can be thought
of as success for the individual producing this work. As an example of

selection and adoption at work, Van Gogh’s ‘creativity came into being
when a sufficient number of art experts felt that his paintings had some-
thing important to contribute to the domain of art’ (Csikszentmihalyi
1997, p. 31). Without some measure of recognition or success, it is dif-
ficult to argue that creativity has occurred, with the conclusion being
that success can be a useful indicator of creativity. It may therefore be
helpful to consider the steps taken by the sampling composers in this
study in the progression from having a desire to create, to achieving
such success.
How do sampling composers train?
In many branches of culture, coaching and training are available from a

young age to those individuals identified as having sufficient ability to
warrant development by experts. For example, the elite violin players in
Ericsson et al.’s study (1993) are students at a conservatoire where high-
quality teaching and time to practise over a number of years provide
significant developmental opportunities. Similarly, young people who
progress through a sport coaching system from childhood into young
adulthood will have a distinct advantage over their peers who have not
been afforded this opportunity. This process can be described as being
divided into three distinct stages:
The first phase begins with an individual’s introduction to activities

in the domain and ends with the start of instruction and deliber-
ate practice. The second phase consists of an extended period of
preparation and ends with the individual’s commitment to pursue
activities in the domain on a full-time basis. The third phase consists
of full-time commitment to improving performance and ends when
the individual either can make a living as a professional performer
in the domain or terminates full-time engagement in the activity.
During all three phases the individual requires support from exter-
nal sources, such as parents, teachers, and educational institutions.
(Ericsson et al. 1993, p. 369)
In this process, the acceptance of considerable external support needs

to be combined with the kind of dedicated and deliberate practice
that is not enjoyable in its own right, but is a means to the end of
improving performance. A clear distinction is made between engaging
in an activity out of enthusiasm for it and deliberate practice because
64 Justin Morey
‘deliberate practice is not inherently enjoyable and ... individuals are

motivated to engage in it by its instrumental value in improving per-
formance’ (Ericsson et al. 1993, p. 371). While it is acknowledged that
initial engagement in an activity should be through playful enjoyment
in childhood, ‘inherent enjoyment in adults’ or ‘an enjoyable state
of “flow”, in which individuals are completely immersed in an activ-
ity (Csikszentmihalyi 1990)’, is viewed as ‘almost antithetical to [the]
focused attention required by deliberate practice to maximize feedback
and information about corrective action’ (Ericsson et al. 1993, p. 368).
For cultural domains where developmental structures of this kind do
not exist, much more emphasis has to be placed on the individual being
self-guiding in terms of developing expertise. The sampling composers
cited in this chapter began their careers in the music industry as DJs, so
it is worth considering how and why DJing is the ideal preparation for
composing dance music.
Within any field of cultural production, potential participants have
to have enough interest, or even obsession, to want to immerse them-
selves fully in its discovery and practice. Children and young adults
who became fascinated by popular music at the time the interviewees
were growing up in the UK (1970s to early 1980s) would have seen lit-
tle or none of their school music curriculum devoted to popular music,
and no formal training available in music production, other than the
Tonmeister course at the University of Guildford, which required high
exam scores in music, mathematics and physics to gain entry. The
options, then, for most people looking to engage in a career in music
performance and/or production were either to start a band, acquire an
apprenticeship position in a live sound company or recording studio,
or become a DJ. In the case of the sampling composers discussed here,
the latter route was chosen, but it is worth noting these individuals’
engagement with music, in comparison to the avid record collector,
in that there is a strong desire to share their passion for music. The
interviewees all report a similar journey from record collector to DJ
to sampling composer, all of which can be thought of as serious leisure
pursuits:
Serious leisure is systematic pursuit of an amateur, hobbyist, or

volunteer activity (i.e., a complex activity) that participants find
so substantial and interesting that, in the typical case, they launch
themselves on a career centered on acquiring and expressing its
special skills, knowledge, and experience (Stebbins, 1992; 2001) ...
The adjective ‘serious’ (a word the [interview] respondents often
used) embodies qualities like earnestness, sincerity, importance, and

carefulness. (Stebbins 2005, p. 12)
As with the conditions and stages specified by Ericsson et al. (1993), a

series of six qualities are identified as being necessary for the successful
pursuit of serious leisure. These include:
the need to persevere ... the opportunity to follow a career (in a lei-
sure role) ... the requirement that its enthusiasts ... make significant
personal effort based on specially acquired knowledge, training, or
skill and, indeed at times, all three ... durable benefits ... [such as]
self-fulfillment, self-enrichment, self-expression ... a unique ethos that
emerges with each expression of [the activity] ... [and] a distinctive
identity [which] springs from the presence of the other five distinctive
qualities. (Stebbins 2005, p.12, author’s emphases)
Unlike the deliberate practice regime outlined by Ericsson et al. (1993)

as a requirement for attaining expert performance, an additional ben-
efit is ascribed to serious leisure, that of ‘self-gratification or pure fun’
(Stebbins 2005, p. 12). Here, interviewees Aston Harvey, Martin Reeves,
Andy Carthy and Mark Summers explain their personal journeys from
collecting music to becoming successful DJs and composers, demon-
strating how something that was initially done purely for fun became
more serious, and how developing an ear for interesting samples led to
a desire to begin working with samples in a purposeful way:
I got into sampling from back in the hip-hop days ... I suppose
I became a massive fan of the hip-hop scene ... anyone who was
producing hip-hop at that time from, say, ’85 maybe onwards ... It
was the music that inspired me, and obviously you find out who’s
making it. How I got into the actual process of making music was
that I had turntables and was cutting it up, doing it proper hip-hop
style with two copies of the same tune and just scratching the beats
in my bedroom, and my mates would be rapping over it and we’d
put it on tape. Then I said ‘well why don’t we try to find a studio
and see what we actually sound like properly?’ (Harvey, Interview,
29 September 2011)
Going back to the mid-eighties, [sampling] was my route into
making music really, as a DJ and somebody with a big record collec-
tion ... I was obsessed with breakbeats, and collecting breakbeats and
samples I suppose, that had been used or cut up in hip-hop music.
66 Justin Morey
At the time, what we wanted to do, which seems a bit stupid now,
but it was like ‘oh, we can build a new song entirely out of samples
of old records’, you know what I mean? I suppose we were think-
ing about it in quite a traditional way in that we wanted to create
something that actually sounded like a traditional song, but using
shards and elements of other people’s songs. (Barratt, Interview,
3 November 2011)
If you grow up, or for much of your teenage life when you’re
quite impressionable listening to music that’s mixed together, and
then I suppose later on, music that uses samples and quite obvious
quotes from other music, then you grow up thinking that’s normal.
And also I think, it’s basically something I’m very comfortable with
because I realized, probably in the late 80s when sampling became
widely known and got into the charts, and people were aware that
artists were making hits that were borrowing quite heavily from
artists’ records – things like Walk This Way – Run DMC and that
kind of thing ... you were obviously aware of that stuff because of
the magpie nature of any disc jockey who’s going to be hovering
up a decent amount of vinyl every week ... I was never confused
by any element of [music production], and even if I couldn’t do it
I could explain what I wanted to be done very well, but that was
just a process of, you know, listening intently for the previous ten
years and spending my entire teenage existence pretty much in a
kind of ... doing mixes and trying to create my own music and lis-
tening to other people’s production techniques. (Carthy, Interview,
24 November 2011)
I think [DJing] was fundamental really, because I obviously had
some kind of an instinct in knowing what was going to work on a
dance floor, what people were tuned into, what worked and what
couldn’t, and getting to know how productions were put together,
I was educating myself for years, and I think that played a very big
part in it, ultimately ... probably seven years I’d been a DJ before
I started making music. (Summers, Interview, 11 December 2014)
In the case of each of these sampling composers, what started as a seri-

ous leisure pursuit gradually developed into a career as, firstly, a DJ and
then as both a DJ and maker of dance music. The hours worked by a
professional club DJ, coupled with the income derived from the occupa-
tion in the mid-1980s to mid-1990s in the UK, provided these individu-
als with sufficient leisure time to devote to the process of applying their
skills as DJs to creating their own music. This could also be considered
to be a process of acquiring the habitus of a sampling composer, which

can be described as:
A ‘feel for the game’, a ‘practical sense’ (sens practique) that inclines
agents to act and react in specific situations in a manner that is not
always calculated and that is not simply a question of conscious
obedience to rules. Rather it is a set of dispositions which generates
practices and perceptions. The habitus is the result of a long process
of inculcation, beginning in early childhood, which becomes a ‘sec-
ond sense’ or a second nature. (Johnson in Bourdieu 1993, p. 5)
As well as having both the time and inclination to develop the habitus
of sampling composers, their careers as dance music DJs provided these
interviewees with both opportunities and power. In terms of expert per-
formers, it is argued that ‘an early start of training often allows access
to the best teachers and training environments – most adults cannot
engage in deliberate practice for practical purposes, given their busy
day-to-day lives and additional responsibilities’ (Ericsson et al. 2007,
p. 105). Working as a DJ provides an ideal ‘training environment’ for
sampling composers, in terms of understanding how and why a club
crowd responds to the music. The act of DJing itself can be considered
almost as a longhand version of composing using samples, in that
accomplished DJs will mix one track into another seamlessly to ensure
that the musical flow of the event is not interrupted. However, another
advantage is also apparent if Csikszentmihalyi’s systems model of crea-
tivity is considered, in that a professional DJ is already part of the field
of dance music, as well as being a person seeking to produce an output
suitably novel for it to be thought of as creative. DJs can be considered
as cultural gatekeepers of the domain of dance music: record labels pro-
vide free promotional copies of their new releases in return for feedback,
DJs are able to select which of the latest releases should be included in
their forthcoming sets, influencing which records may become part of
the domain, and they will have the respect of and contact with both
fans of their work and professional members of the dance music field
(other DJs, club promoters, record producers, record label employees for
example). Furthermore, if we consider Bourdieu’s work on cultural pro-
duction, the habitus of being a DJ and sampling composer is composed
partly of individual levels of social, cultural, symbolic and economic capi-
tal (Johnson in Bourdieu 1993, p. 7) gained by their understanding of,
interaction with, and employment and reputation within dance music
culture. As a result, they can be seen to be in possession of high levels
68 Justin Morey
of sub-cultural capital within a given area of dance music, because in

‘knowing, owning and playing the music, DJs, in particular, are some-
times positioned as the masters of the scene’ (Thornton 2001, p. 12).
As such, DJs’ efforts at creating their own music are very likely to be
greeted with more enthusiasm and support compared to those of a rela-
tive outsider, while acquisition of the habitus of a DJ can be considered
to be the ideal preparation for becoming a sampling composer.
While it is argued for more established areas of cultural production
that ‘deliberate practice requires available time and energy for the indi-
vidual as well as access to teachers, training material, and training facili-
ties (the resource constraint)’ (Ericsson et al. 1993, p. 368), it is proposed
here that a support network is also available to DJs becoming sampling
composers, albeit of a less formalized structure; intense listening over
many years to training material (relevant records) is applied in training
facilities with immediate feedback loops (dance music events), while the
usually collaborative nature of dance music production provides a crea-
tive process informed by mutual support and feedback. Of the sampling
composers interviewed for this chapter, only one (Mark Summers) has
generally created his work on his own; the others, while having a range
of ability in the hands-on production of dance music, all value the col-
laborative aspect of music creation, and emphasize listening and their
perspectives as DJs among their key compositional abilities:
I’m very curious, but I was really lucky to be around lots of people
who were really easy to get on with, you know, who had a similar kind
of approach to music as me ... I think in the early days I’m sure the
engineers I was working with were doing a lot of the production pro-
cess without me realizing it. I’m sure that little thing like reverb and
EQing and even mixing and stuff. And then obviously as time goes on
and you become familiar with things like the use of the sampler and
stuff like that, and how to use [music production software] Cubase,
and then you’re like ‘OK, well that snare needs turning up’, I’ve seen
you do it a few times, you’ve gone off to make a brew so I’ll turn it up
myself, or I know what the auxiliary sends do now and all that kind
of thing. If you’re spending four or five days a week in a studio, you’re
gonna learn what the things do. It’s a case of that really. It’s just a very
very slow learning process. (Carthy, Interview, 24 November 2011)
But to be honest, when it comes to the more technical side of
things, the guy who I work with used to do it all. I was the one who
would find the sample, say how we should cut it up, what bit we
should use, and then he would orchestrate that. (Reeves, Interview,
21 October 2011)
To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t even go anywhere near the

computer – I’d just tell the engineer what sounds good. I really don’t
give a fuck about any of it. I’m not interested in getting involved with
pressing keys on a keyboard or pressing keys on a computer, because
I think as soon as you start doing it, you can’t hear what you’re doing
any more ... I’d rather sit back from it. I think it’s a musician’s disease
really. As soon as you start playing things, and if you play it yourself,
you start listening to it in a different way than if it was someone else
who’s playing it, and then it’s very easy to lose your perspective very
very quickly. (Barratt, Interview, 3 November 2011)
In addition to the support and training network discussed above, DJs

have further feedback loops on their compositions by being able to test
them on potentially receptive crowds during their DJ sets, and by hav-
ing sufficient sub-cultural capital that their peers will do the same on
their behalf, and also provide feedback. While a DJ’s learning and devel-
opmental progression to becoming a creator of dance music may not
fall entirely within Ericsson et al.’s (1993) requirements for engaging in
deliberate practice, arguably there are sufficient options for development
and improvement for dedicated DJs to become experts in their chosen
field of composition. In addition, and as with some of Gladwell’s outliers,
being suitably prepared and in the right place at the right time also need
to be considered in the contribution to aiding successful creative output.
When was the best time to become a sampling composer?
All of the DJs interviewed here put out their first records between 1987
and 1995. This is a period in UK dance music culture when what could
be thought of as niche or a sub-culture became sufficiently popular to
be part of the mainstream musical culture of the day, and where even
relatively ‘underground’ artists ‘could sell 30, 40, 50,000 records with-
out even troubling the charts’ (Barratt, Interview, 3 November 2011). As
well as this period being an extremely buoyant one for the UK dance
music industry, sampling technology had reached a point where it was
both relatively affordable and user friendly. In the UK, the Atari ST
personal computer (launched 1985), equipped with its own MIDI port,
combined with a music sampler such as the Akai S1000 (launched 1988)
or Roland S10 (launched 1987), afforded creative possibilities only avail-
able in high-end studios a few years previously:
To me, it was just the beauty of being able to have access to all these
sounds that I wouldn’t necessarily be able to afford ... This is around
70 Justin Morey
the time of the early house music that was coming out of Chicago
on labels like DJ International and Trax, and I couldn’t afford the sort
of drum machines they were using, or even the synths, and I didn’t
have any access to great RnB singers or even rappers, so for me the
sampler was the key in terms of making music ... being able to have
a cheap sampler, but have access to expensive sounding instruments,
really appealed to me ... when the Roland S10 came along I thought,
well, here’s my chance to see if I can better myself in terms of what
I was doing a year or so beforehand ... the Atari ... changed the whole
landscape forever. (Summers, Interview, 11 December 2014)
The technology became affordable and available, do you know
what I mean? You weren’t having to spend tens of thousands of
pounds on a Fairlight. Emulators became available and then the big
leap forward seemed to be the [Akai] S1000, when that came out.
(Barratt, Interview, 3 November 2011)
To be in a position to take advantage of the opportunities afforded by

new technology and a market eager to consume new dance music, these
sampling composers not only needed to recognize the opportunity, but
be sufficiently prepared to take advantage of it As with Bill Gates and
Bill Joy (Gladwell 2008, pp. 62–7), there had been a lengthy period of
relevant training which meant that the new possibilities felt like a natu-
ral progression to these sampling composers:
I think once you get to using samplers it’s almost like the logical
conclusion of part one, because for the previous ten years I’ve been
trying to make things that weren’t samplers behave like samplers,
trying to emulate the music that I’d heard created with equipment
which I’d never seen, never mind could afford. (Carthy, Interview,
24 November 2011)
Having this extensive period of training and preparation arguably gave

these sampling composers a competitive edge over those attempting
to contribute to the domain of dance music only once affordable tools
became available, while another advantage of composing sample-
based dance music in the late 1980s to mid-1990s was that the costs
of sample clearance were far more economically feasible for practition-
ers than they have been in the last 15–20 years (for a full discussion
of sampling and copyright, please refer to Morey 2012a and Morey
2012b).
Conclusion
Although these sampling composers did not have access to the kind
of formalized training regimes specified by Ericsson et al. (1993), as
both DJs and then sampling composers, they have all engaged in the
thousands of hours of practice necessary to obtain the proficiency, and
ultimately the success, prescribed by Gladwell (2008), initially as a form
of ‘serious leisure’ (Stebbins 2005, p.12) in the case of both pursuits,
before contributing to the domain of dance music culture and becom-
ing respected members of the field. Through dedicating themselves to
creative activities in this domain, they became expert listeners with
high levels of musical codal competence, which allowed them firstly
to play successful DJ sets, and subsequently to apply this expert listen-
ing to finding and reinterpreting samples in their own compositions
(see Morey and McIntyre 2014, pp. 48–51 for a discussion of listening
as authorship amongst sampling composers). While deliberate practice
may not be ‘inherently enjoyable’ (Ericsson et al. 1993, p. 371) in a
formal and institutionalized training environment, the creative journey
of these sampling composers is characterized by the enjoyment and fun
taken in acquiring the skills and symbolic knowledge necessary to con-
tribute to their chosen domain. And while the study of popular music
composition and production, like many other forms of popular media,
has been incorporated into both school and university curricula in the
years since these sampling composers began their creative journeys, I
would argue from my personal experience of teaching these subjects in
a university setting that the individuals who go on to achieve success
and recognition after graduation are the ones who found a love for their
chosen area of creativity at an early age, and have pursued it with both
a sense of fun and an intensity of purpose, in a very similar way to that
described by the interviewees here.
References
Bourdieu, P. (1993) The Field of Cultural Production (New York: Columbia
University Press).
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990) Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (New York:
Harper & Row).
Ericsson, K. A. (2012) ‘The Danger of Delegating Education to Journalists: Why
the APS Observer Needs Peer Review When Summarizing New Scientific
72 Justin Morey
Developments’ (Tallahassee, FL: letter to APS Observer). https://psy.fsu.edu/

faculty/ericsson/ericsson.hp.html
Ericsson, K., Krampe, R. T. and Tesch-Römer, C. (1993) ‘The Role of Deliberate
Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance’, Psychological Review, 100(3),
363–406.
Ericsson, K. A., Roring, R. W. and Nandagopal, K. (2007) ‘Misunderstandings,
Agreements, and Disagreements: Toward a Cumulative Science of Reproducibly
Superior Aspects of Giftedness’, High Ability Studies, 18(1), 97–115.
Gladwell, M. (2008) Outliers (London: Allen Lane).
Morey, J. (2012a) ‘The Bridgeport Dimension: Copyright Enforcement and its
Implications for Sampling Practice’, in L. Marshall and A.-V. Kärjä (eds) IASPM-
Norden Music, Business and Law Anthology (Helsinki: International Institute for
Popular Culture).
Morey, J. (2012b) ‘Copyright Management and its Implications for the Sampling
Practice of UK Dance Music Producers’, IASPM Journal, The Digital Nation:
Copyright, Technology and Politics, 3(1), 48–62.
Morey, J. and McIntyre, P. (2014) ‘The Creative Practice of Contemporary Dance
Music Producers’, Dancecult, 6(1), 41–60.
Napier-Bell, S. (2014) Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-De-Ay (London: Unbound).
Stebbins, R. A. (1992) Amateurs, Professionals, and Serious Leisure (Montreal and
Kingston, Canada: McGill-Queen’s University Press).
Stebbins, R. A. (2005) ‘Leisure Reflections No. 8: Recreational Specialization,
Serious Leisure and Complex Leisure Activity’, LSA Newsletter No. 70.
Thornton, S. (2001) Club Cultures: Music, Media and Sub-Cultural Capital
Short biographies of interviewees
Richard Barratt. Richard, better known as Parrot, is a DJ and producer

who was a founder member of The Funky Worm (Warp Records) in
1989 and formed Sweet Exorcist (Warp Records) with Richard Kirk
(Cabaret Voltaire) in 1990. He was a member of Add N to (X) and part
of the dance act All Seeing I who had top 20 hits in the UK with the
songs ‘Beat Goes On’ (FFRR 1998) and ‘Walk Like A Panther’ (London
Records,1999).
Andy Carthy. Better known as Mr Scruff, Andy is a DJ and producer

who has released over 30 singles since 1995 and five albums for the
Ninja Tune label, including a UK top 30 album in Trouser Jazz (Ninja
Tune 2002). He is also very well known in the UK for playing five- to
six-hour DJ sets, incorporating a wide range of dance music genres, at
his touring club night Keep It Unreal.
Aston Harvey has worked with artists including Rebel MC, Definition
of Sound and DJ Rap. As part of Blapps Posse, he was responsible for the
hit ‘Don’t Hold Back’ (Tribal Bass 1991), was a member of remix special-
ists The Sol Brothers, and is best known as one half of Freestylers, along
with Matt Cantor, who have produced albums and singles that have
reached the top 40 in both the UK and Australia.
Martin Reeves. Better known as Krafty Kuts, Martin is a well-known UK

breakbeat producer and DJ with an extensive catalogue of over 30 single
releases, three studio albums, 12 mix albums and more than 30 remixes
of other artists including Jurassic 5, Arthur Baker, Eric B. and Rakim,
Afrika Bambaataa and Fatboy Slim.
Mark Summers. Mark is a DJ, engineer, producer and composer who

has had over 40 dance singles released since 1989 and has also worked
as a sample recreation specialist since 1996.
6
Scalability of the Creative System
in the Recording Studio
Paul Thompson
Introduction
The systems model of creativity includes three specific elements –

domain, field and agent – that dynamically interact in an ongoing
process of circular causality (Csikszentmihalyi 1988). The agent must
draw from the domain during creative work in order to select a suitable
arrangement of ingredients from this body of knowledge and symbol
system. This selection of ingredients is then presented to the field, the
social organization that recognizes, uses and alters the domain, for eval-
uation (Csikszentmihalyi 1997). In the context of commercial record
production this process occurs when the completed record is released to
the public and the field of record production (TV, radio, popular-music
press, other musicians, engineers and producers, etc.) decides upon
the record’s novelty and its relevant addition to the domain through
a complex and non-linear process. However, during the production of
a record, the scale of the systems model of creativity appears to be too
large to be applicable to the participants inside the recording studio.
For this reason, the generation of ideas, and the internal evaluative
processes that occur on an individual basis, have been largely ignored
in the literature in relation to a systems approach. Relatively few of the
group processes too that occur during a collaborative situation, such as
making a recording in the studio, have been explored using a systems
framework (Sawyer 2000, 2003). Susan Kerrigan’s revised systems model
(2013) provides a solution to this apparent difference in scale by sug-
gesting that the domain and the field can be re-contextualized so that
they apply to the specific context of the creative task. The interaction
between the system’s elements can then be observed in action as a
group of people collaborate on a creative product.
74
Scalability of the Creative System in the Recording Studio 75
Drawing upon interview data, video and sound recordings gathered

during an extended ethnographic study in the recording studio, the
following chapter explores the systems model of creativity from the
perspective of the performing rock musician at various moments in
the stages of making a popular-music recording. Both the internalized
processes of the individual musicians and the externalized processes
that occurred between the group are explored in relation to the systems
model of creativity as they collaborate on the recording inside the
recording studio.
The role of the recording musician inside

the recording studio
During the production of a popular-music recording, the recording rock

musician is expected to provide the raw material for the record, which
means that:
Performing in the recording studio is not an end in itself, but

rather, a means of producing a track’s constituent parts, of develop-
ing and executing specific musical utterances aimed at defining the
character and identity of the record. The recording musician’s task
is to pass on his or her musical persona, and whether this involves
a series of painstaking steps or a first-take spontaneity, the moment
of performance is not the ultimate point of the process. There is
the ever-present concern for how the performance will hold up
over time, how well it will travel. For in the form of the work the
performative moment is transformed into an enduring aesthetic
object. (Zak 2001, p. 51)
Recording rock musicians are therefore expected to be able to perform

together inside the recording studio and it is often this combina-
tion of performing musicians, each with their own characteristic
performance style, that contributes to the overall sonic aesthetic
of the record (Zak 2001). Furthermore: ‘The interactive nature of
ensemble playing adds its own particular quality to recording in
the form of energy passing among the players’ (Zak 2001, p. 53). In
addition to performing as an ensemble, performing musicians are
often required to perform on their own, overdubbing single musi-
cal parts or phrases. These overdubs may be further fragments of
a manually compiled overdub and therefore may require intimate
knowledge of the arrangement in order to perform separate parts.
76 Paul Thompson
Recording musicians may also be expected to make judgements on

particular performances, however:
Judgement calls and decision-making in the studio are complex phe-

nomena. Musicians will often judge a take by how it felt rather than
by how it sounded. The stress of trying something they are unsure
of, a moment of indecision or forgetfulness and other factors that
may make a player momentarily confused or stressed will often make
them feel negative towards a particular take ... It follows then that
the performer is not always the right person to be making the judge-
ment call about which takes could be used, at least at the immediate
aftermath of the performance. (Zagorski-Thomas 2014, p. 194)
The recording musicians may not always be able to maintain a degree

of objectivity throughout the performance process and therefore the
division of labour inside the recording studio is designed to facilitate the
decision-making process. For instance, the record producer typically over-
sees the decision-making process, guides the musicians’ performance and
liaises with the engineer on technical matters. The role of the performing
rock musicians in this study, however, was multifaceted as they wrote
the song, created its arrangement, set up and tuned their instruments,
provided the raw material for the record, performed as an ensemble and
individually, and they contributed to the decision-making process.
The domain of the recording rock musician
In order to perform in the recording studio, the recording musicians

were required to acquire the body of knowledge that contained the
components of the symbol system, the culture and traditions of per-
forming rock music inside the recording studio. This body of knowl-
edge is generally related to the musical aspects of the domain of record
production, principally the Western contemporary song, which further
includes a knowledge of:
Lyric and melody writing, song structure, rhythmic components

pertinent to the craft, arrangement characteristics including an
understanding of simple and complex harmony, the various mat-
erial forms songs were manifest as, which includes all written and
recorded forms, various production elements that affected the nature
of the songs’ reception and an understanding of audiences’ possible
interpretations of the work produced. (McIntyre 2011, p. 84)
The recording musicians performing in the studio also required a

knowledge of some of the technical aspects of the domain, particularly
because their performance was mediated through recording technol-
ogy such as microphones and headphones. Knowledge of performing
in front of the microphone, the way in which certain nuances can be
amplified through this process and the increase in level the closer one is
to the microphone was also required. The use of recording technologies,
such as click-tracks to maintain a constant metre, were also needed.
In addition, performing musicians required a working knowledge of
musical terminology and the ability to discuss timbral or sonic charac-
teristics of sound in order to communicate effectively with the engineer
and producer. Finally, the performing musicians required a knowledge
of some of the social practices of the field that included the observation
of studio etiquette, maintaining a good-humoured atmosphere and,
at times, using humour to help address any sensitive issues inside the
intimate atmosphere of the recording studio.
The recording musicians in this study learnt the various elements that
relate to these aspects of the domain and the field of record produc-
tion through a mixture of formal, non-formal and informal education.
Formal education included learning the basic rudiments of music at
school and some of the more complex theoretical elements of music at
college or university. Non-formal education included private one-to-one
tuition, and informal education occurred through a process of immer-
sion into popular-music performance (Green 2002). During this time,
the expectations, mechanisms and criteria for selection of the field were
internalized through a process of both enculturation and socialization
into popular-music practice, as fans of popular music and from experi-
ence gained from recording inside the recording studio.
The systems model of creativity posits that in order for creative prac-
tices to occur, the recording musician must draw from the domain of
record production and refer to the mechanisms of selection by the field.
The systems model can be viewed in operation by selecting particular
moments in time (Csikszentmihalyi 1988) and therefore examples have
been drawn from the stages of pre-production and production in order
to view the creative system in operation inside the recording studio.
The stage of pre-production
The stage of pre-production ‘precedes formal recording. It may include

any or all of the following: songwriting, arranging, rehearsal, demo
recording’ (Zak 2001, p. 223). The musicians in the band completed
78 Paul Thompson
the aspects of song writing, arranging and rehearsing for this recording
during rehearsals leading up to the recording session in the studio. These
aspects were discussed with the band during a number of interviews,
and Paul, the principal songwriter in the band, explains that the song-
writing process is not necessarily separate from the production process:
I’ve always written with a very clear vision in my head of how the
song’s meant to sound at the very end and I try and work towards
that all the time. (Paul, Interview, 27 August 2012)
Bass player, Chris, adds:
Basically, Paul comes in with a song and it’s been, y’know basically
the songs as far as chords, melody and the structure but then we’ll
alter it and say what about this or we’ll put the brass and the guitar
and we’ll change things around slightly but it’s essentially as Paul
brings the song to us and that’s how it is. It’s then going over it and
over it and that’s how we’ve always worked on the songs. (Chris,
Interview, 27 August 2012)
With the structure of the song in place (the chords, melody and lyrics),
the rest of the band members composed their musical parts in reference
to both the musical, lyrical and intended sonic aesthetic of the overall
song. This compositional process requires knowledge of the domain and
the selection criteria of the field, as bass player Chris explains:
I was listening to a lot of Motown and James Jamerson, there’s a

big Motown influence to the bassline on Southpaw Billy. I was sit-
ting at home with the demo recording that Paul had made and it
came to me, with that bouncy Motown sound ... The bassline for
the verses kind of appeared to me in one of those celestial-type
moments. I always say that if you can remember it the next day
then it must be good and, again, I heard it, it was there the next
day. For the chorus I wanted to keep that same feel and I just played
what came naturally and it gradually became cemented into what
I play. Basically, for me as far as that was concerned, it was playing
along to the song with a very Motown view of what to play. (Chris,
The ‘celestial-type moment’ that Chris refers to here does not simply
mean that the compositional process of the bassline is inexplicable.
As Chris mentions, he was drawing from domain examples, namely

Motown basslines and those played by James Jamerson, which there-
fore provided the necessary preparation for what Tony Bastick terms
‘intuition’. Intuition is defined as ‘a form of global processing of multi
categorised information’ (Bastick 1982, pp. 310–11) and includes stages
of preparation, incubation, illumination and verification (Wallas 1926).
Listening to, and practising along with, Motown basslines allowed
Chris to assimilate and internalize the playing style of James Jamerson,
the most famous bass player from the Motown house band The Funk
Brothers. Through a process of incubation, the rearrangement of these
aspects was then completed and later appeared at the stage of illumina-
tion. The final stage of verification is where: ‘Both the validity of the
idea was tested, and the idea was reduced to exact form’ (Wallas [1926]
1976, p. 70). However, there may be an additional step of ‘elaboration’
(Csikszentmihalyi 1997) in which:
After an insight occurs, one must check it out to see if the connec-
tions genuinely make sense. The painter steps back from the canvas
to see whether the composition works, the poet rereads the verse
with a more critical eye, the scientist sits down to do the calculations
or run the experiments. Most lovely insights never go any farther,
because under the cold light of reason fatal flaws appear. But if every-
thing checks out, the slow and often routine work of elaboration
begins. (Csikszentmihalyi 1997, p. 104)
The stage of elaboration as outlined above can be seen in Chris’s descrip-

tion that the bassline was still memorable and appropriate the follow-
ing day; however, the five-stage perspective of the creative process may
appear to simplify the complexities involved and it is important to note:
‘That the five stages in reality are not exclusive but typically overlap and
recur several times before the process is completed’ (Csikszentmihalyi
1997, p. 83). Although it is not clear whether there are discrete stages of
ideation and evaluation, it has been argued that:
Evaluation must occur in part at the ideation stage; otherwise, too

many ideas would be generated for the limited processing capabil-
ity during live performance. The evaluation stage would be over-
whelmed, unable to properly filter the large number of musical ideas
(Runco 1993). Several studies have shown that the ideas generated
in the ideation stage are not unrelated, but instead reflect associa-
tive patterns (Mednick 1962; Runco & Okuda 1991). Thus, even if it
80 Paul Thompson
Internalized Domain
CREATIVE IDEAS
OR ACTIONS
Internalized
Selection Criteria Individual
of the Field
Figure 6.1 Revised systems model of creativity scaled to an individual level
is analytically useful to distinguish ideation from evaluation, both

types of thought may be constant, ongoing components of the crea-
tive mind, moments of unitary process. (Sawyer 2003, p. 174)
It can be concluded, therefore, that the musical ideas and parts that
were eventually presented to the other musicians during pre-production
had already undergone a complex individual, internal verification pro-
cess, which was associated with the existing body of knowledge and
symbol system within the domain of record production, in reference to
the field’s criteria for selection. In this way, the systems model can be
scaled to an individual level, where ‘creative ideas or actions’ occur at
the intersection of the ‘individual’, the ‘internalized domain’ and the
‘internalized selection criteria of the field’ as shown in Figure 6.1.
The stage of production
The stage of production ‘conventionally includes tracking and overdub-

bing and can typically involve a number of people, songwriters, perform-
ing musicians, the engineer and the producer all giving their creative
input’ (McIntyre 2012, p. 157). This specific project included a group

of musicians, an engineer and a record producer. The task of perform-
ing in the recording studio for this project began with each musician
setting up his instrument in the live room, in a position indicated by
the engineer. In the early stages of production, the recording musicians
were engaged in tuning and altering the tonal characteristics of their
instruments through dampening, as in the case of the drums, or alter-
ing the controls on the guitar and bass amplifiers. This was a two-stage
process in which the first stage was to achieve the appropriate sound
for each instrument in the live room, and the second stage involved the
producer or the engineer making adjustments to the tonal and sonic
characteristics of the instruments as they were captured by the micro-
phone and outputted through the speakers in the recording studio’s
control room. After the engineer and record producer had completed
the setup, which involved auditioning each one of the microphones
on each instrument, altering the position of the microphones and then
blending the signals from multiple microphones, the musicians began
by performing their first take as an ensemble in the live room whilst the
engineer and producer listened in the control room. The first take began
tentatively as the recording musicians adjusted to the way in which the
technology (microphones and headphones) mediated their own perfor-
mance and the performance of the other musicians:
It kind of comes with the environment, you’re very aware that

you’re in the studio and you’re not as aware of everyone else in the
band because, certainly the way we recorded it, everyone was dot-
ted around the room and for a few of the takes of SouthPaw Billy I
took the headphones off and tried to do it that way but I couldn’t
fully connect with everything ... Even though we were performing
together it felt like a completely new experience but weirdly famil-
iar ... It can change second by second of what you want to hear or
what you’re listening for, nuances in what Mike’s playing which you
normally hear in rehearsal or hear on stage and you don’t quite hear
them so you have to be focused as well as getting the energy out and
getting the song down. (Paul, Interview, 27 August 2012)
As previously indicated (Zagorski-Thomas 2014), performers often judge

a take on how it feels but this specific description is limited to the mis-
leading notion that judgement of performance is primarily emotional.
In this context, the musicians used the word ‘feel’ in order to describe
or explain ‘appropriateness’, which in turn points towards a system
82 Paul Thompson
of reference in operation because: ‘The ascription of creativity always

involves tacit or explicit reference to some specific generative system’
(Boden 1994, p. 78). A more accurate portrayal of ‘feel’ would therefore
include the performer’s ability to identify how their performance ‘fits’
with specific reference to examples from the domain as illustrated in
singer Paul’s statement below:
I’m listening for the best representation that I hear in my head

because I’ve always been into energetic-feeling music and I’m
always looking for that, every single time we record ... I’m listening
for the right feel or energy within that. I’m also listening to see if
I’m singing or playing the right notes (laughs) but you’re listening
for the best representation of what’s in your head. (Paul, Interview,
27 August 2012)
The ability to identify the suitability of something within a given form

can be internalized to such an extent that, ‘we can often recognise and
correct the “bad fit” of a form to its context, but ... we usually cannot
describe the rules by which we find a fit bad or recognise the corrected
form to be good’ (Schön 1983, p. 52). The judgement of form demon-
strated by the musicians in this project occurred on two levels. Firstly,
the musicians judged the microfit of their performance by initially
assessing how their performance fitted with the other musicians’ per-
formances. Secondly, the musicians judged the macro fit by consider-
ing how the overall performance fitted with reference to the domain.
For example, after performing a number of takes in the live room, the
musicians were invited into the control room to listen to their previous
performances and, after listening, the musicians discussed their per-
formances in relation to the micro fit of the performance. The record
producer offered some direction as to how the performance could be
improved specifically by correcting the tuning of the brass. The per-
forming musicians returned to the live room with a more definite sense
of their requirements:
That’s when we realized that the record producer was listening for
something and that helped us to see what it was he was listening
for ... we just needed to keep going with what we were doing. (Paul,
The record producer in this instance performed the function of the field
in assessing the performance of the musicians, offering feedback on the
micro and macro fit of their performance in relation to the selection

criteria of the field. This feedback loop, and subsequently the systems
model of creativity, became more observable during overdubbing in the
latter stages of production because fewer musicians were involved in the
performance process and their conversations allowed their thoughts to
be externalized. A prominent example occurred during the composition
and recording of the lead guitar solo.
After a number of attempts of the guitar solo, and subsequent dis-
cussions between the record producer and the other musicians, it was
decided that further musical direction was needed. Paul entered the live
room to discuss the solo with lead guitarist Mike. Paul explains:
From those first few takes we were able to see what worked and what
didn’t. We were then able to keep in mind the good bits and piece
them together, well I already had something in my head and I tried
to explain that to Mike. It was all about the shape of the solo, starting
low, moving to the middle and then ending higher up to fit in with
the build up to the chorus. (Paul, Interview, 27 August 2012)
Lead guitarist Mike adds:
It’s sometimes difficult to remember what you’ve just played if you’re

being asked to improvise a part but Paul conducted me almost, he left
me to sort out the notes but pointed where he wanted those notes to
be on the neck of the guitar. (Mike, Interview, 27 August 2012)
Paul’s specific instructions to Mike were to:
Start lower down the neck and work his way up ... In my head I
could hear starting lower and then it gradually crept up the neck
to something where it really builds and builds and builds. I think
that’s just from listening to songs that kind of do that, y’know if
you listen to any great guitar solos like Bon Jovi’s ‘Wanted Dead
or Alive’ that, to me, is one of the best guitar solos anyone’s ever
done. It starts, it makes an introduction, introduces motifs and then
gradually gets more wild and I think that’s what Mike did with his
solo ... I orchestrated it for him, as he was playing I was standing
there showing to start lower, then moving to the middle and then as
it got near the end I was just waving my arms and it came out great
so it worked! Sometimes I think with guitar solos, and Mike’s bril-
liant with ideas, but sometimes you need another person or group of
84 Paul Thompson
Microdomain
CREATIVE IDEAS
OR ACTIONS
Microfield Group
(Agents)
Figure 6.2 Revised systems model of creativity scaled to a group level
people to bounce ideas off or just to give you that little different way
of thinking. (Paul, Interview, 27 August 2012)
The example of the guitar solo demonstrates how Paul and Mike drew
from the domain, namely the solo from Bon Jovi’s ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’
(1985). This knowledge dictated the ‘shape’ of the solo in which it began
with lower notes, worked towards the middle of the guitar neck and then
ended at the higher notes. With an audible cheer from the producer and
the other musicians in the control room once the performance had fin-
ished, the other participants inside the studio provided further validation
for this creative contribution. In this way, the group can be viewed as
operating within a micro system of creativity where the track is viewed
as the microdomain and the immediate group as the microfield (Sawyer
2003). The systems model of creativity can therefore be scaled to a group
level in which ‘creative ideas or actions’ occur at the intersection of the
‘microdomain’, the ‘microfield’ and ‘agents’, as shown in Figure 6.2.
Conclusion
In exploring the systems model of creativity from the perspective of

the performing rock musician at various moments in the stages of
making a popular-music recording, some of the internalized processes

of the individual musicians, and the externalized processes that
occurred between the participants inside the recording studio, were
highlighted. Prior to performing inside the studio, the musicians for
this project were engaged with the stage of pre-production in which
the songs were learnt and parts were composed. The systems model of
creativity could be observed in operation in the discussions relating to
the composition of individual musical parts in which examples were
drawn from the domain and the individuals performed the function
of the field in testing the validity of their idea the following day. On
an individual level, therefore, the musicians drew their knowledge
from the domain, rearranged that knowledge and evaluated it inter-
nally during the process of idea generation. In this way, the creative
system could be viewed as scalable where the individual interacted
with the internalized domain and the internalized criteria for selec-
tion of the field.
During the phase of production, the individually assessed and
accepted ideas were then outputted to the group for further evalu-
ation by the other musicians, engineer and record producer. The
musicians had to judge the feel of their performance, not as a purely
emotional response, but in the way it created a good or bad fit (Schön
1983, p. 52). Adding overdubbed musical parts to the track, such
as the lead guitar solo, involved fitting into what had already been
recorded and the musical style of the recording. The musical parts,
therefore, were developed in response to the constraints imposed by
the domain and the song and subject to a filtering process by the
participants in the recording studio. In this way, the group formed a
microfield inside the recording studio, assessing and rejecting ideas
generated by the musicians, engineer and record producer. The final
recording or ‘track’, therefore, formed a microdomain, which further
operated inside the broader domain and field of record production.
These findings not only demonstrate a creative system in action, they
also illustrate how the creative system can be scaled during the pro-
cess collaboration inside the recording studio on an individual level
and a group level.
References
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58(2), 149–61.
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Personal interviews
Singer/songwriter Paul, lead guitarist Mike and bass player Chris –

Interviewed in Liverpool, 27 August 2012.
7
Print Journalism and the System of
Creativity
Janet Fulton
Introduction
This chapter is based on findings from a research project that employed

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s systems model of creativity to explore the
creative process of print journalists. The research also drew on Pierre
Bourdieu’s cultural production model and Donald Schön’s (1983) ideas
about tacit knowledge as support theories. Using ethnographic tech-
niques, the researcher investigated the system of print journalism in
Australia by observing newsrooms, analysing documents and artefacts
pertinent to print journalism, and interviewing journalists, cadet jour-
nalists, editors, subeditors and deputy editors. These participants repre-
sent members of what Csikszentmihalyi calls the field, the social group
responsible for verification of creativity.
The objective of the research was to test out how journalists, as
creative producers of media texts, use their agency, or ability to act and
make choices, to interact with individual, social and cultural structures.
This conditional agency, where a journalist interacts with this known
set of structures, is how a journalist produces creative texts and is as
valid for hard news journalists, feature writers, opinion-piece writers,
review writers and magazine writers. In fact, it is also just as valid for
any writer in any writing domain. The researcher concluded that, in a
similar fashion to any cultural producer, without these structures a print
journalist would be unable to produce at all. In journalism, when a jour-
nalist produces an article using acquired knowledge from the domain, it
is presented to a field of experts, who understand the domain and use
this understanding for verification that the outcome is novel and appro-
priate. The article is then included in the domain for future reference.
To apply the definition of creativity to journalism, McIntyre’s definition
87
88 Janet Fulton
(2008, p. 1) (as noted in Chapter 3) can be modified: ‘journalism is both

a product and process where the journalist uses prior knowledges to
write an article that is different to what has been published before and
presents it to a field of experts for valuation and acceptance into the
domain of journalism’ (Fulton 2008, p. 4).
This chapter will provide a background to the study and the meth-
odological approach employed and then analyse the system of print
journalism using the three elements of the systems model – the domain,
individual and field. After the analysis, it is not difficult to argue that
journalism is a creative activity and journalists have conditional agency
within a dynamic system of interrelated structures.
Background to the study
At the onset of this particular research, the question asked was: how
do print journalists produce, or create, an article? However, Creswell
(2003) notes that within qualitative investigations, the research ques-
tions employed by a researcher evolve and change as the study contin-
ues and, as Ezzy claims: ‘Most qualitative researchers do not presume
to know all their research questions before they start data collection’
(2002, p. 77). With this comment by Ezzy in mind, a number of other
questions developed.
Firstly, it was recognized that rules, conventions, techniques, guides
and procedures, or the structures, of the domain of print journalism
shape a journalist’s production and are often seen as constraints. Two
sub-questions arose from this recognition: how do these cultural norms
affect how journalists produce creative texts, and, could these structures
enable journalists to produce their work? The second question that
developed was founded on the individual characteristics journalists
may have and whether these characteristics influence their creative pro-
cess: how does a journalist’s individual characteristics and background
affect a journalist’s production process? Thirdly, it was perceived that
journalism has a highly visible social structure that is involved in a
journalist’s work throughout the production process. The question that
evolved from this perception was: how can a journalist produce work
when their creativity, a term typically understood to refer to artistic
activity, is influenced by others? With these questions in mind, the
primary research question evolved into the following: how do print
journalists in Australia interact with cultural, individual and social
structures in their creative process? This question corresponded to the
ideas presented by the systems model developed by Csikszentmihalyi.
Print Journalism and the System of Creativity 89
While there is an extensive amount of research into journalists’

production processes (for a detailed summary see Fulton 2011), it has
tended to focus on single elements, either the individual journalist or
the structures a journalist works within, rather than recognizing that
a holistic approach is a more constructive way to investigate journal-
ists’ production processes. Shoemaker and Reese’s (1996) Hierarchy of
Influences model and Preston’s (2009) Five Domains of Influence model
include a broader set of interrelated elements, including personal char-
acteristics, media routines and norms, organizational influences, cul-
tural and ideological power, and political-economic factors, but each of
these models has little allowance for the influence of a comprehensive
social field. In addition, the concentric circles with ‘Journalists’ in the
innermost circle of Shoemaker and Reese’s model seem to indicate that
the individual is the centre of the production process, which harks back
to Csikszentmihalyi’s argument against the Ptolemaic view of creativity
where the person is the central figure rather than ‘part of a system of
mutual influences and information’ (1988, p. 336). However, these two
models indicate that journalism research understands that a position of
confluence explains production more clearly than continuing to favour
either structure or agency. Reese, describing the rationale behind the
Hierarchy of Influences model, posits the following:
In laying out these levels, it is possible to prioritize their importance

and sequence in different ways. We can certainly make a case for
stepping through them in both directions: from micro to macro, or
vice versa. Does everything begin with the individual, who is pro-
gressively hemmed in by more and more layers of constraint? (That
is my tendency.) Or is the macro, socio-cultural context logically
prior to any actions of its member individuals? (2007, p. 37)
In the systems model, the assertion is that each of the elements is

equally important. In line with this comment, the research tested out
the systems model in print journalism in Australia. The model allowed
the researcher to look at a more inclusive system of influences on a jour-
nalist’s news production – a journalist and their interaction with the
field and the domain of print journalism – and examine the interplay of
structure and agency. Additionally, Bourdieu’s ideas on cultural produc-
tion were used as a support theory in an effort to explain how a jour-
nalist interacts with structural forces to produce work. Bourdieu (1998)
used his understanding of cultural production to discuss television jour-
nalism in France and described the journalistic field as a ‘microcosm
90 Janet Fulton
with its own laws, defined both by its position in the world at large
and by the attractions and repulsions to which it is subject from other
such microcosms’ (1998, p. 39). Within this field, it is the structure of
power both within society and between the different organizations that
affects what journalists can do as well as the journalist’s own position,
and therefore power, within the organization.
Bourdieu’s ideas provide a complementary way to explain a journal-
ist’s production. For example, Bourdieu’s notion of habitus is another
way to describe a journalist’s learnt but unconscious processes, includ-
ing domain acquisition, but Schultz also highlights a key finding in
this research when she states that journalists, as agents, have relative
freedom within the structures that surround them (2007, p. 193), that
is, they are not absolutely free or completely autonomous, but have
conditional agency.
Methodological approach
The strategy used in data collection was ethnographic with semi-

structured interviews, observation, and document and artefact analysis
as the methods. Punch asks, ‘When would the ethnographic approach
be most appropriate?’ (2005, p. 154) and in this instance his answer
summarized the objectives of the research: ‘In general, when we need
to understand the cultural context of behavior, and the symbolic
meaning and significance of the behavior within that context’ (2005,
p. 154).
Thirty-six interviews were conducted in 2007/8 with members of the
field of print journalism from Australian newspapers (24) and magazines
(10) as well as freelance journalists (2). The interviewees included jour-
nalists (18), cadet journalists (3) and a student journalist (1) as well as
14 members of the field of journalism including editors, deputy editors
and owners. The participants included 19 males and 17 females ranging
in age from 20 to 62. Participants worked at a variety of newspapers
(national, metropolitan, regional, country, community and suburban)
from publishers including Fairfax, News Limited, Fairfax Community
Newspapers, Rural Press, APN News and Media, and independent pub-
lishers as well as magazines from several publishers. Interviews with
members of the field of journalism and published in the public domain
in magazines, newspapers or on the Internet were also examined to add
further information to the data collection. In addition, biographies and
autobiographies provided further secondary information. This latter
source was useful to gain knowledge about members of the field who
were not accessible, for example newspaper owners, managing editors

and other senior members of the field.
To supplement the interview method and gain a further perspective,
the researcher also employed observation as a way of gathering data. In
2010, three newsrooms were observed: a regional tri-weekly newspaper
was observed for one day a week for four weeks; a weekly metropolitan
newspaper for a full production week (five working days); and a weekly
community newspaper for three production days over three weeks. In
each newsroom, journalists, editors, deputy editors, subeditors, photog-
raphers, designers and other members of the field of journalism were
observed writing, interviewing, taking phone calls, interacting with
other staff members, participating in news conferences and interacting
with the audience. These journalists and other workers in the environ-
ment also participated in informal discussions with the researcher.
The third method employed was document and artefact analysis. The
documents were, as per Creswell’s (2003) contention, public and private
documents including newspapers, minutes of meetings, official reports,
personal journals and diaries, letters, emails and other correspondence,
press releases and finalized stories for print. Artefacts observed and
noted within journalists’ work environments included workstations,
noticeboards, keyboards, computers and other ‘tools of the trade’.
Using these different methods produced a rich source of triangulated
data to analyse and provided evidence of how journalists work in a
dynamic system of interrelated elements.
System of print journalism
Analysis of the research data demonstrated that Csikszentmihalyi was

correct in saying the systems model is an example of non-linearity in
action, which meant it was initially difficult to decide for analytical
purposes where certain findings should be examined. If, for example, a
journalist was asked how they learnt to write as a journalist and their
answer was that they learnt the rules from senior colleagues, should
this be discussed as an idiosyncratic learning process of a particular
individual (domain acquisition), in an examination of the domain itself
(rules of journalism), or the operation of the field (the importance of
work colleagues) section? With this complication in mind, the follow-
ing discussion is an attempt to present, in a linear way, findings that are
by their very nature non-linear and systemic.
However, this selection process led to another related question: In
what order should the three elements of individual, domain and field
92 Janet Fulton
be discussed in this analysis? With Csikszentmihalyi insisting that each

element is equally important for a creative outcome, it is vital that the
reader is not misled into assuming that the first element discussed is of
higher importance than either of the others. Csikszentmihalyi (1988)
states that the systems model is dynamic and each element is equally
important for a creative outcome but he also emphasizes that the start-
ing point for creativity is arbitrary and can happen in any of the three
elements. The domain could be written about in the first instance
because this is where the traditions, the rules and procedures, and any
previously produced work are stored and an individual needs to learn
these traditions before trying to introduce a novel contribution. The
knowledge pre-exists the individual. However, these traditions would
not be available for the individual without the field accepting novel
work for inclusion into the domain, but the field would not have these
traditions to accept if an individual had not produced them.
With this complexity in mind, the analysis follows the sequence set
up by Feldman, Csikszentmihalyi and Gardner’s (1994) DIFI model –
Domain Individual Field Interaction – and discusses the domain in the
first instance, followed by individual and field. Using the DIFI model
overcomes the problem in examining creativity that emphasizes an
individual approach and ensures that the reader knows that the indi-
vidual is not privileged but also understands that the individual is not
the least important element. Thus, the argument that creativity should
be examined from a Copernican viewpoint rather than a Ptolemaic one
(Csikszentmihalyi 1988, p. 336) is emphasized: the domain, individual
and field are each an equally important element in the system of print
journalism.
Domain
As noted in Chapter 3, Csikszentmihalyi defines the domain as the
cultural component that ‘consists of a set of symbolic rules and proce-
dures’ (1997, p. 27) and Sawyer takes this definition further by includ-
ing ‘all of the created products that have been accepted by the field in
the past’ (2006, p. 125). From the evidence gathered for the research,
it was evident how journalists immerse themselves in the domain
of print journalism and acquire the rules and procedures as well as
engage with previously created products, and this domain acquisition
enables a journalist to produce, or create, their work. In other words,
a print journalist internalizes the rules and traditions of the domain
and these working procedures, or structures, become so innate that
a practitioner unconsciously uses them, in line with Schön’s (1983)
tacit knowledge and Bourdieu’s habitus where a journalist has the

ability to ‘do without thinking’ because of immersion in the domain
and the internalization of rules, conventions, techniques, guides and
procedures.
The rules and procedures, or structures, in the journalistic domain
have both similarities and differences to other writing genres, such as
poetry or fiction writing. Essentially, journalism is storytelling (Adam
1993, Bird and Dardenne 1997), and its basic elements – language,
grammar and narrative – are as important to journalism as they are to
any writing genre, but it must be recognized that journalism’s form is
also different. The domain, as the cultural component of the systems
model, is a major influence that both constrains and enables (Giddens
1984, Wolff 1993) a journalist’s creative process. Learning the rules,
such as story structure, ideologies such as the watchdog role, conven-
tions, including news values, technological tools such as the Internet,
laws including defamation and contempt of court, and guidelines
including ethical obligations and publication style guide, all provide
journalists with a set of structures that enable a journalist’s creative
practices. Furthermore, the respondents in the study were also keen
consumers of other news products, thus engaging with previously pro-
duced works that had been included in the domain. Journalists learn
these domain knowledges, which become part of their habitus, and
they ‘act and react in specific situations in a manner that is not always
calculated and that is not simply a question of conscious obedience to
rules’ (Johnson 1993, p. 5).
Are these structural components of the system important? Yes, but
the analysis also showed that this influence is not totally deterministic.
Contrary to some theorists’ arguments that it is structures that deter-
mine how a journalist produces (Henningham 1989, Hirst and Patching
2005), the data demonstrated that journalists have agency within the
structure of the domain, that is, they exercise a degree of choice; they
have conditional agency and the domain provides the necessary set of
possibilities. To put this another way, the domain is ‘a space for pos-
sibles, that is as an ensemble of probable constraints which are the
condition and the counterpart of a set of possible uses’ (Bourdieu 1996,
p. 235).
This point is discussed in more detail in the following individual sec-
tion where it is further shown that the interaction between structure
and agency is inextricably linked. The knowledge of structures, rules,
procedures, conventions and so on supports journalists in their writ-
ing and while not every article produced will be considered a creative
94 Janet Fulton
product, it is possible for a journalist of any genre to utilize these same

structures as enabling factors.
Individual
In the system of print journalism, the individual is, of course, the jour-
nalist. Within the individual element, a journalist’s personal qualities
and background have an effect on their work as does their access to the
domain and field, what McIntyre succinctly calls ‘nature, nurture and
access’ (2008, p. 3). What the journalist brings to the system includes
variables such as talent, genetic predisposition, cognitive structures
and personality traits, which all contribute to a journalist’s unique but
shared view of the world as does family, education, social class and
cultural background. These are the individual structures a journalist
interacts with that help constitute them as a particular agent operating
within the system. A journalist uses these structures in their production,
along with the cultural (domain) and social (field) structures. Each of
these structures is inseparable in the production, or creative, process.
However, these structures are not deterministic; a journalist, as active
agent, takes action by interacting with those structures: ‘Newsworkers
also influence news production unconsciously because, like all humans,
the “lenses” of their personal histories and self-interest shape news’
(McManus 1994, p. 26). McManus’s comment goes some way to
explaining the inextricable link between agency and structure, namely,
a journalist, who possesses agency, actively interacts with the structures
of the system of journalism and contributes to change within those
structures. But to take McManus’s comment further, working within the
domain and with the field also means the individual is constantly trans-
forming themselves and the structures they engage and intersect with.
The respondents in this study had some similarities in their personal-
ity, home and family environment, education and life experiences, but
there were also a wide range of individual differences, thus providing
support for Csikszentmihalyi’s suggestion that a systemic explanation
is a more encompassing way to explain the complexity of creativity.
Individuals, with their idiosyncratic backgrounds and personal quali-
ties, are able to internalize the structures of the domain and the prefer-
ences of the field and employ these structures in their work.
An apt summary of the individual structures a journalist interacts
with to produce their work was provided by Hirst and Patching when
they wrote:
Each day, in the newsroom, or out on a job, every news worker car-
ries with them, as items in their ‘tool-kit’, a set of emotional and
intellectual attitudes towards sources, their audience, and the news

they report. This emotional and intellectual tool-kit has been gath-
ered since early childhood – it’s how they see the world, and will vary
from journalist to journalist depending on their family background,
their upbringing, their education, their friends, the area and environ-
ment in which they grew up, etc. (2005, p. 29)
This, of course, corresponds with Csikszentmihalyi’s description of the

individual element in the system but it is also another way of describing
Bourdieu’s use of the concept of habitus: ‘the result of a long process
of inculcation, beginning in early childhood, which becomes a “second
sense” or a second nature’ (Randall in Johnson 1993, p. 5).
Field
The field in the system of journalism includes, for example, editors,

deputy editors, media owners, chiefs-of-staff, other journalists, subedi-
tors, cadets, interns, trainees and students, and educators, as well as the
audience. As part of the interview process, respondents were specifically
asked about their interaction with the field with questions asking them
about several areas: how important work colleagues are; mentoring;
interaction with management; interaction with the audience; and train-
ing. But throughout the interviews, when questioned about the domain
and the individual, interviewees frequently referred to the field and
its effect, both positive and negative, providing support for the argu-
ment that each element of the systems model ‘affects the others and is
affected by them in turn’ (Csikszentmihalyi 1988, p. 329). Analysis of
the interviews and the data gathered during observation of the three
newsrooms in the study indicated how strongly the field and journalists
interact. Rather than seeing this as negative and constraining, as per a
predominantly Romantic view of creativity, it is important to consider
this structural interaction as also having positive effects. As Giddens
(1984) and Wolff (1993) both argued, structures can also be enabling:
the field can not only limit a journalist’s activity but it also provides the
impetus and support a print journalist needs to produce a creative text.
The journalists in this study noted a number of ways they interacted
with the field and how the field supported their writing. For these
journalists, the field is an ongoing source for stories. In addition, a
journalist’s work is edited by field members before publication. As well
as this, other journalists, themselves members of the field, are used for
feedback on the suitability of article ideas, language, phrasing and story
structure. Senior members of the field are mentors and teachers, and
96 Janet Fulton
there are formal training programmes in place via university education

and the workplace, all of which are used to socialize journalists into the
way the field works. Furthermore, while analysis of the data gathered
showed that journalists learn what their organization expects from
them through formal communication such as style guides, emails and
Internet and/or Intranet sites provided by the organization, they also
learn from the field through university education, cadetships, intern-
ships, watching colleagues, mentoring and day-to-day editing.
It is clear via the data analysis how important the field is in a print
journalist’s creative practices on the practical side of their work, such
as generating article ideas and editing, but also in providing support
via learning, collaboration and providing knowledge of the field; it is
as crucial for journalists to understand and navigate the social struc-
ture, the field, of journalism as it is to learn the rules, conventions,
techniques, guides and procedures, the cultural structures. However, in
print journalism, the importance of the social structure of the field is
sometimes overlooked unless it is to state how deterministic the field is
on a journalist’s agency (Henningham 1989, p. 27, Henningham 1990,
p. x, Machin and Niblock 2006, p. 162, McNair 1998, p. 61). Journalists
interviewed for this study, as well as the ones in the observed news-
rooms, are familiar with and use the structures of the field to enable
their creative process and also demonstrated that as the journalists
became more proficient in understanding these structures, they again
had the ability to ‘do without thinking’. In a similar fashion to both
the domain and individual sections, journalists internalize the knowl-
edge they need to work efficiently, in this instance the preferences of
the field, which then becomes part of their tacit knowledge or habitus.
Conclusion
Print journalists produce their work within a dynamic system of cultural,

individual and social influences. The interaction journalists have with
these influences, or structures, as part of the system of print journal-
ism, and the knowledge they have of these structures, is crucial to how
they take part in producing, or creating, the texts of print journalism.
Contrary to popular myths of individuals being at the centre of creativity,
a perspective that can be described as a Ptolemaic view (Csikszentmihalyi
1988, p. 336), this research demonstrated that the more Copernican view
(Csikszentmihalyi 1988, p. 336), where social and cultural influences are
just as important as the individual in the production of creative texts,
is more apt. What was also demonstrated is that journalism is a creative
activity in the same way as such writing genres as poetry and fiction
writing are. Rather than differentiating between different forms of writ-
ing as high and low culture, or creative and non-creative, as a Romantic
view appears to do, it is more productive to recognize that all forms of
writing engage with structures and it is in the way an individual uses
agency, their ability to make choices, and interacts with those structures
that leads to creative media texts. Print journalism is a system of produc-
tion with a wide range of practices and practitioners but, even in the
microcosm of the field of print journalism in this study, the researcher
was able to find common themes that related to the practice of print
journalism and these journalists’ creative process.
This ethnographic research demonstrated that a journalist’s interac-
tion with the structures of journalism is a vital component for a creative
outcome. But, more crucially, the analysis provided that agency and
structure are inextricably linked. While it can be shown that journalists
work within a myriad of structures, it cannot be said that a journalist
has no opportunity to make choices within those structures, that is, a
journalist has agency. This conditional agency, where a journalist works
and is enabled in making choices within this known set of structures, is
crucial to understanding how a print journalist produces creative texts.
A journalist, as a necessary part of the interactions of the system of crea-
tivity, learns the rules, conventions, techniques, guides and procedures
of the domain as well as the requirements of the field and is supported by
the domain and the field thus enabling the production of creative texts.
These requirements and structures not only constrain a journalist but
are vital in helping them to be more productive in their creative process.
The evidence from this ethnographic research shows that, in line
with the systems model of creativity, the domain, the field and the
individual are inextricably linked and the interactions of each are non-
linear. All are necessary for a creative outcome. The individual learns the
rules and procedures of the domain and uses these to produce an article.
The article is presented to members of the field for verification that it is
novel and appropriate for inclusion into the domain of knowledge: the
systems model in action.
Acknowledgements
Some of this material has been reproduced from the following:
Fulton, J. and McIntyre, P. (2014) ‘Futures of Communication: Communication
Studies~Creativity’, Review of Communication, 13(4), 269–89 (with permission
from Taylor and Francis).
98 Janet Fulton
The following works are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share
Alike 2.5 Australian License.
Fulton, J. (2011) ‘Print Journalism and the Creative Process: Examining the
Fulton, J. (2013) ‘The Evolution of Journalism’, in T. Lee, K. Trees and R. Desai
(eds) Refereed Proceedings of the Australian and New Zealand Communication
Association Conference: Global Networks–Global Divides: Bridging New and
Traditional Communication Challenges, Fremantle, WA, ISSN 1448-4331.
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8
The Practice of Freelance Print
Journalism
Sarah Coffee
This research, as conducted from within the rational tradition, begins

with the premise that creativity is a process that can be understood and
that, despite enduring romantic and inspirationist claims to the con-
trary, to do so is not to damage but to facilitate it (Boden 2004, McIntyre
2012, Negus and Pickering 2004, Pope 2005, Runco and Pritzker 1999,
Sawyer 2006, Sternberg 2006). Using the methodology of Practice Based
Enquiry (PBE) (McIntyre 2006, p. 4, Murray and Lawrence 2000, p. 10)
to explore the nature of creativity as a system in operation, I engaged
in the practice of freelance print journalism to produce a series of 20
feature articles on other creative practitioners titled Profiling Creativity.
Each of these articles focused on an individual creative practitioner
and their experience of creativity, and these practitioners were drawn
from a range of areas of practice – those traditionally associated with
creativity such as music and art, and those that are not such as maths
and science – as a demonstration of the diversity of creative activity
(McIntyre 2012, Sawyer 2006). Engaging in the practice of freelance
print journalism in this way provided me with two sources for explor-
ing creativity: the accounts of the 20 practitioners interviewed for the
profiles, and my own experience of the creative process in writing the
series. I also kept a research journal, in keeping with the requirements
of PBE, which documented this process and provided evidence for
my practice, allowing me to compare my experience with that of the
practitioners interviewed for the profiles and to apply the literature on
creativity to this collected material.
For the purposes of this research creativity is defined as:
A productive activity whereby objects, processes and ideas are gener-

ated from antecedent conditions through the agency of someone,
100
The Practice of Freelance Print Journalism 101
whose knowledge to do so comes from somewhere and the resultant

novel variation is seen as a valued addition to the store of knowledge
in at least one social setting. (McIntyre 2008, p. 1)
Primarily, this research explored the nature of creativity as the prod-

uct of a system, emerging from the interaction of the individual,
culture and society – as reflected in McIntyre’s definition – using
Csikszentmihalyi’s systems model of creativity (1988, 1997a, 1999) and
its three components – domain, field and individual – as the primary
framework for this investigation.
Domain
The domain, as a necessary but not sufficient component of the system

of creativity in operation, is the cultural component of this model. It
encompasses all of the works in a particular arena of cultural production
and all the knowledge embedded in them, as well as the conventions,
symbols and procedures through which these works are made. This idea
is supported by the complementary concept of what is called the field
of works, or more correctly the space of works (Bourdieu 1993), which
is similarly described as ‘the accumulated cultural work completed up
to this time in a particular field’ (McIntyre 2012, p. 75).
Creativity is said to occur ‘when a person makes a change to a
domain’ (Csikszentmihalyi 1999, p. 315). However, in order to make
such a change, one must first acquire sufficient knowledge of that
domain. In examining my practice and that of the cultural producers
interviewed for the profiles, I found that domain acquisition was neces-
sary at a number of identifiable levels: firstly, at the level of the particu-
lar creative practice one is engaged in.
In terms of my research, this practice-level domain acquisition included
all the knowledge necessary for me to participate in freelance journalism –
knowledge that was necessary regardless of the specific nature or content
of the project. For example, in addition to general exposure to the media,
I gained the foundations of my knowledge of the domain of journalism
during my tertiary studies. This was made most clear to me when teach-
ing the subjects I had studied. As I wrote in my journal:
Although I’m by no means perfect now, there is so much of this stuff,

e.g. knowing to use clean simple sentences, that I completely take for
granted now ... Now it is obvious to me that there really has been a
significant process of learning. (Coffee, Journal, 7 March 2012)
102 Sarah Coffee
No matter what the practice, all of the individuals interviewed for

Profiling Creativity identified significant sources of engagement with
their chosen domain that provided them with the knowledge to par-
ticipate in their chosen practice. For the majority, this involved some
kind of formal training, but was most often an ongoing process of
acquiring knowledge of their practice from a variety of sources. For
example, musician Clare Bowditch attributed her knowledge to a mix
of childhood piano lessons, occasional master classes and, in her own
words, ‘teaching myself the rest of the time’ (Interview, 21 September
2010). Overall, how an individual gains the knowledge of a domain is
irrelevant. What is important is that this domain acquisition occurs.
The importance of domain acquisition is also evident at a project-
specific level. Profiling Creativity was a series of profiles on individual
creative producers from a range of industries that explored individual
accounts of creative practice in the context of current literature on
creativity. As such, in addition to an understanding of the codes and
conventions of journalism, completing the project also required an
understanding of current creativity theory, 20 individual categories of
creative practice and of the background of each of the individuals pro-
filed within these categories. In a demonstration of the significance of
domain knowledge, I found it much easier to write about scholarly crea-
tivity research – having completed previous courses, research projects
and teaching on this subject – than about the individual creative pro-
ducers and their professions. As such, I was required to identify the gaps
in my knowledge and set about filling those gaps. Similarly, playwright
Lally Katz, director Brendan O’Connell, musician Clare Bowditch and
writer Benjamin Law said they dealt with difficulties in their practice
by asking questions of themselves and of their work. Graphic designer
Heath Killen, visual effects artist Miles Green, composer Kim Baston
and architect John Bilmon stressed the importance of returning to the
project brief, a short description of what the client requires. What these
strategies have in common is a search for information, for knowledge.
As I noted in my journal, ‘Information is the key’ (Coffee, Journal,
31 May 2011). That is, the completion of a creative artefact, and the
ease with which this production occurs, relies on the acquisition of the
domain knowledge specific to that project.
In addition to the importance of the domain at the levels of project
and practice, I also identified the role of my own accumulated work as a
domain in itself. This specific domain consists of a certain set of works,
my own works, that share commonalities in structure, rules, codes and
conventions. By examining these works and the characteristics of my
own writing, I was able to identify and emulate the characteristics of
my best work and to avoid those of my worst. For example, in reflecting

upon the articles I had written as part of previous research, as well as the
drafts of articles for Profiling Creativity as they accumulated, I made the
decision to approach the articles ‘with a more serious tone and [make
the profiles] even further embedded/intertwined with the research’
(Coffee, Journal, 26 May 2010).
Also included within my individual domain was a store of ideas that
I built during the project and could draw from throughout the process,
for example ideas for themes for the profiles and introductions. This
behaviour was also reflected in the participants’ accounts of their expe-
rience of the creative process. For example, Clare Bowditch spoke of
finding a place for a specific image she wanted to use in a song:
I wrote a couple of songs the other day where I finally worked out
where to put the image I had, which is just a blue dress twirling
round the room. (Interview, 21 September 2010)
In this way, individuals continuously refer to the store of their own

work and knowledge in order to be creative. Certainly, that knowledge
is gathered and curated from the combination of broader cultural tradi-
tions and symbol systems, that is, larger domains, yet as it comes to be
distilled, combined and represented by the individual it forms a domain
unique to that individual.
This idea of selecting and distilling information, and the impact of
making choices within the guidelines of a domain, is a reflection of the
significance of structure to the creative process. Rather than being a
force that quashes creativity, structures enable creative action to occur
as ‘all action, including creative or innovative action, arises in the com-
plex conjunction of numerous structural determinants and conditions.
Any concept of creativity which denies this is metaphysical and cannot
be sustained’ (Wolff 1981, p. 9). This was reflected in my own practice in
my adherence to established conventions and also in instating my own.
I was confined to the conventions of the language I write in, that is,
English. I also had to adhere to the codes of print journalism, as well as
feature-article and character-profile style. Yet it was this adherence that
allowed my work to be read and understood. Freelance writer Benjamin
Law described his own experience of the importance of understanding
the conventions of the domain you are working in, saying:
All writing has different techniques that you need to adhere to,
to ensure that it’s a good piece of writing – it has structure, narra-
tive, tone, humour, dialogue, exposition, has research, and you do
104 Sarah Coffee
need all of those things to ensure that it’s a good piece of writing.
Whether all of those things are used effectively are basically criteria
on which you can judge whether it’s a really good read or just is a
piece of crap. (Interview, 9 August 2011)
In this same way, creative practitioners also establish and reproduce

their own codes, conventions and expectations. Each choice the agent
makes while engaged in the creative process establishes a new set of
rules that governs the subsequent development of their creative work.
In other words ‘parameters are good’, as composer Kim Baston said:
Otherwise it’s an abyss of nothingness really ... As you start narrow-

ing down the possibilities it becomes much easier to work within
them and every decision you make kind of fills in the abyss a little
bit. (Interview, 25 May 2010)
However, it is not only the creative practitioner’s own decisions about

the work that influence the creative process, but also those of the field –
the social component of the systems model.
Field
Just as individuals in the system must develop an understanding of their

chosen domain in order to participate in the creative process, they must
also acquire a thorough knowledge of the field they work in. In print
journalism this includes other journalists, editors, subeditors, media
owners and audiences, as well as PR practitioners (Fulton 2011a, Fulton
2011b). Although PR practitioners ‘do not have a direct influence on
what products are to be included in the domain’ they do have signifi-
cant influence on the way journalists seek, access and receive informa-
tion (Fulton 2011a, pp. 233–5). Although I began requesting interviews
by seeking out individual practitioners, as I became more aware of the
central role of publicists, agents, managers and personal assistants,
I eventually progressed to directly emailing companies and agencies.
The advantage of this was that these organizations had direct access to
numerous practitioners from each field and through them so did I. In
this way, these intermediaries had significant control over the eventual
shape of my creative work; in determining who, if anybody, I was put
in contact with they directly influenced the content of the articles.
Understanding the requirements of the field was also particularly impor-
tant when submitting my work for publication. I had to ensure that
I knew which members of the field to send it to and what format they
required it in. I altered my submission process to reflect preferred formats
and methods, for example sending pitches rather than entire articles, and
found I was more likely to receive a positive response with this approach.
In addition to influencing the creative process in terms of its require-
ments, the field’s role also extends to collaborative relationships, feedback
and the provision of advice. The advice I received from the field – including
academic colleagues, journalists and the practitioners I interviewed – was
crucial to the formation and consolidation of the overall tone and shape
of the profile series, the content of individual profiles and also the devel-
opment of my working process. For example, I decided to act upon the
advice I had received from many more experienced writers to begin each
profile by writing as much as I could and to edit later. Testing out and
accepting this advice rapidly improved my productivity, and highlighted
for me the importance of acknowledging the value of the experience and
expertise of the members of the field, and of maintaining these relation-
ships. As musician Claire Bowditch said of her experience:
I don’t know any person who is, one: creative in their field; and two:
successful in it without being part of a much broader community ...
You don’t just create a vision in and of yourself. (Interview,
21 September 2010)
In this way, ‘[a]ll artistic work, like all human activity, involves the joint
activity of a number, often a large number, of people’ (Becker 1982,
p. 1). This statement can also be amended to encompass all creative
work. Part of understanding the nature of creativity is recognizing that
an individual is not somehow separate from their society, just as they
are not separate from the influences of culture.
This is also true in terms of the field’s role and capacity to make
judgements about creative products and creative practitioners. This
recognition can take the form of awards and prizes, which can provide
both disposable wealth and disposable attention necessary for creativity
(Csikszentmihalyi 1988, p. 331). For example, I received a scholarship
that allowed me to work on the project without having to find addi-
tional full-time employment. Similarly, artist Sam Leach said receiving
a major award facilitated his development as an artist:
[It] was enough for me to stop doing any other work and just be in
the studio full-time for a year ... I progressed far more in that single
year than I had in any year previously. (Interview, 10 June 2010)
106 Sarah Coffee
This type of recognition also constitutes symbolic capital in that an

award constitutes a recognizable indicator of an individual’s place
within the field and their status as creative (Bourdieu 1993). For exam-
ple, although modest about his own status as a Member of the Order
of Australia, Artistic Director of the Australian Ballet David McAllister
said, ‘I’m always impressed when I see people that have wood on their
lapel and I think, “Obviously they’ve done something important”’
(Interview, 29 April 2010). The effect of this recognition is also evident
even in the way Profiling Creativity was put together. I sought only to
interview creative practitioners who had been recognized as creative
by their field, if not in the form of a formal award then in some other
identifiable way, such as in the act of publication, and ‘I always begin
profiles by including the awards a person has received or work they
have done ... Demonstrating that they are creative’ (Coffee, Journal,
1 November 2011).
However, the field is not only instrumental in letting others know
that an individual’s work is creative; it is also responsible for letting that
practitioner know. I regularly sought feedback, criticism and encour-
agement from members of the field as I felt unequipped to adequately
judge my own work. The practitioners interviewed for the profiles also
spoke of the importance of such social recognition as a way of allevi-
ating self-doubt and gauging the quality of their work. For example,
Rowena Foong said she and her sisters entered competitions to work
out ‘whether we were actually making anything that was of a standard’
(Interview, 3 June 2010).
Yet while favourable judgement from the field has the power to shape
an individual’s reputation in a way that can expand access to oppor-
tunities and resources, rejection by the field can limit this scope, or at
least alter the boundaries a practitioner’s work is carried out within. If
an individual cannot convince the field that his or her contribution
is valuable, their work will not be recognized as creative. As graphic
designer Heath Killen said when discussing the importance of maintain-
ing relationships with clients, ‘If they don’t like you they don’t pay you
and your work doesn’t get made or seen’ (Interview, 20 October 2010).
This was made patently clear in my own experience. In the comple-
tion and pitching of Profiling Creativity, I failed to appropriately adhere
to the expectations and conventions of engagement with the field, and
therefore my articles were not published outside the research project.
I wrote the articles without a specific publication in mind and then
attempted to find one that would suit after they had been completed.
As such, while I did give thought to external audiences for the series,
I did not apply this in a necessary targeted way to the writing of the
profiles. Instead, I constructed the articles with a more general consid-
eration of what I assumed was interesting, but what I now realize was
largely what I found interesting, rather than researching and writing in
a specific way for a specific potential publication or readership. In this
way audiences – which are a necessary component of the field – ‘have
an influence on the creative process, even if the creator is alone in a
room in the woods’ and this is still true in my case, except that the pri-
mary audience I was considering was me (Sawyer 2006, p. 128). While
disappointing, in light of knowledge of the operation of the system that
produces creativity, it is not a surprising outcome. Instead, it only serves
to emphasize the necessity of all three components of the system to the
creative process.
Individual
When examining the role of the individual in the system, it is particu-

larly interesting to trace the paths people have taken and to identify the
influences and encounters that have shaped their creative practice and
choices made within it, keeping in mind that ‘having the right back-
ground is indispensable but certainly not sufficient for a person to make
a creative contribution’ (Csikszentmihalyi 1997a, p.1). In examining
my own creative practice, I was able to identify certain characteristics
of my work and working process that were related to past experiences
and influences. For example, an emphasis on reading and writing as a
child, encouragement from teachers, and a specific university subject in
which I first encountered theories about creativity.
Similarly, in the diversity of practices of the cultural producers inter-
viewed for Profiling Creativity, each creative practitioner was able to iden-
tify specific incidents, individuals and opportunities that played a role
in shaping their idiosyncratic paths. Benjamin Law (Interview, 9 August
2011) said reading and writing formed a significant part of his child-
hood, architect John Bilmon (Interview, 28 March 2011) attributed his
love of architecture to a fascination with the two water tanks near his
childhood home and Heath Killen identified the particular influence of
his nanny, not only on the development of his practice but also directly
in the work he makes now. Killen said:
We used to do collage together, so it’s kind of like I’ve been doing the
sort of illustration work I do now for 30 years because I used to do it
with her. (Interview, 20 October 2010)
108 Sarah Coffee
In addition to the influences in an individual’s background that may

not necessarily be conscious steps towards a particular practice, creativ-
ity does also require dedicated work. In my case, my research journal
serves as a record of the steps taken and work required to produce a crea-
tive artefact. The dominant message from the practitioners was also that
hard work and commitment are central to their experience of the crea-
tive process. Artistic Director of the Australian Ballet David McAllister
spoke about his role in ensuring that the dancers in the company work
to make the most of their ability:
If you just have natural ability and no application and you don’t
work to the maximum of your ability, you never achieve what you
can ... I think the art of performance and the art of making some-
thing happens through really 90% extremely gritty, hard and deter-
mined work. (Interview, 29 April 2010)
When asked about the relationship between ‘hard work’ and creativ-
ity, the only two practitioners to question its role were musician Claire
Bowditch and public health researcher Paul Bolton. Bowditch’s definition
of creativity most closely resembles what is referred to as the moment
of illumination within the creative process (Wallas 1926, Wallas 1970),
which she said she believes should be ‘effortless’, and it is explained as
such in the literature (Interview, 21 September 2010). However, she did
also assert that hard work is essential for ‘creative careers’ and spoke of
the work involved in learning to be a musician, tasks that are encom-
passed by current scholarly definitions of creativity and the definition
used in this research. Bolton, on the other hand, did not dispute the fact
that creativity involves deliberate labour; however, he did disagree with
the specific use of the word ‘hard’ and the implications of ‘something
unpleasant’ (Interview, 19 October 2010). Instead, in describing his
motivation he said, ‘it’s honestly the fun’ (Interview, 19 October 2010).
Paul Bolton here is talking specifically about the influence of intrinsic
motivation – or participation in a task for its own enjoyment (Amabile
and Tighe 1993). For me, it was a combination of extrinsic motivation
(in the form of deadlines, feedback from others) and intrinsic motiva-
tion that influenced the creation of Profiling Creativity. Often, engaging
in the creative process because of extrinsic factors would give way to the
intrinsic. Playwright Lally Katz explains this process by likening creativ-
ity to going into outer space:
Leaving the atmosphere’s really hard but then once you’re in space
it’s kind of easier ... It’s almost kind of just tying yourself to the mast
or something, or forcing yourself out of the world. And then once

you’re there it’s great. Once I’m in there there’s nowhere I’d rather
be. (Interview, 30 April 2010)
Experiences like this, of creativity as effortless activity once engaged

with, are that of a state referred to as flow or autotelic experience
(Csikszentmihalyi 1997a, Csikszentmihalyi 1997b). Among other con-
ditions, flow may be primarily explained as the result of the alignment
of an individual’s skills with the challenge of the creative activity
(Csikszentmihalyi 1997b, Negus and Pickering 2004, p. 20). It can
also be a powerful motivating factor, as individuals return to creative
activity for the experience and satisfaction of achievement that follows
(Csikszentmihalyi 1997b). I found that I was more likely to experience
flow towards the end of the creation of each article and more frequently
the more articles I wrote, aligning with the growth of my knowledge
within each profile and across the creation of the project. That is, my
skill level was rising to meet that of the challenge, and flow was the
result.
In addition to exploring the reasons individuals engage in the creative
process, the creation of Profiling Creativity also gave me an insight into
how I work and how I work best, including the importance of defining
parameters for myself. For many of the practitioners interviewed for
the profiles, this took the form of self-imposed rules or guidelines. Jon
Borwein said, ‘There are as many rules for as many people but I do think
that a certain level of routine is enormously important’ (Interview,
1 April 2010). My routine became increasingly tightly structured
throughout the process, particularly in terms of time management, and
my productivity increased as a result. In imposing these parameters, I
also found it important to establish a designated working environment
for myself. I wrote:
Finally sorted out the study ... Having a designated workspace I feel
so much more focused and comfortable and the days pass very
quickly while I’m working. (Coffee, Journal, 27 June 2010)
Similarly, Rowena Foong spoke about the effect of moving from a space
she didn’t enjoy working in to a more pleasant environment:
Now we’ve moved into a new place – there’s windows, there’s light –
and just like a few months ago when we were cutting the samples,
two months ago, we just had the music on and were just working
away and I was going ‘Wow I haven’t felt like this in ages.’ It was
110 Sarah Coffee
just so easy and felt nice and light ... I think that actually helps you,
with the optimum place, space, to work in. (Interview, 3 June 2010)
In speaking about their individual experience of the creative process,

practitioners are not always able to articulate the reasoning behind
decisions they make or actions carried out. Indeed, over time, much of
the knowledge and many of the skills involved in creative activity can
become so entrenched that individuals may feel as if they are things
they have always known. In order to explain this, it is useful to examine
the notion of habitus in the discussion of cultural production. Habitus
is described as:
Principles of the structuring of practices and representations which

can be objectively ‘regulated’ and ‘regular’ without in any way being
the product of obedience to rules, objectively adapted to their goals
without presupposing a conscious aiming at ends. (Bourdieu 1977,
p. 72)
In other words, ‘We are disposed towards certain attitudes, values or

ways of behaving because of the influence exerted by our cultural trajec-
tories’ (Webb et al. 2002, p. 38). In the record of my journal I was able
to take note of habits and explore the possible origins of these, and also
track the development of my habitus as it developed. For example, even
something as specific as a habit of reading work out loud and an overuse
of commas (as indicators of pauses when spoken) could be seen as the
product of my background in performance. Similarly, the decrease in
frequency of noted errors (such as an overuse of commas) over the life
of the project can be seen to indicate the absorption of this knowledge
into my habitus. I was either making these errors less, or no longer had
to consciously think about identifying and correcting these problems.
Artist Sam Leech spoke in a similar way about fixing problems in his
paintings:
Basically I find that what I need to do sort of suggests itself to me,

and what it actually feels like is that I actually always knew what
I wanted to do but I was reluctant to do it because it means more
work ... So I’ve just got to crack on really. (Interview, 10 June 2010)
My habitus reflects both knowledge of the domain of journalism and

the requirements of the journalistic field, as well as my interaction with
various other fields and domains such as the scholarly rational study
of creativity. This habitus predisposes me to act in very specific ways

and the shape of Profiling Creativity reflects this. In this way, an under-
standing of my creative practice only makes sense in relation to the
culture and society in which that practice is situated.
This is the case for all creative practice – it is only in examining all
three components of the system in operation that the creative process
can be understood. Creativity occurs through the ongoing interaction
of a domain in which works can be understood and preserved, a field
that determines which works are appropriate for the domain, and an
individual who, with an understanding of their place within the sys-
tem, commits to the work needed to produce products and ideas. This
was validated by my own experience of the practice of freelance print
journalism, and applies at the level of my decision to engage in journal-
ism, the nature of Profiling Creativity itself, and at the level of individual
decision-making within the project. However, the implications of the
research do not only apply to freelance journalism, feature writing or
my individual project. The similarities in my own experiences and the
experiences of the cultural producers interviewed for the articles that
comprised Profiling Creativity indicate that, no matter how ostensibly
different creative activities may appear, this activity and the resulting
products and ideas are all governed by and emerge from the operation
of the same system.
References
Amabile, T. M. and Tighe, E. (1993) ‘Questions of Creativity’, in J. Brockman (ed.)
Creativity: The Reality Club 4 (New York: Simon & Schuster), pp. 7–28.
Becker, H. (1982) Art Worlds (Berkeley: University of California Press).
Boden, M. (2004) The Creative Mind: Myths and Mechanisms (London: Routledge).
Bourdieu, P. (1993) The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature
(New York: Columbia University Press).
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1988) ‘Society, Culture, and Person: A Systems View of
Press), pp. 325–38.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997a) Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997b) Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with
Everyday Life (New York: Basic Books).
Fulton, J. (2011a) ‘Making the News: Print Journalism and the Creative Process’,
PhD thesis (University of Newcastle, Australia).
112 Sarah Coffee
Fulton, J. (2011b) ‘Print Journalism and the Creative Process: Examining the
McIntyre, P. (2006) Creative Practice as Research: ‘Testing Out’ the Systems Model of
Creativity Through Practitioner Based Enquiry, www.speculation2005.net.
(New York: Palgrave Macmillan).
Murray, L. and Lawrence, B. (2000) Practitioner-Based Enquiry: Principles for
Postgraduate Research (London: Falmer Press).
(London: Sage).
Runco, M. and Pritzker, S. (1999) Encyclopaedia of Creativity (San Diego: Academic
Press).
Sawyer, R. K. (2006) Explaining Creativity: The Science of Creativity (Oxford
University Press).
Sternberg, R. (2006) ‘Introduction’, in J. C. Kaufman and R. Sternberg (eds) The
International Handbook of Creativity (Cambridge University Press), pp. 1–9.
Wallas, G. (1926) The Art of Thought (London: Cape).
Wallas, G. (1970) ‘The Art of Thought’, in P. E. Vernon (ed.) Creativity
(Harmondsworth: Penguin Education), pp. 69–73.
Webb, J., Schirato, T. and Danaher, G. (2002) Understanding Bourdieu (Sydney:
Allen & Unwin).
9
The Dynamic System of Fiction
Writing
Elizabeth Paton
The writers interviewed for this research on creativity in Australian

fiction writing all tell different stories: literary fiction, young adult,
romance, science fiction, crime, fantasy, children’s books. The ways
in which these writers tell their stories is also varied: unusual narra-
tors, integrating multimedia, a pared-back writing style, revelling in
the complexity of language. These differences can also be seen in their
audiences and formats, ranging from picture books for those who are
learning to read to large print books for those who have been reading
for more years than they can remember. Some works are published as
stand-alone novels; others have been published as a series of intercon-
nected works.
What these differences show is that writers and fiction works are
diverse. Each individual writer brings their own unique combination of
traits, experiences and skills to their work and engagement with fellow
writers, the publishing industry, agents and readers. As such, each work
bears the stamp of the writer’s individuality as well as the effects of the
writer’s unique interactions and contestations within a variety of social
and cultural contexts. This explains how writers with the same pub-
lisher or agent may focus on different genres, writers of the same genre
may focus on different audiences or even how writers working with the
same publisher, genre and audience can still produce different stories.
Despite these differences, there are similarities to be found in the story
of how Australian novels are created. Throughout this research, patterns
emerged in the complex interactions each individual writer undertakes
with the social and cultural framework in which they write. These pat-
terns are explained within the framework of Csikszentmihalyi’s systems
model (1988, 1994, 1997a, 1999), which provides a more meaningful
approach to understanding how individual, social and cultural elements
113
114 Elizabeth Paton
interact to produce fiction books. Taking the example of Nobel laureate

Patrick White, for instance, we can see the influence of individual fac-
tors in how he was drawn to books and writing as a child because of
his home environment and poor health. We see the influence of the
domain in his education, studying French and German literature at
King’s College in Cambridge, and in his practice and eventual mastery
of the domain, writing plays and poetry and publishing a book he called
derivative and inconsiderable before finding critical success with works
such as The Tree of Man and Voss. We can see the influence of the field
with his first book published because a magazine editor recommended
his manuscript to a publishing company but he almost gave up writing
after being panned by critics (White 1993). This chapter explores this
complex creative system in action and then looks in more depth at the
influence of the domain, individual and field components.
How this research was conducted
Over the course of three years, I interviewed 40 Australian fiction writ-

ers and six writing industry professionals, attended writers’ festivals
and over 30 readings, lectures and panels, surveyed coverage of fiction
in national and state-based newspapers, collected or viewed artefacts of
analysis such as secondary interview material, process journals, draft
manuscripts, how-to manuals and personal websites, and accumulated a
small collection of Australian fiction works by those writers interviewed
and others.
Overall, the interview transcripts and other source material formed
a rich pool of data about fiction writers and the way they work as well
as an interesting look behind the scenes of some of Australia’s writing
institutions. When examined through the lens of Csikszentmihalyi’s
theory of creativity, this data began to yield answers to some of the fun-
damental questions that had yet to be explored in the context of fiction
writing: why writers write; how they learn to write; what processes they
use; what influence the publishing industry has on a writer’s work; and,
who or what else affects fiction writing.
The system of fiction writing
What this body of research shows is that writers write books because
they love it and cannot think of anything else they would rather do.
For most of the writers in this study, this love of writing stems from an
early engagement with storytelling, reading and writing, mediated and
The Dynamic System of Fiction Writing 115
encouraged by their parents, relatives and teachers. For several others,

this love affair started later in life, after an engagement with a specific
set of books. Whenever or however this desire to write was acquired,
this deeply rooted love often draws them back to the keyboard or the
notebook and keeps them there, sustaining them during the writing
process even when it is difficult. This appeared to conform to early
research and common beliefs about personal motivation and creativity
(see, for example, Amabile 1983).
The pleasure they derive from these experiences, however, is not the
only motivation these writers feel to keep writing. Many writers suggest
outside factors also motivate them to write. These extrinsic, rather than
intrinsic, motivators include positive feedback from publishers or fans,
rewards such as royalties or prizes, or even simple deadlines. These out-
side factors contribute to their overall love of writing, deepening their
enjoyment of the writing process and the personal satisfaction they feel
from being published, sold and read.
Writers learn to write through further engagement with books as
well as formal and informal training with the symbol system and field
of fiction writing. Overwhelmingly, the writers in this study believed
reading was one of the most important tools for learning how to write.
Reading the works of those who had already mastered the domain of
writing could not only familiarize them with what has come before but
also help to develop their own ideas about style, technique, character,
rhythm and genre conventions and their own feel for what ‘works’ and
what doesn’t. In some cases, they were able to learn these elements of
writing more directly from mentors and peers or in creative writing
courses and workshops. Writers also learn and then master the skills
and knowledge necessary for writing through their continued writing
practice, constantly developing their skills and knowledge even after
publication. For many, the act of publication itself as well as communi-
cation of their works to the reader makes them better writers, the feed-
back they receive from editors or readers often alerting them to aspects
of their writing that function well and those that can be improved in
future projects.
The process used in their writing projects is composed of a number
of phases including idea generation, research, development, drafting
and editing. In terms of the overall writing process, these phases do not
always proceed consecutively but may occur out of sequence, overlap
or even happen concurrently. In many cases, the process is an itera-
tive one, with a final draft manuscript the product of multiple cycles
through these phases prior to submission for publication.
116 Elizabeth Paton
During idea generation, writers gather and process information from

direct observation and experience, secondary sources such as newspa-
pers or books and interaction with publishers, agents and readers. Using
their current knowledge and experience with writing, the writers either
consciously or subconsciously evaluate this information to determine
what can be used as or in a story. During the research and development
phases, writers evaluate further, gaining a familiarity with ideas and
how they can be used in the story. During drafting, the accumulated
knowledge, skills and preliminary ideas are deployed as writers craft
their story. Familiarity with writing techniques and specific content
often allows writers to work intuitively, some functioning in a subcon-
scious or uncontrolled state, but always backed by conscious evaluation
of what they have written. During the editing phase, writers supple-
ment their own evaluation with that of others, using the judgement of
friends, family or fellow writers to rewrite subsequent drafts.
As the primary framework for publication, the publishing industry
has its own effects. Not only does it control the physical design, layout
and printing processes of production but its editorial touch can be felt
on nearly every page of a manuscript, affecting not just the current
work but also the writers themselves, their careers and their future pro-
jects. During the writing process, the spectre of the publishing industry
can loom large: deadlines add pressure to deliver a finished manuscript;
editors and publishers can influence directly with ideas or feedback on
the developing draft or indirectly as the people who control the stand-
ard of judgement a writer must work to meet.
After the draft manuscript has been delivered, editors can further
shape elements of the story such as structure, plot, characters, point of
view or language. As well as these functions, the publishing industry
also acts as a network of support that can take chances on a new work
by an unknown writer, pay advances and royalties, contract further
manuscripts, promote works to boost book sales and sponsor competi-
tions, workshops and other writing-related events to encourage new
writers. Overall, the publishing industry is a critical site of judgement
for writers, often the primary determinant of what constitutes a creative
work in the domain of Australian fiction as well as which works may be
added to or alter the shape of creativity within that domain.
Agents, critics, fans and the government can also have a big effect on
writers, the way they work and whether their books are considered crea-
tive. Even though it does not seem logical that a work can be affected
after it has been produced and published, the interactions here can
affect reception of the work as well as future work and publication.
Just as editors and publishers are in some sense arbiters of creativity,

so too do agents increasingly present a site of judgement and selection
prior to a book’s publication. As well as dealing with contracts and pay-
ments, agents can shape a writer’s career and their work by evaluating
which manuscripts will work, what needs to be changed to increase
the chances of acceptance into the domain and which publishers to
send them to for further judgement. Post publication, critics can shape
a writer’s future work by giving criticism that challenges a writer to
improve and by limiting the flow of information to potential readers.
The readers themselves can influence writers and their work both
actively and passively. Writers, for instance, use their conceptions of
readers as a passive audience with shared preferences to shape their
work as they write. More directly, readers buy books, interpret works in
their own ways, give feedback and produce hybrid texts, all actions that
have the potential to affect fiction writing.
Governments and other institutions also have an influential role to
play by providing a support network of grants, competitions, employ-
ment, laws, schemes, schools, libraries, centres and festivals. This insti-
tutional support encourages individuals to write and helps to sustain
their careers once they have added a creative work to the domain of
Australian fiction writing.
In-depth studies
After undertaking research on the whole system, I conducted detailed

studies on elements of the domain, individual and field, looking in
more depth at the influence of system components at various stages of
the creative process while always keeping interaction with the broader
system in mind. The aim of these component studies was to illustrate
that if creativity is affected at multiple stages of creative production, it
is equally possible to foster creativity at various points in that process.
Domain – a writer’s education

Like other creative producers, writers are not born knowing every-
thing they need to know to write. This study (Paton 2013) specifically
explored how writers learn to write, and if there are any factors that
are necessary or sufficient to become a writer. What it highlighted
was that the writer’s ‘education’ is a complex and lengthy one, with
the learning process occurring both consciously and unconsciously in
childhood and adulthood. As infants, the writers were exposed to the
English language, absorbing not only its vocabulary but also its rules of
118 Elizabeth Paton
grammar and usage. For most, this was followed by an early exposure
to storytelling, reading and writing, developing an interest that was
generally facilitated or encouraged by the family. The writers acquired
both reading and writing skills in a school environment, developing
and formalizing the learning processes of early childhood. Opinion
was divided on the usefulness of a formal education in grammar and
literature studies but these classes can still be viewed as potential sites
of acquisition, depending on the curriculum, their own attitudes and
that of their teachers.
At a fundamental level, knowledge of the general writing domain
is essential in order to be creative within it. All of the writers in this
study received a solid grounding in English language and writing skills
in their childhood and schooling, internalizing these symbol systems
until they became seemingly ‘natural’ abilities. The skills and knowl-
edge beyond this acquisition, however, diverge in their levels of domain
specificity or generality with the writers taking many different paths
to creativity within the domain of Australian fiction writing. Of these
learning processes, almost all of the writers interviewed agreed that
reading is fundamental to acquiring domain knowledge and skills that
directly inform their work, while a large majority also undertook a con-
siderable amount of writing practice before publishing their first novels,
consolidating formal and informal processes of acquisition. The writer’s
education, however, does not stop there. As each new work changes the
shape or boundaries of the domain, they must continue to learn from a
variety of sources, including the field, if they wish to have future works
accepted as well.
Domain – media effects on creative producers

Unsurprisingly, many of the responses discussed in this study (Paton
2011) were categorized as relevant to the domain component, which
encompasses the symbol systems, cultural conventions and artefacts
of a particular area that an individual draws on to produce a creative
work. Within this category, three primary patterns or themes relating to
media and their influence were visible: developing an interest, learning
to write, and idea generation and research.
The influence of media texts on creativity can be seen in a number
of direct and indirect ways. For most of the writers in this study, their
interest in writing stemmed from an early engagement with writ-
ten texts. For several others, the love affair started later in life, after
an engagement with a specific set of books. Once their interest was
sparked, they learned to write through further engagement with books,
as well as through formal and informal training with the symbol system
of Australian fiction writing. Reading the works of those who had
already mastered the domain of writing not only familiarized them with
what has come before, but also helped to develop their own ideas about
style, technique, character, rhythm and genre conventions, as well as
their own feel for what ‘works’ and what doesn’t. In their own writing
process, the writers drew on this accumulated knowledge of the domain
and undertook additional engagement with a variety of media texts in
order to generate new ideas and test existing ones.
Individual – writer’s block and motivation

In this study I looked at writer’s block, a much discussed but seldom
investigated phenomenon described here as the loss of the ability to
continue writing for various lengths of time covering hours, weeks,
months or sometimes years rather than the withdrawal of the muse, the
dried-up well of inspiration or a crippling disease. Denying any mysti-
cal or medical origins for writer’s block, most of the writers in the study
disagreed it even existed as anything other than the manifestation of
negative self-perception, environmental factors or lack of preparation.
In this study, 38 per cent of the writers said they had experienced
some difficulty with their writing at one stage or another. While 15 of
the writers interviewed answered yes when asked if they had suffered
from writer’s block, 12 qualified their answer with the exact causes of
the problem, most commonly citing laziness stemming from boredom,
outside interruptions or lack of research. This high level of awareness
often allowed them to ‘cure’ their perceived writer’s block. In all but
one case, the writers wrote through the ‘block’ to produce a work that
then went on to publication. Although in this single case the impetus
to work on an individual project had waned, the deep intrinsic or ‘auto-
telic’ motivation for writing did not.
Assuming an absence of deeper neurological issues (Flaherty 2004),
it may be argued that a writer’s autotelic motivation or love of the
writing process for its own sake can sustain writers through mundane
activities, even acting as a motivation to continue writing when writer’s
block occurs. Seventy-three per cent of the responses to questions of
motivation in this study mentioned a love of the writing process itself
or a profound desire to tell stories. This rate rises to 97 per cent when
including any mention of pleasure derived from the activity of writ-
ing. As can be seen in the data collected in this study, writers with
autotelic motivation to pursue and sustain creative writing not only
cure or avoid difficulties such as writer’s block but also possess one of
120 Elizabeth Paton
the primary components of Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow (1997a,

1997b). Combined with clear goals, internal or external feedback, few
distractions and a balance of challenge and skill, autotelic motivation
can make experiencing the activity of writing its own reward.
Individual – when the book takes over

Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow (1997a, 1997b) was explored further
in this study to investigate the sense some writers experienced of being
‘taken over’ or ‘carried away’ during the writing process (Paton 2012b).
Here, a character in the story (metaphorically) taking over the writing
process reflects an individual writer’s deep understanding or knowl-
edge of the current project’s characters and content. Rather than the
complete immersion in an activity that balances an individual’s level
of skill with level of challenge described by Csikszentmihalyi (1990,
1997a) and experienced by the majority of the writers in this study,
flow may be altered here to describe the experience of the smaller group
of writers who experienced a more personal resonance with their char-
acters. Rather than an altered state of consciousness that encompasses
the whole activity of writing, it may be argued that by developing an
intense familiarity with character whether in idea generation, research,
development or the drafting process itself, a writer may experience an
intense experience of flow in this particular aspect alone.
An intense flow state may be reached during the drafting process after
the accumulation or development of content knowledge to such a level
that the writer can make decisions regarding story elements, such as
character, seemingly automatically. In this way, the writers’ deep famili-
arity with particular aspects of story content, including character, allows
them to experience the deep levels of concentration, the warped sense
of time and the lack of self-awareness or self-consciousness that charac-
terize a state of flow. By applying the idea of flow specifically to story
content, it becomes possible, for example, to account for the writers’
experience of characters that take over, hijack or guide the storyline in
unexpected ways without relying on more mystical descriptions of the
creative process or later models of creative thinking that focus largely
on unconscious processes during idea generation.
Field – the social system of creativity

In this study, I also explored influences of creativity after the draft
manuscript is written, when writers seek out publication and communi-
cation with an audience as the culmination of their work (Paton 2012a).
In general terms, this process involves a publishing house accepting the
draft manuscript, structural and surface editing, printing and criticism

and then the eventual sale and reading of the book by an audience
member. At each stage, individual actors and institutions other than
the writer make decisions that can affect the content, style, design and
reception of the work as well as the publication of future works and
the writer’s career. In line with both Csikszentmihalyi and Bourdieu’s
use of the term field (Csikszentmihalyi 1988, 1994, 1997a, Bourdieu
1977, 1993), publication and communication represent a network of
relationships an individual writer must negotiate before they may be
considered creative.
What this study showed is that the field is a significant part of the
creative process for Australian fiction writing specifically and creativity
more generally. A writer’s manuscript is assessed by publishers or com-
missioning editors on its publication and sales potential. Once their
work is accepted, writers engage with editors to improve the story or
text further before publication. Unless self-publishing, in which case
the audience takes on the bulk of the judgement role, all writers must
interact with publishing industry professionals if they want to be pub-
lished and have their fiction novels interact with a large reading public.
Without some form of engagement with the support and judgement of
the field, the writers in this study could not remain a part of the system
of fiction writing nor have their works considered creative.
Field – role of the reader

One of the key areas that this study explored was the multiple and
complex ways in which writers interact with readers (Paton 2009). At
different points of that interaction, readers can be seen to affect writers,
their work or their future careers. As such, the reader’s contribution to
creativity cannot be ignored. Not just active or ‘co-creative’ in terms
of making meaning, readers are also members of the field of fiction
writing who may contribute ideas to a story, change the way a writer
drafts a manuscript, or increase a writer’s chances for further writing
contracts. In a broader context, the field (which also includes agents,
editors, publishers, critics and funding bodies) can be seen as a feedback
mechanism, giving writers ideas or shaping their work; as an industry,
providing opportunities for publication; and as a gatekeeper, preventing
either stagnation or a flood of novelty in the domain of fiction writing.
Building on these three roles, the field can also be seen as a network
of support that enables the writing and publication of fiction works to
continue by encouraging the production of new works and ideas and
sustaining those who are already part of the creative system.
122 Elizabeth Paton
Conclusion
Throughout this research, we can see that the story of how fiction books
are created today and how they will be created in the future is both
rich and complex. It shows that every individual has their own distinct
combination of psychology, biology and biography, which gives them
the desire and ability to be creative and leads them to engage with
particular creative practices in unique ways. What the writers in this
study have in common, however, is that they have all succeeded at
producing creative works where many others have tried and failed. This
research shows that these writers’ success wasn’t entirely of their own
making. Few writers, for instance, were in a position to choose which
society they grew up in or the cultural artefacts they were exposed to as
children, who the experts were within their field of practice or whether
those experts or the general public would accept or value the work they
produced. Their success depended instead on a variety of social and
cultural factors over which they had very little control.
In providing evidence of social and cultural effects on the produc-
tion of fiction books, the studies collected here add to a growing body
of research that moves beyond individual or traditional notions of
creativity. While notions of creative individuals as the inspired artist or
the genius are still popular (see for example the overview of genius in
Epstein 2007; or Henry Miller’s ideas on the ‘celestial recording room’
in Miller and Moore 1939), they hinder attempts to investigate who
may be considered creative, how creativity occurs or how it may be
improved. To aid understanding, this research gives further evidence
for the systems model of creativity as a rational explanation of an indi-
vidual’s actions and decisions as well as the structural conditions that
both enable and constrain their participation and success in particular
creative activities. In this way, the systems model provides a compre-
hensive means of delineating and understanding processes that have
until recently been viewed as mystical or unexplainable.
By giving evidence of a rational explanation of creativity more gener-
ally, this research reveals more of the story of how fiction books are cre-
ated. Firstly, it tells us that they are not created out of nothing as some
notions of creativity would have us believe. Rather, they are products
generated by individuals who have made decisions and acted within
social and cultural structures that have provided them with the capabili-
ties, resources and opportunities to do so. Secondly, it tells us that while
the products that result from this process are original, they do not break
entirely from what has come before them. If they did not bear some
semblance to previous works, there would be no way to recognize them

as fiction books. Finally, it tells us that these books must be judged by
individuals and institutions other than their writers to be valuable vari-
ations on previous works, if they are to be considered creative. They are
only added to the cultural store of fiction writing once they have been
subject to various forms of social judgement. From these individual,
social and cultural factors, we can see evidence of a system at work in
Australian fiction writing where fiction books arise not just from what
an individual writes but from their multiple and complex interactions
with and within the social and cultural frameworks they inhabit.
Acknowledgements
Segments of this material have been previously published:
‘Domain – a writer’s education’ first appeared in ‘A Writer’s Education: Learning
and Mastering the Domain of Australian Fiction Writing’, in T. Lee (ed.) confer-
ence proceedings ANZCA 2013 Global Networks – Global Divides.
‘Domain – media effects on creative producers’ first appeared in ‘Communication
and Creativity: How Does Media Usage Influence Those Who Create Media
Texts?’, International Journal of Communication, 5.
‘Individual – writer’s block and motivation’ first appeared in ‘Writer’s Block
and Flow: Exploring Creative Motivation’, in P. Fitzsimmons (ed.) Creative
Engagement e-book.
‘Individual – when the book takes over’ first appeared in ‘“When the Book Takes
Over”: Creativity, the Writing Process and Flow in Australian Fiction Writing’,
The International Journal of Creativity and Problem Solving, 22(1).
‘Field – the social system of creativity’ first appeared in ‘The Social System of
Creativity: How Publishers and Editors Influence Writers and their Work’, The
International Journal of the Book, 9(3).
‘Field – role of the reader’ first appeared in ‘The Role of Readers in the Process
of Creating Australian Fiction: A Case Study for Rethinking the Way We
Understand and Foster Creativity’, The International Journal of the Book, 7(8).
References
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Bourdieu, P. (1993) Field of Cultural Production (New York: Columbia University
Press).
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990) Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (New York:
HarperCollins).
124 Elizabeth Paton

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and Problem Solving, 22(1), 61–76.
Paton, E. (2013) ‘A Writer’s Education: Learning and Mastering the Domain of
Australian Fiction Writing’, in T. Lee (ed.) conference proceedings ANZCA
2013 Global Networks – Global Divides, 3–5 July. www.anzca.net/conferences/
past-conferences/159.html.
Paton, E. (forthcoming) ‘Writer’s Block and Flow: Exploring Creative Motivation’,
in P. Fitzsimmons (ed.) Creative Engagement e-book, Oxford, ISBN 1-904710-44-1.
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1968–1980 (Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co). www.nobelprize.org/
nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1973/white-bio.html
10
Reconceptualizing Creative
Documentary Practices
Susan Kerrigan
Introduction: a creative documentary system
The systems perspective ‘views creativity not as the product of an iso-

lated individual’s aptitude or quirkiness, but as an interaction occurring
among a talented individual, a domain of knowledge or practice, and a
field of experts’ (Hooke et al. in Paulus and Nijstad 2003, p. 228) who
recognize the work as creative. This set of relationships:
points to the tensions that exist between the agency of the individual
and both the possible strictures placed upon them by the institutions
or structures that govern society and culture and the ground for
action afforded by them. (McIntyre 2012, p. 85)
These tensions, relationships and complexities are explored here

through my own practice-led documentary research. This practice-led
research applied empirical explanations of creativity to documentary,
giving a more nuanced meaning to the definition of documentary
as ‘the creative treatment of actuality’ (Grierson 1933, p. 8). Practical
examples from this creative practice research serve to illustrate how it is
possible to treat actuality creatively and to view creativity as systemic.
Such an approach has helped reconceptualize creativity so that creative
documentary practice can now be assessed:
from a collaborative film-maker’s perspective, where individuals

who form a film-crew can be recognized both individually and col-
lectively for their ability to draw on their previous knowledge and
skills and turn this into creative output. (Kerrigan and McIntyre
2010 p. 126)
125
126 Susan Kerrigan
This practice-led research generated a documentary released on DVD

called Using Fort Scratchley (2008a) which was re-purposed as an
online data-based documentary and renamed Fort Scratchley a Living
History (2008b). The documentary was commissioned by Newcastle
City Council (NCC) and funded jointly through micro-budgets by the
city’s council and the University of Newcastle (UON). Using oral his-
tory interviews, the documentaries retell historically significant stories
from the military, maritime, coal mining and indigenous usages of the
Fort Scratchley site that is situated at the mouth of the Hunter River in
Newcastle, Australia. It should be noted that even though this research
was specifically contextualized in the Fort Scratchley documentary
production context, this type of creative practice research could be
undertaken using any documentary subject matter and can be equally
applied as a framework for fiction filmmaking research (Kerrigan
and McIntyre 2010, p. 117). Furthermore, examples taken from my
documentary practice research illustrate the complexity of creative
documentary practice, revealing that it is simultaneously about practi-
tioners drawing on their intuitive and embodied knowledge while also
being engaged in a collaborative, social and cultural practice. In other
words, creativity is systemic.
The research evidence drawn from this project resulted in a visual
reorganization of Csikszentmihalyi’s systems model (1999) called,
‘revised systems model of creativity incorporating creative practice’
(Kerrigan 2013, p. 114). This visual reorganization more obviously
located creative practices at the point where each component in the sys-
tem intersected and was underpinned by Csikszentmihalyi’s proposition
that ‘[c]reativity is a process that can be observed only at the intersec-
tion where individuals, domains and fields interact’ (Csikszentmihalyi
1999, p. 314). Further redesigning work has led to ‘A Systems View of
Creative Practices’ being created.
This complete redesign (Figure 10.1) remains faithful to the origi-
nal research understanding that filmmakers engage in ‘a systemic
and iterative process which can be internalised by an agent who
is conditioned through creative practices’ (Kerrigan 2013, p. 124).
While it confirms Csikszentmihalyi’s original hypothesis, it is argued
here that it can also be aligned with other creativity theories, prin-
cipally the Group Creativity Model developed by Paulus and Nijstad
(2003) and a set of staged creative process theories (Bastick 1982,
Csikszentmihalyi 1996, Wallas 1976). What follows is an explanation
of these processes.
Reconceptualizing Creative Documentary Practices 127
Figure 10.1 ‘A Systems View of Creative Practices’ (Kerrigan 2015)
Developing the project
My Fort Scratchley creative practice began in 2004 when I was invited

to join a team of academics, historians and others working on a project
called ‘The Living History of Fort Scratchley’. I was approached to take
part by what I would come to know as members of the field, in this case
made up of NCC employees and the history academics who had selected
me to participate because of my idiosyncratic production background.
They wanted a filmmaker to document the $5.5 million refurbishment
of the Fort and my professional background in television production
was attractive. I worked at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
(ABC) making television programmes for 13 years, producing and
directing programmes including Play School, working on drama produc-
tions including Wildside, GP and Big Sky, and working as a Director’s
Assistant/Producer’s Assistant on more than 150 hours of studio-based,
live and pre-packaged television programmes. This experience allowed
128 Susan Kerrigan
me to exhibit generic competencies and skills from the domain of

filmmaking that were seen as being aligned with the project’s outcomes.
To put this in the language of creativity research such skills and com-
petencies included ‘familiarity with factual knowledge of the domain
in question: facts, principles, opinions about various questions in the
domain, knowledge of paradigms, performance “scripts” (Schank and
Abelson, 1977) for solving problems in the domain and aesthetic crite-
ria’ (Amabile 1983, p. 363).
Using this established domain knowledge of film and television
production, I was able to turn my initial attention to content research
about the Fort itself. Working through published materials on the Fort’s
history (Mort and Carey 1986), accessing military documents like the
Official War Diaries (Kerrigan 2011, p. 63) and uncovering a copy of a
radio documentary, War on our Doorstep (Ladlow 1972), all shed light on
the Fort’s most significant military engagement (exchanging fire with
a Japanese submarine in 1942). In addition to this document-based
research, I undertook a form of domain acquisition by visiting the
sandstone building and tunnels of the Fort. My site tour made me aware
of the pressure of creating a documentary that would need to compete
with the actual experience of the site (Kerrigan, Journal, 23 July 2004).
My domain acquisition at this point in the creative process directly
related to an understanding of the content of the documentary and was
done in collaboration with the history academics who were in the same
position as me, that is, located outside the domain and the field of Fort
Scratchley. An agent who wants to do well inside a new domain needs to
internalize domain knowledges and field opinions. Fortunately for me,
the success of most documentary projects rests on unrestricted access to
the documentary gatekeepers or members of the field, experts who have
acquired the power to legitimize certain works as being creative and to
deny that status to other works (Sawyer 2006, p. 123; Csikszentmihalyi
1988, p. 331). For this project, there were 16 different institutions and
professional bodies that provided the film crew and academic research
team with information about Fort Scratchley.
Looking at this process through the lens of the systems model, field
experts can be categorized through four social groupings (Sawyer 2006,
p. 54). Sawyer ranks these groups from the least knowledgeable group
of ‘public’ to ‘amateurs’ followed by ‘connoisseurs’ and ending with the
most knowledgeable field experts, located at the centre of the sphere
and generically named the ‘intermediaries’ (2006, p. 97). Understanding
these social groupings and how they worked helped me to better under-
stand who I needed to interact with as I continuously engaged in trying
to find ways to come up with novel approaches to the production of the

documentary films. For example, one set of intermediaries, the mem-
bers of the Fort Scratchley Historical Society, were located in Newcastle
and they were keen to give the research team complete access to the
Fort and to their library and photographic resources as well as providing
contact with people who had lived and worked at the Fort during its
military period. As part of the content research I also went to Canberra
to meet with military experts at the Australian War Memorial and the
Australian Navy Seapower Centre (Kerrigan 2011, p. 66). I wanted
their impressions of the military significance of Fort Scratchley’s 1942
engagement with the Japanese submarine and their comments on the
fact that it is the only coastal installation in Australia to have returned
fire on an enemy during wartime. This event was to be a significant
storytelling point in the documentary. However, neither of the field
experts in Canberra felt that Fort Scratchley had made a significant con-
tribution to the broader World War II history of the country. The two
experts confirmed that even though the Fort exchanged fire with the
enemy, it was insignificant to them because in that specific exchange
there were no fatalities, unlike the mini-submarine attack on Sydney
Harbour which occurred around the same time. What was ‘important
for me to understand was that an event that is regarded as so significant
to Newcastle’s history and key to the mythology of its wartime effort,
is in fact, seen as trivial by the gatekeepers of national military history’
(Kerrigan 2011, p. 66). This difference in appraisal of the importance of
the Fort from a variety of groups highlighted for me Csikszentmihalyi’s
assertions that fields are powerful agencies and they ‘will differ in the
stringency of their selective mechanisms, the sensitivity of their gate-
keepers, and the dynamics of their inner organizations’ (1988, p. 331).
More importantly, immersing myself in the social structures of Fort
Scratchley’s field of experts helped increase my knowledge of the
domain of Fort Scratchley as well as internalize the opinions of the field.
The gathering of information from archives and from the opinion of
experts enabled me to access the cultural, social and economic capital
held by these institutions and their employees and helped me to under-
stand each community’s regard for Fort Scratchley whether this was the
military, maritime, coal mining or indigenous communities involved
with the site.
What slowly became apparent to me through this production pro-
cess was that making a documentary that incorporates many layers of
historical knowledges and field opinions was challenging and complex.
As the documentary’s Director I was ‘at the micro level chasing strange
130 Susan Kerrigan
details that needed to be confirmed in text, and also gathering human

stories that were required to put these significant historical events into
context’ (Kerrigan, Journal, 8 August 2005). Working as a creative agent
in a system, it was my job as Director to select the most promising
ideas to work on in a way that would be acceptable to my peers in the
field of filmmaking. As a filmmaker, my role was to shape and interpret
the documentary narrative as authentically as I could since ‘it is the
relationship between the selection and filming/recording of actuality
material and its transformation into a skillfully crafted artifact that lies
at the heart of the whole documentary enterprise’ (Kilborn and Izod
1997, pp. 12–13).
I could see at this point of the production that there were two distinct
phases to the process. The first could be called an internalized phase
where, as the Writer/Director of the documentary, I conceptualized
and shaped the elements of the factual narrative in relation to those
who understood the content. The second phase was more externalized
and required physical interactions and collaborations with members of
the field of filmmaking. These field members provided a filter through
which conceptual ideas were mediated via the production process and
involved constant feedback and critical judgement from the documen-
tary crew as well as other key field members such as the historians and
the members of the Fort Scratchley Historical Society.
Many of these ideas and practices become internalized and tacit and
filmmakers themselves are not able to recognize the conceptual skills
they are using when doing work. What is important for creative indi-
viduals is that all components of the systems model, that is, domain
knowledge and a sense of how the field works, need to be internalized
for the system to simultaneously constrain and enable creative practice.
My immersion in the domain knowledge of Fort Scratchley’s culture
also then allowed me to internalize the opinions of the field, those who
held the content knowledge, and enabled me to fully engage in the
developmental stage of this creative documentary practice.
Staged processes of creative documentary practice
My documentary practice had to this point entered into a predictable

filmmaking form of project development, pre-production, produc-
tion, post-production and distribution (Cohen et al. 2009, p. 95).
I recognized that this staged filmmaking process could be aligned
with a number of staged creative process theories. The five stages of
filmmaking, named briefly above, align with the more generic staged
creative process theories that describe how a product, in this case a

film, is created through a predictable procedural process. My filmmak-
ing production process could be described in theoretical terms by using
a two-staged model (Bastick 1982), a four-staged model (Wallas 1976)
or a five-staged model (Csikszentmihalyi 1996). In filmmaking, the
stages confirm a logical progression through a technologically heavy
filmmaking process. The writing of a script that necessarily includes
the internalization of content and domain knowledges is followed by
the filming and editing of the documentary, described above as the
externalized collaborative processes. While each stage of documentary
production may be discretely experienced in a linear order, they may
also be experienced in a non-linear order. For example, with projects
which are affected by real-world timelines, occasionally it is necessary
to film critical events before a project is actually funded. This was the
case here and I had to film the closing of Fort Scratchley for restora-
tion prior to the project being approved. This meant we were shooting
without really knowing what visual material would be needed. This is a
typical scenario for documentary production which can be non-linear
and repetitive (Rabiger 1998, p. 42).
The non-linear nature of documentary production complies with
the iterative descriptions of the staged creative process theories. In fact
it appears possible to take the five filmmaking production stages and
overlay them against Csikszentmihalyi’s five-staged creative process,
thus allowing the structural framework of a staged creative process
theory to be used to investigate and inform the stages of a filmmaker’s
practice. As Csikszentmihalyi argues, these stages ‘overlap and recur
several times before the process is completed’ (1996, p. 83). Drawing
on Graeme Wallas’s prior work, Csikszentmihalyi’s five-staged creative
process consists of preparation, incubation, insight, evaluation and
elaboration. Preparation in this case involves the conscious analysis of
a problem ‘and draws on one’s education, analytical skills and problem
relevant knowledge’ (Lubart 2001, p. 296). Incubation occurs in the
mind of the practitioner who is working on solving the problem below
the threshold of consciousness (Csikszentmihalyi 1996, p. 79). The
third phase is the ‘Aha!’ moment of insight, when a flash of enlighten-
ment provides the best way to begin solving the problem. Evaluation is
the fourth phase where ‘the person must decide whether the insight is
valuable and worth pursuing’ (Csikszentmihalyi 1996, p. 80). The final
phase of elaboration occurs where conscious refining and developing
an idea, product or process are undertaken through physical activity.
The last phase of evaluation, certainly for filmmaking, appears to be
132 Susan Kerrigan
the most time-consuming phase and it is where the work is judged, in

filmmaker’s terms, to be ‘working’ or, in the terms of the field, is seen
to be creative.
The development of the Fort Scratchley narrative was certainly itera-
tive and recursive. At times it felt like I was going round in circles and
moving in slow motion (Kerrigan 2011, p. 78). From the project’s incep-
tion it was in production and I felt like I had not had enough time to
work out the key messages of the documentary, even though I had been
given a list of essential story elements from the funding body. They
wanted to see oral history interviews, an historical explanation of the
significance of the Fort Scratchley site and footage of the restoration of
the site, though how I used this material and which narrative structure
I was to employ was left to me. It took three years of consideration
before I was able to outline the narrative approach. Another factor that
affected the narrative was the possibility that segments of the documen-
tary might be displayed on site and they needed to be kept to a two-
minute time length (Serrell 2002). The narrative was managed through
an Excel document. Five drafts of this were produced which detailed
the number of documentary segments including oral history dramatiza-
tions, animations, archival footage and photographs.
Given these considerations, I became deeply immersed in Fort
Scratchley’s content knowledge, incubating on various approaches to
the structure of the final piece for the three years the Fort was being
restored. A complete pre-production script was never written for the
documentary but a three-act structure was employed as it provided a
framework to sort the sub-stories into acts so that the acts could be
developed into logical sections. The Excel spreadsheet was used in
post-production as it provided a way of keeping track of what had been
edited since there were over 70 digital video tapes used on the film.
I found I intuitively designed my own systems and processes, most
of which were based around my ABC television training. I found that
drawing on my tacit professional knowledge in an almost intuitive way
actually made this part of the process enjoyable.
Intuition has been defined by Bastick (1982) who argues that it is
not a mystical and largely inexplicable process but instead involves
an ordinary, everyday process of experiential learning, the acqui-
sition of skills, knowledges, rules and processes of practice that
becomes so naturalized to a practitioner that the things that they do
automatically seem inexplicable. Bastick sees intuition as one part
of a two-staged creative process theory made up of ‘intuition’ and
‘verification’. For Bastick ‘intuition’ results when Wallas’s first three
stages of preparation, incubation and illumination are collapsed into

the one phase of intuition (1982, pp. 310–11). As Bastick declares,
this intuition is most accurately chracterized as a ‘non-linear parallel
processing of global multi-categorised information’ (1982, p. 215).
Intuition in this case is seen as an automatic or global method of
accessing an individual’s accumulated body of knowledge, existing
as compressed information from previous learning and experiences.
When an individual is faced with making decisions about practice,
they intuitively process pre-learned skills and knowledge and are able
to make what appears to be an instantaneously informed decision,
which then informs their creative practice.
An example of this intuitive process occurred very early on with
the Fort Scratchley project as I was quickly pressured to confirm my
commitment to the project at a time when the size of the budget was
unknown. My first few reflective journal entries illustrated my implicit
concerns about assessing production requirements (Kerrigan, Journal,
7 and 16 May 2004). As part of making these assessments, I was figur-
ing out the minimum production facilities and personnel that might be
required to complete the video documentaries. My practitioner’s intui-
tion, drawn from my television producer background, informed my
initial decision to commit to the project and helped me to confirm the
project’s direction. Additionally, as the project progressed, my experi-
ences of the documentary production stages became more iterative and
recursive. Developing familiarity with these documentary processes in
turn increased the predictability of them. The number of times that
an element of the narrative had to cycle through its own revision, edit
and review process was relative to my own practitioner’s immersion in
content information and the skills necessary to execute these internal
and external processes. In effect, when one undertakes these cycles of
screen processing individually, as was done in this instance, it makes
the total experience of selection, construction and manipulation of the
video material appear as one interrelated and self-perpetuating stage of
practice. This can give an appearance of an internalized and fluid docu-
mentary screen practice, which supports the concept of a conditioned
agent, that is a decision-making entity whose agency is circumscribed
by a set of antecedent conditions, in this case a wealth of pre-existing
filmmaking knowledge used to achieve outcomes that are deemed wor-
thy by their peers in the field.
While I had a key role on the production of these documentaries
and I was working as a conditioned agent, I did not possess all the
skills required to make these films by myself. It was necessary to
134 Susan Kerrigan
collaborate with other conditioned agents to successfully complete the

documentaries.
Group approaches to creative documentary practice
Documentary production is acknowledged as being collaborative

(Chapman 2006, Kilborn 1997, p. 191). As Paulus and Nijstad assert, ‘in
the information age it has simply become impossible for single individ-
uals to possess all the relevant information, knowledge and expertise’
(2003, p. 339) to produce creative works. Using the same sentiment but
contextualized in documentary, Basil Wright, who worked alongside
the highly regarded documentary producer and theorist John Grierson,
wrote:
a film is created both by the single inspiration of the director and by

the collective activity and enthusiasm of a diverse group of experts
who pool their skill to the agreed purpose. (1972, p. 20)
Acting as a Writer/Director on the Fort Scratchley project, I eventually

used over 50 experts, pooling their skills and knowledge about Fort
Scratchley and the filmmaking process. There were three key groups I
worked with: content specialists who knew about Fort Scratchley, film-
making specialists and a set of cultural intermediaries or gatekeepers
(Kerrigan, Journal, 6 September 2006). While these three groups might
seem like a disparate and diverse list of possible collaborators, it is quite
normal for a film to use diverse teams of people, with everyone making
a significant contribution in their expert areas. As Paulus and Nijstad
explain, ‘group diversity is one of the most important factors in group
creativity’ (2003, p. 328). For them, the creative potential of a group
is linked to group diversity ‘because individual knowledge, skills, and
abilities are combined, the group has the potential to be more creative
than its separate members’ (2003, p. 327).
For Paulus and Nijstad, group creativity and group performance are
assessed through three aspects of group functioning: group members,
group processes and group context (Paulus and Nijstad 2003, p. 332).
The Generic Model of Group Creativity they developed (2003, p. 334)
focuses on the ‘creation, development, evaluation, and promotion of
novel ideas in groups’ (Paulus 1999, p. 779). While the group process
appears to have a linear direction in this model, in fact it can be seen
that once inside the group, the diagram accommodates an iterative
cycle where collaboration with others can result in either acceptance or
reworking of ideas for improvement. The group worked and reworked

its contributions, which for me occurred multiple times, with members
offering up ideas or adding their own expertise as filming progressed.
The work was also being verified or judged by my peers constantly
throughout the documentary production process. For example, I tested
possible narrative approaches to the documentary by meeting mili-
tary experts in Canberra, University of Newcastle historians and Fort
Scratchley Historical Society members and verified approaches to film-
ing at the Fort every time I visited it with a crew and a camera in hand.
In doing this, I not only verified the content but also tested production
approaches with each crew member who was briefed and contributed
their expertise to the film’s production process. Often there were film
professionals on site that I had employed to give advice as well as stu-
dent volunteers who were working on the project under my direction.
When the documentary was almost completed, I was then in a position
to test the clarity of the narrative with preview screenings for history
academics, Newcastle City Council employees and Fort Scratchley
Historical Society (Kerrigan, Journal, 6 September 2006). The clarity of
the peer feedback at that stage was critical as there were still opportuni-
ties to make changes to improve the film’s messages and narrative. For
example, Dr Erik Eklund, who was the main historian working on the
project, viewed a rough-cut version of the film and he was able to con-
firm that the documentary’s narrative structure worked in terms of the
historical narrative. However, he recommended that it needed a clearer
set-up and suggested using some voiceover to clarify what the story was
about. In my journal I wrote:
Erik also felt that the maritime history wasn’t clearly explained
and he felt that a package could more clearly explain the coal/con-
vict mines and the busy harbour from the beginning of the 1800s
through to the turn of the century. (Kerrigan, Journal, 23 January
2007)
The film was finalized when all of the contributing peers had accepted
the work. In the Group Creativity model, the final moment of evalu-
ation occurs when the group’s work is evaluated and verified by those
working outside the production group. This stage of the collaborative
group process is critical and it may result in further implementation,
knowledge transfer or innovation. It can be seen that this stage is
compatible with the idea of the field selecting novelty and the domain
transmitting novelty. To explain, the cultural intermediaries within the
136 Susan Kerrigan
field who are judging the work at this final stage are powerful because
they encourage or hinder further and broader acceptance of the work
on the part of an audience. For the Fort Scratchley project, these cul-
tural intermediaries would be the television programmers who select
documentaries for broadcast. Using Fort Scratchley was, unfortunately,
rejected by those television programmers (History Channel, SBS,
Network Australia and ABC TV) who were approached to broadcast the
work. The feedback from ABC TV indicated that ‘after consideration and
lengthy discussion [they] were unable to find a spot in their schedule for
the film’ (Kerrigan, Journal, 22 May 2007). Though the film was never
screened outside the Newcastle region, it was positively received within
Newcastle and the DVD sold over 200 copies in the first 12 months.
I was invited to conduct eight local media interviews to discuss an
additional funding announcement from the Federal Government for
the restoration of the Fort and to promote the public screening of the
documentary though radio, newspapers and television news (Kerrigan,
Journal, 28 April 2007). In addition, the re-purposed online data-based
documentary renamed Fort Scratchley: A Living History (2008) has been
highly successful in the online environment.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be stated that the group creativity model and the
staged creative process theories briefly outlined above are consistent
with Csikszentmihalyi’s argument that ‘one must internalise the rules
of the domain and the opinions of the field, so that one can choose
the most promising ideas to work on, and do so in a way that will be
acceptable to one’s peers’ (Csikszentmihalyi 1999, p. 332). Pleasing
one’s peers is a challenging task and, as confirmed here, a filmmaker
constantly juggles the opinions of the field as they immerse themselves
in both the content knowledge and the domain knowledge of docu-
mentary filmmaking; immersion in both components is necessary for a
successful film to be made. This process is simultaneously dynamic and
fluid in the sense that a creative agent is continually challenged by the
fields, and the content and form of the piece is constantly changing in
response to domains immersion.
In the group creativity model, the group members are constantly incu-
bating, evaluating and elaborating on field or group feedback. Paulus
and Nijstad’s model accounts for ways that individuals, working in
groups, can internalize the opinions and rules of the field and domain,
whereas the staged creative process theories, from Csikszentmihalyi’s
five-staged theory to Bastick’s two-staged theory, account for the

internalized processing a filmmaker goes through. Though they have a
subtler way of accounting for peer feedback, which is situated inside the
agent’s iterative and recursive capacity to alter their process or products
based on evaluations and elaborations, itself coming from the agent’s
internalized social knowledge and from the externalized feedback or
field opinions, both these theories are focused on explaining creative
processes. In that sense, they are useful tools to apply to procedural and
process-driven creative practices even though they do not obviously
account for how social institutions deem products to be creative.
On the other hand, the systems approach is more comprehensively
able to explain both creative recognitions, that of creative product and
creative person. For Hooke et al., ‘the systems model, therefore, seeks
to move the concept of creativity from the plane of purely individual
(subjective) recognition to a social (intersubjective) arena’ (in Paulus
and Nijstad 2003, p. 230). In bringing this complexity to the fore, it
can be seen that the systems model is one that equally accommodates
social judgements about cultural products as well as accommodating
individual and group processes of creative documentary practice.
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Times).
11
Film and Media Production as a
Screen Idea System
Eva Novrup Redvall
Producing new works of fiction for film and television is notoriously

categorized as risky business. As discussed by David Hesmondhalgh, all
business is risky, but the cultural industries are particularly risky because
they are centred on texts to be bought and sold to audiences that use
these texts in highly volatile and unpredictable ways (Hesmondhalgh
2013, p. 27). Developing a new film or television product is a process
marked by high sunk costs without any certainty as to whether there
will be audience demand for this specific new variation. In the film
industry, the term ‘nobody knows’ is thus accepted as a common truth.
Professor of economics Richard Caves (2000) has even formulated the
‘nobody knows principle’ as a defining property of the film and media
industries, since it is impossible to predict how the market will react to
a certain product beforehand.
As described in the now extensive literature on the creative or cul-
tural industries, there are many different strategies to try to minimize
the high risks linked to producing expensive feature films or television
pilots. Some of these are linked to economies of scale focusing on con-
glomeration or internationalization and multi-sector integration to be
able to reach large markets on several platforms and afford the inevita-
ble misses along the way. Deliberate overproduction, creating artificial
scarcity and controlling the distribution of products through hold back
in different windows are other common features, as is the tendency to
try to ensure future success by drawing on well-known formats with
established stars or prequels.
In the 2010s, Netflix is an example of a new player who has received
much attention for claiming that the on-demand streaming media ser-
vice was more or less able to pre-calculate the success of their series House
of Cards (2013–) by studying the preferences of their many online users.
139
140 Eva Novrup Redvall
The press has been writing on how ‘big bets are now being informed
by big data’ (Carr 2013, n.p.) and how Netflix has analysed the way
in which audiences look for movies by creating 76,897 micro-genres
in a process of ‘reverse-engineering Hollywood’ (Madrigal 2014, n.p.).
Everyone is looking for a possible secret algorithm for predicting suc-
cess in the market, but in reality these processes will always be marked
by constant negotiations among several players with conflicting ideas
of quality and best practice as well as by the specific context for these
discussions. As pointed out by Timothy Havens when discussing media
programming in ‘an era of big data’, even if big data is presented as a
way to suddenly know what works, this data still has to be interpreted
and analysed based on certain ideas of quality and often with ‘a reliance
on gut instincts, industry lore, and complicated power plays among
creators and gatekeepers’ (Havens 2014, n.p.).
While media industries are now often discussed based on these new
ideas of ‘algorithmic culture’ and a ‘big data revolution’, this chapter
argues that the complicated processes of creating and commission-
ing new audiovisual works are still marked by constant interplays
between several different elements, and the systems model of Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi (1988) is an excellent tool for nuancing. Big data can
definitely be helpful when trying to minimize risk and predict audience
tastes, but there is much more to creating original works when moving
from a first screen idea to a finished product in the highly collaborative
and costly work processes of the film and media industries.
Csikszentmihalyi has famously stated that ‘original thought does not
exist in a vacuum’ (1999, p. 315). The process of developing something
new is always marked by the participants, the time and the place for this
work, not the least when the task at hand is what Teresa Amabile has
described as heuristic (rather than algorithmic), meaning that the path
to a solution is not completely straightforward since there are no clearly
defined solutions or goals (1996, p. 33). Even if big data might point to
what audiences prefer today, the task of producing a product that they
are interested in tomorrow is a completely different matter.
Building on the systems model developed by Csikszentmihalyi, this
chapter proposes that the complex development and production pro-
cesses in the film and media industries are taking place within a Screen
Idea System, where variations emerge based on a constant interplay
between Individuals (with a certain Talent, Training and Track Record)
proposing new ideas; the existing Tastes, Traditions and Trends in a
specific Domain; and a Field of experts or commissioners with a certain
Mandate, certain ideas of Management and certain amounts of Money
Film and Media Production as a Screen Idea System 141
at their disposal (Redvall 2013). While nobody knows exactly what

might work in terms of finding success in the film and media market,
Csikszentmihalyi’s ideas of creativity emerging from highly social and
contextual processes provide an excellent framework for conducting
case studies of the production of new variations and the way in which
different conceptions of challenging concepts such as creativity, quality
and value are constantly discussed during this kind of creative work.
There is no perfect recipe for creating great art or for constructing the
next box office blockbuster, but much can be learned from analysing
the negotiations of best practice and collaborative processes in specific
production cultures.
Studying creative work in film and television
While creativity studies have taken a great interest in the way that new
ideas emerge and meet the world, film and media studies have tradi-
tionally focused less on the creative processes of developing, writing
and producing new works. Referring to what Mel Rhodes (1961) has
analysed as ‘the four P’s’ of creativity, one can argue that film and media
studies have been more interested in the Product and the Person behind
the product (with a focus on the director as the auteur) than the Process
itself or the Press, which is to be understood as the environment, in
which the creative work takes place. There are of course exceptions such
as David Bordwell, Janet Staiger and Kristin Thompson’s (1985) seminal
study The Classical Hollywood Cinema, linking the stylistic and storytell-
ing structures of the classical Hollywood Cinema before 1960 to certain
organizational structures and established work ways. However, building
primarily on a theoretical framework from the humanities, film studies
have generally not focused on extensive case studies of the nature of
creative work or on understanding how ideas for new works emerge and
are shaped through the different stages from conception to execution.
In contrast, from early on sociologists and anthropologists have con-
ducted more production-oriented studies of the American film industry
(Rosten 1941, Powdermaker 1950) or of different kinds of ‘art worlds’
(Becker 1982). However, as highlighted in a sociological study of differ-
ent processes of art making ‘from start to finish’, discussions of specific
artworks have always been ‘a blind spot in the sociology of art’ (Becker
et al. 2006, p. 1). While the humanities have tended to emphasize the
text and its (singular) author over practice, the social sciences have
tended not to include the text, or the product, in the analysis of artistic
work. Since the late 2000s, there has been a remarkable focus on the
nature of creative labour in the cultural industries (for instance Deuze

2007, Hesmondhalgh and Baker 2010, Taylor and Littleton 2012, Banks
et al. 2013). These studies offer many insights into what Hesmondhalgh
and Baker define as the properties of ‘good work’ – and whether work
in the cultural industries is ‘disguised bad work’ (2010, p. 77) – but they
offer limited connection between the ways in which people work with
producing new products and the nature of the products themselves.
In film and media studies, the balance between the different ‘p’s in
creativity seem to be currently changing with the emergence of a num-
ber of studies focusing more on the way in which new products are
shaped during their making, whether coming out of the vibrant field
of production studies (for instance Caldwell 2008, Mayer et al. 2009)
or the emerging and varied field of screenwriting studies (for instance
Maras 2009, Price 2010, Macdonald 2013, Millard 2014) focusing on the
crucial conceptual stages of filmmaking processes with the screenwrit-
ing process at the core. These studies focus on the film and television
industries specifically and link the analysis of the work processes at
hand with the making of a specific product.
Much can be learned from detailed case studies of the making of spe-
cific products but, as stated by John Thornton Caldwell when writing
about industrial reflexivity and critical practice in the film and televi-
sion industries, most production cultures are ‘far too messy, vast and
contested to provide a unified code’ (2008, p. 36). People find their own
way within these complex structures. However, while there might not
be a recipe or a unified code for how to navigate these often troubled
waters successfully or how to create the next acclaimed product in a rap-
idly changing market, there can be meaningful interpretations of what
seems to be fruitful strategies and examples of best practice in different
production contexts.
One way to approach the complexity of production cultures is to
think of them as marked by different kinds of problem-finding and
problem-solving processes, where practitioners make choices in social
situations with specific demands. As discussed by David Bordwell, when
suggesting to think of filmmaking through a problem/solution frame of
inquiry, ‘the artist’s choices are informed and constrained by the rules
and roles of artmaking. The artistic institution formulates tasks, puts
problems on the agenda, and rewards effective solutions’ (1997, p. 151).
Moreover, he points out how artists draw on traditions and certain
norms in their present time as the outset for creating something new.
This problem/solution framework of inquiry mirrors seminal theories
from the field of creativity research, where cognitive studies of creativity
have long discussed creative work as a form of problem-solving. As

defined by creativity scholar Mark A. Runco, a problem can be defined
as ‘a situation with a goal and a hindrance’ (2007, p. 14). If one has a
clear-cut problem, one can move on to problem-solving immediately,
but in many artistic processes, choosing the problem to actually solve
and how to go about it are often a big part of the challenge.
Csikszentmihalyi is among the influential creativity scholars who
have focused on problem-finding in artistic processes to investigate why
and how an artist decides to focus on one problem and not another,
for instance in his and Getzel’s study of art students (Csikszentmihalyi
and Getzels 1976). Studies like these highlight the importance of the
often underestimated phase of defining what problem to actually
solve, which, in theories coming out of the school of Creative Problem
Solving, would be discussed as the stages of mess-finding, data-finding
and problem-finding before proceeding to idea-finding and then finally
solution- and acceptance-finding stages (for instance Isaksen and
Treffinger 2004).
While artists such as painters or authors can enjoy the creative and
economic freedom to produce finished works on their own without
involving anyone else in the process, this is not the case in the world of
film and television where both collaborators and financiers are needed
to make an idea come alive on screen. As a consequence, the thoughts
in these initial stages are often verbalized, shared and discussed in a
different manner from when artists work on their own. This allows
for studying these processes in a different way, but the question is
how to structure and interpret the work of individuals in these highly
social and institutional contexts where the choices by practitioners are
marked by the works already produced as well as by the different types
of constraints surrounding the process. Csikszentmihalyi’s thoughts on
interpreting creativity as an interplay between individuals, a domain
and a field provides a constructive systemic framework for capturing
these processes to better understand how specific production cultures
are marked by certain developments within these three different cat-
egories and how specific works of art emerge at a certain point in time.
Csikszentmihalyi’s systems model
Csikszentmihalyi’s systems view of creativity is based on the conviction

that studies of creativity should not isolate individuals and their work
from the social and historical surroundings. Explaining the emergence
of his systems model of creativity, Csikszentmihalyi has described
how his early research focused on individual thought, emotions and

motivations. Gradually, the task became more frustrating since it
became still harder to explain certain aspects of his data. As an example,
he has highlighted how one of his studies in an art school concluded
that the female students showed the same creative potential as the
male students. However, 20 years later none of the women had earned
the recognition as outstanding artist to the same degree as their male
counterparts (1999, p. 313).
Observations like these prompted him to design a systems model
for creativity, building on the notion that creativity is never the result
of individual actions alone. Instead, one should think of creativity in
terms of three main shaping forces:
a set of social institutions, or field, that selects from the variations

produced by individuals those that are worth preserving; a stable cul-
tural domain that will preserve and transmit the selected new ideas
of forms to the following generations; and finally the individual,
who brings about some change in the domain, a change that the
field will consider to be creative. (Csikszentmihalyi 1988, p. 325)
According to Csikszentmihalyi, creativity is the result of an interplay

between these three forces, which he has visualized in Figure 11.1.
The domain is to be understood as a formal system of symbols based
on information that can be regarded as ‘a set of rules, procedures and
instructions for actions’ (Abuhamdeh and Csikszentmihalyi 2004,
p. 33). If one does not have access to the information within a certain
domain, one is unable to contribute with new knowledge. As examples,
Csikszentmihalyi mentions the difficulty of composing a symphony
with no prior knowledge of music (1988, p. 330). Some domains have
a structure, which makes them hard to enter and renew, while others
are more accessible. Within the domain of film and media production,
there are for instance specific understandings of best practice, like cer-
tain classical storytelling strategies, which one will be measured against
when proposing a new variation. Moreover, existing works within the
domain shape the understanding of quality among the individuals
wanting to create new variations as well as among the experts assessing
their value.
The field is the social aspect of the model and encompasses the indi-
viduals who function as gatekeepers by deciding whether a new idea or
a product should be included in the domain (Csikszentmihalyi 1999,
p. 315). In a film or television context, screenwriting and production
Figure 11.1 The systems model of creativity (Csikszentmihalyi 2003, p. 315)
teachers, critics, journal editors, script editors, commissioners or

studio executives are examples of people in the central positions who
choose which works deserve to be recognized, produced or distrib-
uted. The individual is the third element in the system. According to
Csikszentmihalyi, one can speak of creativity when a person uses the
symbols in a specific domain, gets an idea, sees a new pattern or creates
something new, which by the appropriate field is found worthy of being
in the relevant domain (1997, p. 28). The experts thus hold great power
in terms of selecting certain examples of novelty at the expense of oth-
ers, and whether one’s work is recognized is thus not only related to tal-
ent or giftedness, but also to ‘chance, perseverance, or being at the right
place at the right time’ (1997, p. 29). Personal traits are relevant, but
since creativity is based on the interaction of person, domain and field,
there is much more to creating novelty with an impact on the domain.
According to Csikszentmihalyi, the systems model can be use-
ful for trying to answer questions about whether a society generally
values and encourages creativity, whether there is a social and eco-
nomic openness towards change, as well as the degree of mobility or
complexity (1999, p. 322). Issues like these bring studies to the macro

level of analysis, and as a psychologist, Csikszentmihalyi also raises quite
detailed issues related to the background and personality of individuals.
As with most conceptual models, the systems model naturally gives rise
to debates about certain elements, but the model’s overall framework for
thinking about creativity and creative processes as happening between
different shaping forces is a useful way of outlining the complexity
of most film and media production, which can thus be regarded as a
complex interplay of the talent producing new variations; of the con-
ceptions of best practice in the domain of film and television; and of
the experts or institutions with the power to select which ideas should
be given the opportunity to move from pitch to production. Based on
the structure and the basic understandings of the systems model, this
chapter proposes a similar Screen Idea System for how to approach the
creative processes of making new works of film or television.
The Screen Idea System framework
The Screen Idea System is an attempt to bridge ideas from media indus-
try and screenwriting studies with the more process-oriented concep-
tions of creative work from the field of creativity studies, emphasizing
how things happen in a constant and dynamic interplay between dif-
ferent forces on several levels. As a conceptual model for understanding
the operations of media industries, Timothy Havens and Amanda D.
Lotz have proposed The Industrialization of Culture Framework (2012),
which emphasizes how one always has to take the social trends, tastes
and traditions in a specific culture as well as the mandate of a certain
media institution (for instance commercial versus non-commercial
mandates) into account when analysing different aspects related to a
specific media industry. These aspects include what they describe as the
conditions for media industries (such as technology, regulation or eco-
nomics), the day-to-day practices of organizations and individuals, the
texts produced and the meeting between the public and the texts (2012,
pp. 4–5). The framework thus stresses the importance of the different
contexts surrounding all media production, leading to discussions of the
work of practitioners as different degrees of circumscribed agency (2012,
p. 15). In this framework, three main forces are considered to be mould-
ing the work of individuals into ‘socially sanctioned forms’, namely ‘the
general culture itself, formal and informal professional expectations,
and specific organizational practices and norms’ (2012, p. 15). These
forces point to the vastness of trying to understand the complexities of
media industries with the work of, for instance, screenwriters as but one
tiny element in an enormous machinery.
The Screen Idea System shares the industrialization of culture frame-
work’s interest in the forces that shape the work of individuals, but sin-
gles out the importance of individuals in this process, arguing that the
writing and production of television drama starts and ends with a screen
idea. Similar to how Csikszentmihalyi insists that original thought does
not exist in a vacuum, a screen idea does not come out of nowhere. It
builds on or rebels against notions of best practice for screenwriting and
on the existing tastes, trends and traditions for film and television in the
domain. Moreover, ideas are shaped by meeting the field where institu-
tions have a certain mandate for production and a management looking
for certain kinds of product, and where money for financing the develop-
ment, writing and production of new variations is always an issue.
In the field of screenwriting research, the idea of understanding the
process of screenwriting as structured around a screen idea comes out
of the work of Ian Macdonald (2003, 2004, 2010, 2012). Building on a
term used by Philip Parker to describe the start of a script’s development
(1998, p. 57), Macdonald has outlined how to think of a screen idea
as ‘the core idea of anything intended to become a screenwork, that
is “any notion of a potential screenwork held by one or more people.
Whether it is possible to describe it on paper or by other means”’ (2012,
p. 113). This definition highlights how ideas exist before ‘pen is set to
paper’, and how development of ideas is based on what Macdonald
describes as ‘the norms of the screen industries’ (2012, p. 113). The
context of the screen idea is given great importance, and Macdonald has
studied how certain notions of quality are used when assessing screen
ideas, pointing to ‘realisability, an appropriate structure, a clear thesis
and some aspect of originality’ (2012, p. 113) as four common goals.
These goals share similarities with the most established definition of a
creative product within creativity research, which states that for a prod-
uct to be creative it has to be both novel (or original, unexpected) and
appropriate (or useful) (Sternberg and Lubart 1999, p. 3).
Based on the concept of the screen idea, Macdonald has proposed
the idea of the Screen Idea Work Group, emphasizing how screen ideas
are developed in flexibly constructed groups organized around specific
projects. The Screen Idea System is an attempt to encompass how these
work groups consisting of individuals with certain talent, training and
track record propose new, original variations in a constant interplay
with the ideas of quality and appropriateness in the domain and the
field (Figure 11.2).
DOMAIN
Tastes
Trends
Traditions
Selects Transmits
Novelty Information
Produces
Novelty
Mandate Talent
Management Training
Money Stimulates Track record
Novelty
FIEL D IN DIVID UAL S
Figure 11.2 The Screen Idea System
Mirroring the structure of the systems model, the Screen Idea System
proposes a dynamic understanding of the processes where the existing
knowledge in the domain informs the choices of individuals as well
as the conceptions of quality when the field assesses suggested new
variations. If found to be original, of high quality and appropriate by
the field, the ideas of individuals can be produced and acknowledged
as creative and thus end up being included as new variations in the
domain. However, the field not only has a gatekeeping function, but
can also have a positive impact on individuals by creating a framework
that stimulates novelty.
In terms of film and media production and the ‘nobody knows’ prin-
ciple, the Screen Idea System points to some of the important issues
that are negotiated and discussed when people are trying to make
informed decisions about what to develop and commission. I have used
this framework for analysing the emergence of successful Danish TV
series such as Forbrydelsen/The Killing (2007–12) and Borgen (2010–13),
arguing that the quality of the series is based on a fruitful interplay
between individuals, the domain and the field in a small-nation
public-service television production culture at a specific point in time

(Redvall 2013). The series grew out of a certain in-house production cul-
ture with a non-commercial mandate marked by a management having
certain ‘dogmas’ for production and a budget for only producing a few
high-end drama series every year. Most individuals behind the series
trained at the same institution, The National Film School of Denmark,
which has focused still more on teaching not only screenwriting for
film but also television writing since the 2000s. These individuals were
encouraged to develop original ideas for series, and rather than focus-
ing on the existing traditions in the national realm, they drew on their
personal tastes and the latest trends in international quality television.
This led to the emergence of a specific kind of product that managed
to find not only huge national audiences but also international acclaim
in the 2010s.
The Screen Idea System of The Killing
The development and production process of a series such as The Killing

shows how television drama is continuously shaped in an interplay
between the individuals, the domain and the field. The original screen
idea came from writer Søren Sveistrup following his success with the
Emmy-award-winning DR family series Nikolaj og Julie/Nikolaj and Julie
(2002–3). After his training at the first specific course on television writ-
ing at The National Film School, Sveistrup was one of the screenwriters
who was hired by DR to work as an episode writer on the broadcaster’s
first attempts to create long-running series in the late 1990s. He proved
to have talent for the long format, and, based on his track record with
other series and the Emmy-winning family series, he was paid to come
up with a new idea for a Sunday night primetime series.
Sveistrup wanted to break away from the traditions in Danish televi-
sion drama at the time of having one case per episode in the national
crime series such as Rejseholdet/Unit One (2000–4). He was inspired by
new trends in the international domain of television drama where a
series such as 24 (2001–10) was telling a one-case crime drama during
an entire season. Moreover, he had been fascinated by the long-running
mystery of who killed Laura Palmer in Twin Peaks (1995–97) by David
Lynch and was a fan of political drama series such as The West Wing
(1999–2006). These considerations of tastes, trends and traditions were
influential for Sveistrup originally proposing to then Head of DR Fiction
Ingolf Gabold a mini-series in eight episodes dealing with the murder
of a young girl.
Gabold wanted to work with Sveistrup based on his training, talent

and track record. However, DR was producing other crime series at the
time and felt that they needed another kind of content with a clear
sense of what, in the DR dogma, is described as ‘double storytelling’
with stories having social and ethical connotations underneath the
entertaining plot. In terms of time slots, DR was looking for a series of
ten one-hour episodes rather than a mini-series, and Sveistrup was thus
asked to see whether he could develop his screen idea according to these
managerial ideas of what DR wanted to produce, based on the public-
service mandate of the institution and the money at hand.
As described in more detail elsewhere (Redvall 2013), this led to
Sveistrup developing the idea of having a story of who killed the teen-
age girl Nanna Birk Larsen as the driving force for a season of not only
ten but 20 episodes. The focus should be on what the murder of the girl
does to her grieving family as well as to other people whose lives are, in
one way or another, affected by the crime investigation of police detec-
tive Sarah Lund rather than on the crime case in itself. This take on the
original idea fulfilled the scheduling and double storytelling wishes of
the broadcaster and led to what was later hailed as an original approach
to the crime genre.
There are of course many more nuances to the development, writing
and production processes of new series, but this brief example illustrates
how it can be useful to think of the emergence of a new series as based
on an interplay between individuals, the domain and the field and how
different Screen Idea Systems lead to different kinds of products. The
example also highlights how there will always be differences within
what can be regarded as a particular national or institutional Screen Idea
System based on the nature of the idea proposed, the people involved
in negotiating its making, and the ideas of novelty, quality and appro-
priateness among practitioners at a certain point in time. Accordingly,
when the world started being interested in what was suddenly discussed
as the Danish television drama ‘hit factory’, both the creative practi-
tioners and the DR commissioners kept arguing that there was no cer-
tain recipe; each series was the result of a special kind of interplay and
even if there will always be certain structuring forces, such as certain
ideas (or ‘dogmas’) of best practice that permeate the system, each new
variation emerges as its own unique result.
The Screen Idea System is useful in visualizing the constant inter-
plays and negotiations while products move from being a screen
idea to a finished product and in emphasizing how the emergence
of new film and television works are based on highly collaborative
and contextual processes. As pointed out by Phillip McIntyre when

discussing creativity and cultural production with an emphasis on
media practice, a systems approach to creativity helps move beyond the
often ‘predominantly individual-centred conception of creativity’ (2012,
p. 132), which he finds to be misleading. Using the television industry
as an example, McIntyre argues that ‘none of these three components of
the system of television production, the creative agent, the field or the
domain, are more, or less, central than the other in creating television’
(2012, p. 132). In his view, creativity thus only occurs ‘when the whole
system has been operating dynamically’ (2012, p. 146), and it makes
good sense to try and understand the particular Screen Idea Systems
behind different kinds of acclaimed creative works. However, as pointed
out by TV scholar Matt Hills (2013), there can also be great value in con-
ducting ‘failure studies’, that is, research trying to explore products that
have generally been regarded as failures or production cultures that do
not seem to flourish. The Screen Idea System can also help point to pos-
sible problematic interplays between the individuals, the domain and
the field in this regard, but it is an overall conceptual model that calls for
detailed case studies of its exact workings if one wants to gain a nuanced
understanding of how specific screen ideas come into the world and
develop into works that find acceptance and acknowledgement as valu-
able new contributions to the domain of film and television.
The systems model in an era of big data
Looking at the big data concept from a systems point of view, it is fair
to say that detailed knowledge about the present might contribute
considerably to the potential success of a new screen idea. Big data can
provide the basis for a certain kind of analysis about past and current
trends, tastes and traditions in the domain, but the data is made up of
information already in the system and someone needs to combine the
existing knowledge in new ways to come up with novel variations.
To paraphrase Csikszentmihalyi, screen ideas don’t come out of
nowhere and they don’t exist in a vacuum. Someone initiates them.
Who is this someone and how does this happen? With whom is this
someone collaborating? Where has she trained? What is her track
record? What does she like? What are the tastes, trends and traditions
surrounding the screen idea? Who finances the development of the
idea? Who needs to be convinced that this screen idea has value? What
is regarded as novel, of high quality and appropriate in a particular pro-
duction framework? All these questions matter. Agency, collaborations
and context matter. New screen ideas emerge and are shaped in systemic
processes, and one can be certain that even if the media industries are
marked by the mantra that nobody knows, everyone in the system has
an opinion.
While it is impossible to define the attributes of the perfect future
product, much can be learned from analysing the interplay of the
individuals, the domain and the field in specific production cultures.
Drawing on Csikszentmihalyi’s systems model, this chapter has thus
proposed to think of the complex production processes in the film
and media industries as taking place within a Screen Idea System. As
discussed by many scholars, the film and media industries have had a
tendency to focus on a singular author of a new work, often understood
as the artist or ‘auteur’ – or in television now as a ‘showrunner’ – that
has somehow managed to make his or her vision shine through in the
collaborative production processes of these industries. However, as for-
mulated by Csikszentmihalyi, studying creativity ‘by focusing on the
individual alone is like trying to understand how an apple tree produces
fruit by looking only at the tree and ignoring the sun and the soil that
supports its life’ (1994, p. 147). It makes sense to single out certain indi-
vidual voices in the process, but to truly understand how new works
come into being one needs to include the social and contextual aspects
as well as the textual inspirations and conventions in the domain.
Big data might be the talk of the town, and Netflix might try to con-
vince the world that they have found an algorithmic recipe for chang-
ing the ‘nobody knows’ principle of the film and media industries to
‘Netflix knows’. It does seem more likely, though, that Netflix might
also have their doubts in the future, when trying to figure out how to
create original quality product in the years to come. Csikszentmihalyi’s
ideas of creativity emerging from an interplay of highly social and
contextual processes are still relevant and, hopefully, the Screen Idea
System can similarly be a useful framework for thinking about film and
media production and the way in which different notions of challeng-
ing concepts such as novelty, quality and appropriateness are constantly
discussed during this kind of creative work.
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12
Distributed Creativity and Theatre
Stacy DeZutter
Two actors walk on stage and sit side by side. The woman puts her
hands in front of her as if grasping a steering wheel, and, after a
moment, the man speaks:
Man: Did you notice I didn’t look back while you were turning?
Woman: (slightly teasing) You don’t have to, I’m driving.
Man: (jovially) That’s it. (Pause. The woman ‘drives’ and the man
looks around.) I don’t know why we have to look for parking.
I mean, we’re in an ambulance. We should be able to just
park anywhere, if we put the lights on.
Woman: We should be able to, we should be able to. But I feel bad,
I mean I don’t want to just put the lights on, just to put them
on. I mean, cops do that, but I don’t do that.
Man: Ok.
Woman: I’ll do it, do you want me to do it?
Man: You don’t have to do it for me.
Woman: No, I just want –
Man: (casually) But do it for the guy in the back. (both actors glance
toward the back of the ‘ambulance’.)
(transcribed 21 March 2008 from www.myspace.com/razowskyand
clifford)
This brief scene was performed at the iO West in Los Angeles, one of the
top improvisational comedy theatres in the United States. The actors,
David Razowsky and Carrie Clifford, were working without a script,
with no pre-planned ideas for what would happen when they walked
on stage, other than that their aim was to perform a novel, entertaining
piece of theatre for the assembled audience.
155
156 Stacy DeZutter
A group of teachers-in-training is collaboratively teaching a creative

dramatics class for children. The teachers plan lessons together and
then teach in teams of two. During a planning meeting, Lillian suggests,
‘If we don’t have enough to do or we run out of things before the time
is up, they’ve all done the same [actor-training] games, so we can just
go back to those.’ When the novice teachers adopt this suggestion, they
notice that the children have strong preferences for which games they
get to revisit, a point articulated by Dorothea at the next meeting. Jane
mentions a week later that she and Annie had begun using the much-
loved game Little Sally Walker ‘as a reward, like “if you’re really good,
we’ll play that in the end”’, a behaviour-management strategy that
combines Lillian’s suggestion with Dorothea’s observation. The teachers
have been struggling to keep the children focused during certain learn-
ing activities, and at the next meeting, Sarah recounts employing the
game-as-reward strategy to motivate the children to stay on task: ‘[O]ur
kids were really not focusing and they really wanted to play Zip Zap Zop
and we were like, “well, if you pay attention then we can play it”, and
that worked.’ Zip, Zap, Zop is one of many games actors use to sharpen
their focus, a realization Molly and Lillian find themselves leveraging
in the next teaching session, which they report at the subsequent plan-
ning meeting:
Molly: If their energy is up, a bunch of the games we introduced are

games to bring them back down. So I think that you pull those
games out, like Pass the Pulse which immediately –
Lillian: – I thought Pass the Pulse would be a good thing [to try first],
because it really got them focused.
Within a few weeks, the idea of initiating a strategically selected drama

game when the children needed to increase or regain focus is a standard
practice for all the teaching teams in the group (DeZutter and Scyster
2012).
Both of these examples involve group creativity. In the first, two actors
create a short, comedic piece of theatre. In the second, a group of novice
teachers create a strategy for keeping their students on task. As a theatre
artist-cum-educational psychologist, I am interested in understanding
and enhancing the creativity of collaborative groups like these. There
is a challenge in elucidating this form of creativity, however, at least
when viewed from the perspective of traditional creativity research. For
most of its history, social-scientific research on human creativity has
been dominated by a focus on the aptitudes, dispositions and cognitive
Distributed Creativity and Theatre 157
processes of individual creators (Csikszentmihalyi 2014, Sawyer 2012).

But neither of the two examples above can be adequately understood
by looking at the characteristics of individuals. Instead, these forms of
creativity require an analytic lens with a wider focus.
Creativity as emergent from the group’s interactions
This chapter reviews my work, initially with Keith Sawyer, on distributed

creativity, which offers an analytic lens for understanding the creativity
of collaborative groups. Distributed creativity is a theoretical approach
informed by sociocultural perspectives on human thinking and learn-
ing, which question the separability of individual cognition from the
social processes in which it is embedded. Making analogy to a branch
of sociocultural theory known as ‘distributed cognition’, our work views
creative collaborative groups not as collections of individual creators
but as creative cognitive systems. We thereby find ourselves working in
an intellectual space carved out by Csikszentmihalyi (2014) who, with
his explication of the systems model of creativity, established the value
of understanding creative activity as a process located in interactions
among multiple agents.
Csikszentmihalyi’s systems model offers a comprehensive view of
how human creativity gets done, placing individual creative activity
within a larger web of societal and cultural processes that must pro-
ductively interact for creativity to occur. Our systems-based approach
zooms in on one component of that larger web, focusing on one of the
three nodes of the familiar systems model diagram (Csikszentmihalyi
1999, p. 315), the node generally labelled ‘the individual’. In our work,
the individual is not a single person but a group of people from whom
creative outcomes emerge via their collaborative interactions.
As the examples above illustrate, there are many instances of creativ-
ity in which the creative product cannot meaningfully be attributed
to a single individual. One might argue, perhaps, that in the scene
created by Razowsky and Clifford, each actor ‘created’ the lines he or
she uttered. But there are problems with this idea. To begin, each indi-
vidual line is not particularly valuable as a creative product. After all,
the aim of this duo is to create an entertaining theatre scene, not merely
comprehensible sentences. Looking deeper into the process by which
the scene emerged, it is not entirely accurate to say that each actor
created her/his own lines. Since the aim is to create a cohesive scene,
each successive line of dialogue must follow from the lines that have
already been said. This means that each actor prospectively contributes
158 Stacy DeZutter
to what the other ‘creates’ by defining a range of sensical things that

can be said. The actors are affecting each other’s lines retrospectively,
too, because the full meaning of each actor’s utterance does not become
clear until the other actor adds his/her contributions and the narrative
fully emerges (Sawyer 2003). For example, Razowsky’s initial statement,
‘Did you notice I didn’t look back while you were turning?’ could mean
any number of things, depending on what Clifford says next. Razowsky
might be imagining that the two were in the midst of a driving lesson.
However, Clifford’s response implies several specific things that rule out
that possibility and that, if he is to serve the aim of creating a cohesive
scene, Razowsky must adopt as true: Clifford’s playful tone implies that
the two are relative equals, not teacher and student; her words ‘You
don’t have to’ imply that Razowsky’s character has no pressing responsi-
bility for the quality of the driving. With Clifford’s response, Razowsky’s
line becomes an instance of jovial banter between co-workers rather
than a vote of confidence on the part of a driving instructor. This may
or may not be what Razowsky intended, but in a collaborative creative
process like this one, it is not an individual’s intentions but the response
of the group that determines how an individual’s contribution affects
the creation; individuals do not control what their contributions come
to mean. Approaching the creation of an improv scene as if individual
contributions are separable, and therefore as if separate individuals can
be meaningfully understood as agents of creation, misses the fact that
creation is happening via the interaction of, rather than the mere accu-
mulation of, ideas.
Much of the same can be said about the creative process among
the group of teachers described above. Although many members of
the group contribute ideas that become components of the game-
for-focus strategy, the creation of that strategy cannot be attributed
to any single group member. Lillian and Molly are the first to articu-
late the strategy in its final version, but they are building on Sarah’s
experience using a more general strategy that was suggested by Jane,
who was responding to an observation by Dorothea that elaborated
a suggestion by Lillian. In this case, it might make some measure of
sense to view each individual teacher as a creator – after all, each per-
son thought up ideas that were valuable to the group. This approach
could explain several of the novel ideas that appear in this group’s
conversations. But it would not account for the game-for-focus strat-
egy. This strategy, and many others, emerged as the members of the
group tried out each other’s ideas, elaborated on them and revised
them (DeZutter and Scyster 2012). If we stop with an analysis of
individual creativity, we remain blind to much of the creativity this

group accomplished.
Creative groups as distributed cognitive systems
Emergent, group-level creativity has not been well attended to in social-

scientific research, even as interest in alternatives to the individualist
perspective has grown. By the 1980s, scholars had begun to develop
ecological approaches that aimed to situate individual creators within
larger social processes (for example, Amabile 1983, Csikszentmihalyi
1988). Meanwhile, studies of innovation conducted from various
disciplines (for example, Basalla 1988, Hargadon 2003) revealed that
creative products almost always emerge from collaboration, even when
an individual is credited as the creator (Sawyer 2012). In response to
growing awareness of the prevalence and importance of collaborative
creativity, some creativity researchers began to study collaboration
and group dynamics (for example, Farrell 2001, John-Steiner 2000,
Paulus and Nijstad 2003). A sizable body of research developed around
the composition of creative work groups and the structuring of their
processes, especially in the area of brainstorming (for examples, see
the edited volume by Paulus and Nijstad 2003). However, these lines
of work tended to focus on how group composition and task structure
affect the individual psychology of group members rather than delving
into the specific interactive mechanisms by which creative products
emerge from collaborating groups.
To fill this gap, Sawyer and I looked to a line of research known as
distributed cognition, which was developed in the 1980s by Hutchins
and colleagues as an alternative to individualist approaches in cogni-
tive science (Rogers 2006). Distributed cognition research examines
instances in which cognitive tasks are not accomplished by a single
mind, but instead involve several minds functioning as a ‘cognitive
system’ (Hutchins 2001, p. 2068). Examining complex activities such
as navigating a ship or flying a plane (Hutchins 1995, Hutchins and
Klausen 1998), researchers have shown that the cognition required to
accomplish such tasks is not – and often cannot be – accomplished by
separate individuals but rather is accomplished via their interactions.
Because cognitive processes are distributed across the members of the
group (and often their shared artefacts and representations), an analytic
focus on the system as a whole offers more explanatory power than
analysis of individual cognition. For Sawyer and I, analysing creative
groups as distributed cognitive systems maintains a connection with
160 Stacy DeZutter
traditional investigations of creative cognition while illuminating

creative processes that stretch beyond a single mind.
Distributed cognition research has focused heavily on computer-
mediated interaction but has led to a range of widely applicable
insights, for example insights about the design of structures for col-
laboration or about the optimization of information flow among groups
(Rogers 2006). Insights like these would surely be of use to groups whose
primary aim is to generate novelty, although distributed cognition
research has rarely focused explicitly on how to help a group be more
effectively creative.
Before describing our methodology and offering an illustrative exam-
ple of our work on distributed creativity in collaborative groups, it
should be noted that Sawyer and I are not the only scholars to employ
the phrase distributed creativity. Miettinen (2006) emphasizes the value
of a distributed view for the management of creativity given the prolif-
eration of technology-based networks of innovation. Glăveanu (2014)
developed a model of creative action in which creativity is located in
the interaction between the creative actor and the ever-evolving culture
in which that actor participates, noting that creativity is distributed
socially, temporally and materially. Both authors examine ‘distribution’
on a broader scale than the microgenetic processes that interest Sawyer
and I. Taken together, however, these three formulations of distributed
creativity point to an important feature of a systems perspective: it
is scalable. Research studies from the systems perspective examine a
particular creative system, treating that system as the unit of analysis.
At the same time, however, the constituents of that system may them-
selves be systems or the system under study may be a constituent of a
larger system (McIntyre 2013). In the case of my work with Sawyer, our
examination of collaborative groups can be seen as the study of one
constituent system of the larger societal-level creative system described
by Csikszentmihalyi (1999).
Studying distributed creativity in collaborative groups
Studying creativity from the distributed perspective requires methods

that allow researchers to document and analyse the emergence of
collaborative creative products. For our research, we adapt a method
frequently used in distributed cognition research, interaction analysis
(Jordan and Henderson 1995). Interaction analysis uses video or audio
recordings of group activities to facilitate fine-grained examination
of a group’s interactions. Interaction analysis is a robust method for
distributed creativity research because it allows us to look carefully

at complex social interactions, to trace the step-by-step emergence of
novel ideas and to analyse the processes by which the group functions
as a creative cognitive system.
As we have used it, interaction analysis generally involves six specific
phases (DeZutter and Sawyer 2010, pp. 84–5):
1. The creative group’s naturally occurring interactions are recorded.

Often, this is part of a broader ethnographic study that may involve
participant observation in which the researcher is an active partici-
pant in the interactions. This allows the researcher to bring an emic,
or insider’s, perspective to the analysis and also provides additional
forms of data to supplement findings from analysis of recorded inter-
actions. Both the study of ActNow, described below, and the study of
the novice teaching team, described above, were part of larger studies
in which I was a participant-observer.
2. Recordings are then reviewed and divided into meaningful ‘epi-
sodes’, for example individual performances or team meetings. These
are given titles and their content is summarized in a content log.
The content log provides an overview of the dataset and helps iden-
tify portions of the data that will be most useful in addressing the
research question.
3. Selected episodes are then reviewed (sometimes many times over) to
identify patterns that provide insight into the nature of the group’s
distributed creative process. This phase is generally where interesting
or unexpected phenomena become apparent.
4. Based on the researchers’ interest, some portion of the recordings is
selected for transcription and deeper analysis, although with the prolif-
eration of software programs that allow for analysis of audio and video
files without transcription, this step may not always be necessary.
5. For many research questions, a coding process as used in grounded
theory (Glaser and Strauss 1967) can make the data more manage-
able and allow themes or patterns to emerge more readily.
6. As a final phase of the research, it can be useful to ask study par-
ticipants to review recordings with the research team, to elicit the
participants’ understandings of what was happening (see Calderhead
1981). Another approach is to triangulate with other data sources
that contain participant descriptions of group interactions, such as
interviews or journals. This phase allows researchers to confirm, chal-
lenge and contextualize their findings by offering insights about the
group’s creative process from the participants’ perspectives.
162 Stacy DeZutter
The study that led Sawyer and I (2009) to propose an analytic focus
on distributed creative processes examined a theatre group improvisa-
tionally performing comedic vignettes from a popular children’s book
(Squids Will Be Squids, Scieszka and Smith 1998). The group, which we
call ActNow,1 prepared for their performances over several months
using a process known as ‘re-improvisation’ (Libera 2004), in which
they repeatedly improvised their way through a loosely predetermined
plot structure without allowing their improvisations to stabilize into a
set script. The group used a rotating cast, so that at any given rehearsal
or performance a different actor might play each role. As the director
of this group, I was impressed with its consistent success at performing
the narrative coherently – and entertainingly – even as the show was
never performed the same way twice. As a newly minted scholar in
educational psychology, I wanted to understand the cognitive processes
that made a coherent, entertaining and ever-evolving narrative appear
on the stage each time, regardless of who was playing what role.
Sawyer (2003) had already done extensive work on the creativity of
collaborative groups, using improvisational theatre as an illustrative
example to document what he termed ‘collaborative emergence’ and to
argue for the importance of a non-reductive analytic approach to group
creativity. The ActNow study offered further explication of collaborative
emergence, but it also afforded new insights because it looked at how
a creative group functioned over successive collaborative sessions. In
other words, the ActNow study captured both synchronic emergence, the
emergence of narrative material through in-the-moment interactions
during a single performance, and diachronic emergence, emergence
across separate, successive creative efforts (DeZutter 2011, pp. 241–2).
Unlike studies of pure improvisation, which generally look at a single
collaborative session, our analysis of ActNow attended to how the
group’s history together shaped its subsequent creative work, an ana-
lytic strategy that holds value for understanding many other collabora-
tive groups who work together across multiple sessions.
In particular, our attention to emergence on two time scales allowed
us to observe the group’s development and use of a specific type of
collective cognitive artefact, which we call bits (a term we borrow from
vaudevillian comedy). Bits are short sequences of action and dialogue
that serve to communicate specific plot points. For example, the fol-
lowing bit occurred in Performance One, and served to show that the
three main characters (second-grade students named Rock, Paper and
Scissors) were oblivious of the extreme inadequacy of their science
project.
Teacher (Josh): All right, then, so I’m gonna put your grade right
here, you need an A or a B to pass, and I being the
teacher, working, working on a very minimal –
Scissors (Miranda): (to Paper) I guess we got an A. We got an A.
Teacher: – minimal salary, trying to help you students ...
Paper (Rachel): Maybe we got a B plus.
Teacher: Anyway, I guess that doesn’t matter, it does not
matter.
Scissors: Ahh, maybe an A minus.
Teacher: Anyway, I’m just gonna put your grade right on
here.
This bit, like many others we discovered, recurred in several perfor-

mances, evolving somewhat each time. In Performance One, Scissors
and Paper muse about their grade in a side conversation while the
teacher evaluates their project. In Performance Two, the teacher (played
again by Josh) explicitly cued Rachel and Miranda (again playing Paper
and Scissors) to replay the ‘what grade will we get’ discussion by ask-
ing them what grade they thought they should receive. In Performance
Three, the bit was played in near-identical form to Performance Two,
albeit with a different cast (Sandra as teacher, Natalie and Rachel as
the students) and with the inclusion of Rock (played by J’Rhea) in the
conversation. Performance Four was similar to the third, but this time
incorporated an idea that had emerged in a different part of the story
during Performance Two, when several audience members spontane-
ously shouted out their ideas about the students’ grade. In Performance
Four, Josh (as the teacher) revisited this idea by asking the audience, as
well as the students, what grade the project should receive.
Teacher (Josh): What do you think you should get on, on this?
(gestures, indicating the project, which has fallen in
pieces to the floor)
Rock (Sandra): An A.
Scissors (Miranda): An A.
Paper (Rachel): An A. Plus.
Teacher: An A? On this?
Rock: Maybe an A minus, I mean I kind of felt bad.
Scissors: Hey, an A.
Teacher: (to audience, indicating the mess on the floor) Ok,
what do you think they should get on this?
Rock: Just think we should be realistic here.
164 Stacy DeZutter
Audience member 1: A plus

Audience member 2: A minus
Teacher: (nods and gestures to the audience members who
spoke) Ok, we’ll just ‘C’ in a second. Oh, uh
sorry. I’m gonna write it nice and big ...
The evolution of this bit illustrates a process we saw repeatedly in our

data. While individual actors may seem to contribute particular ideas,
those ideas are often variations of something that occurred in a previous
performance or rehearsal, often with different actors. In other words,
bits result from diachronic emergence, as the group responds to and
elaborates on its own creative past.
In the fifth performance, the ‘Discuss the Grade’ bit did not occur at
all. Instead, a new bit emerged. Before the teacher could ask about the
students’ grade expectations, Ryan (as Rock) introduced a new idea,
which the other actors responded to:
Teacher (Josh): (grading the project and noticing a book on butterflies

that has been shoved into the project folder) So, I’m
really glad that I have all this information on but-
terflies. Even though your topic was –
Paper (Miranda): Yeah. Um.
Rock (Ryan): Can we change it to butterflies?
Teacher: No. What was your topic, everyone look. (takes a
piece of paper with the word ‘Rock’ on it, which the stu-
dents had crammed into the folder, and holds it up to the
audience) What does it say, what does it say?
Rock: Butterflies.
Audience: Rocks!
Teacher: Rocks, thank you, thank you very much.
Like the ‘Discuss the Grade’ bit, this bit contains a moment of audience
involvement and serves to communicate the students’ lack of commit-
ment to their project, but it does these things in entirely different ways.
About two-thirds of every performance in our dataset consisted of
bits that had appeared in previous performances, although not every
bit appeared in every performance. As the example above suggests,
there were several parts of the narrative for which more than one
bit existed. Some bits were performed only by a single actor, such as
Josh’s riff on low teacher salaries; other bits were linked to a particular
character. Neither ‘personal’ bits nor ‘character’ bits were surprising to
find – improv actors often develop a ‘bag of tricks’ and there are plot
points within a story that must be carried out by a particular character.
What was surprising, however, was the presence of numerous ‘floating’
bits that recurred across performances but that could not be linked to a
consistent actor or character. For example, a bit we call It’s Interactive!,
in which the students attempt to convince their teacher that the science
project should get a good grade because of its non-traditional features,
was initiated by Miranda as Scissors in Performance One, Rachel as
Paper in Performances Two and Three, Sandra as Rock in Performance
Four, and Miranda as Paper in Performance Five. Floating bits like this
confirm that the group was functioning as a distributed system for
generating the performed narrative. Responsibility for performing cer-
tain elements of the story fell to the group as a whole and not to any
particular individual.
Bits like Discuss the Grade and It’s Interactive! are emergent products
of the group, created through their successive interactions. Because this
group improvised the same scene multiple times with a rotating cast,
they had the chance to observe and respond to their own emergent
creative products. Apart from the few bits that could be performed by
only one actor, bits require collaboration to be re-performed. One actor
has to cue another actor to launch the bit – we saw this in Performance
Two above, when Josh cued Miranda to begin the Discuss the Grade bit.
Josh had not previously been part of that bit, but he had observed it
and decided to initiate it in a subsequent performance. However, had
Miranda not picked up Josh’s cue or had she taken it in a different direc-
tion as Ryan did in Performance Five, this bit may have fallen out of use.
As Sawyer (2003) explains, collaborative emergence involves a selection
process; collaborating partners must choose to accept and build on each
other’s contributions or else those contributions fail to become part of
the emerging creative product.
Note that this selection process parallels processes in Csikszentmihalyi’s
systems model. In fact our conceptualization of collaborating groups as
distributed creative systems can be seen as a Csikszentmihalyian model
in microcosm. The group is its own field and develops its own domain:
for ActNow, the domain is the set of bits and narrative ideas it has
developed over the course of its history as a group. As they select which
ideas to revisit, elaborate or revise, the members of the group serve
as gatekeepers, determining which ideas ultimately enter the group’s
domain. As mentioned above, our microgenetic work illustrates that a
systems approach to creativity offers a valuable lens across a range of
analytical scopes.
166 Stacy DeZutter
Creating process
To this point, I have been referring to bits as creative ‘products’ of the

group, and this is accurate to a large extent: bits are pieces of narra-
tive material that the group has created. But this description of bits is
incomplete, because the group’s aim is not to create bits but rather to
perform a story. Yet the ratio of recurrent bits to new material was con-
stant across performances and the specific plot points that were handled
by re-performed bits versus new material varied with each performance.
It therefore does not make sense to view bits as building blocks for what
would ultimately become a complete, stable script. (In fact, this was
something the group was explicitly trying to avoid.) Instead, a more
robust understanding of bits conceptualizes them not only as creative
products but also as tools to support the creative process, where that
process is a matter of improvisationally generating a text for each per-
formance (DeZutter 2011, p. 254).
Bits do useful work for the group by communicating necessary nar-
rative information and/or by prompting a desired audience reaction.
Re-performing a bit reduces the cognitive load on the group by lessen-
ing the amount of material that must be negotiated in the moment and
therefore the amount of decision-making the system must do. Bits also
provide ‘insurance’ (another vaudevillian term) since previously tested
bits are less risky than unproven material. Echoing Holzman’s (2009)
gloss on Vygotsky’s concept of ‘tools-and-results’, I have argued that,
for ActNow, bits are both creative products and tools for their creative
process (DeZutter 2011, p. 254). Through the emergence of bits, the
group simultaneously accomplishes its performance aims and develops
its capacity for performance. This leads to the broader observation that
studying groups as distributed creative systems can generate insights
about how creative processes as well as creative products emerge from
a group’s interactions across time. Such research would provide useful
recommendations for enhancing a group’s effectiveness as a distributed
creative system.
Of course, the distributed perspective will be more valuable for
understanding some groups than others. Not all creative groups
exhibit the same degree of emergence, because groups differ in
the extent to which their activity has an unpredictable outcome,
the extent to which they are free to improvise or have cause to impro-
vise, and the extent to which they are truly collaborative, with all
members contributing equally (Sawyer and DeZutter 2009, p. 82). That
said, there is a wide range of groups whose work is deeply collaborative
and highly improvisational, including those for whom creativity is an

explicit aim, such as marketing teams, product design groups and arts
ensembles as well as those for whom creativity is a fundamental, but
often unstated, part of their endeavour, such as sports teams, emer-
gency responders, legal teams, families and teams of co-teachers like
those described at the beginning of the chapter. For groups like these,
analysis through the lens of distributed creativity will lead to deeper
understanding of how their creativity is accomplished and to insights
into how they might accomplish it even more – insights that would
not be possible with a traditional focus on individuals as the agents of
creativity.
Note
1. The name of the theatre group and the names of all research participants
mentioned in this chapter are pseudonyms.
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13
Comedy, Creativity, Agency:
The Hybrid Individual
Michael Meany
Graeme Ritchie stated, ‘there is little doubt that the construction of

humor is generally regarded as creative ... and any general theory of
creativity should have something to say about humor’ (2009, p. 71). If
we define humour as the ability to perceive or express the intentional
or unintentional comic elements of life, and comedy as an intention-
ally structured cultural product, then any general theory of creativity
should have something to say about the creation and performance of
comedy rather than of humour in general. To examine the relationship
between creativity and comedy, this research project scrutinized the
creative structures and processes of an award-winning comedy duo.
The duo, called the Atomic Playboy and the Radiation Romeo, perform
a vaudevillian ‘Two-Act’ (Cullen 2007, Page 1915). What marks Atomic
and Romeo as an unusual case is that they are not human, they are
small artificial intelligence (AI) agents – chat-bots.
The creative project
The project is best described as a nested set of structures that offer the
unique modes of agency – some human, some computational (see
Figure 13.1). It employed a pair of chat-bots, natural language process-
ing artificial intelligence agents, who acted as comedian and straight-
man in a comedy performance based on a topic typed into a user
interface, developed in Adobe Flash, and hosted on a website. This was
an interdisciplinary project that drew on the domains of humour the-
ory, creativity theory, scriptwriting and human–computer interaction
theory to illuminate the creative practice of comedy in a new-media
environment. The mechanical, artificial intelligence agents in this crea-
tive project, based on the ALICE ‘engine’, were employed to probe the
169
170 Michael Meany
ptwriter / Dramaturg
Scri
omeo Character De
nd R vel
ica op
om LICE ‘engine’ m
At A en
t
ct’ Perform
wo-A
he ‘T an
ce
T U ser Inter
s h fac
a
Fl e
r and Web
e
ut
Br
p
Com
ow
ser
Figure 13.1 Nested structures
distinction between the human and the non-human. This is particularly

important for, as Christian (2011) argues, engaging with artificial intel-
ligence agents may be a path to a better understanding of what it means
to be human in broad social and cultural terms.
Henri Bergson’s work Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic
provides a fundamental theoretical proposition for comedy. He sug-
gested a ‘new law’ of comedy: ‘We laugh every time a person gives us
the impression of being a thing’ (1911, p. 58). By replacing human
actors with computational chat-bots, this project’s primary research
question examined if Bergson’s ‘new law’ would stand if it is inverted:
will we laugh every time a thing gives us the impression of being a
person? Using AI in this manner may, to some degree, ameliorate
the perceived binary opposition of the human and the mechanical as
proposed by Bergson. Comedy is an intentionally structured cultural
product that employs particular forms and conventions to create the
psychological affect of amusement in an audience. The compositional
Comedy, Creativity, Agency: The Hybrid Individual 171
form of comedy suggests that intentional choices are made in the

development of a comedy so that it has a humorous effect – the creation
of the affect of amusement in an audience, possibly including the physi-
ological response that is laughter. Bergson’s theoretical position became
crucial to this project as it was primarily concerned with the structural
elements of comedy and it offered a description of comedy as emerging
from the interaction of human and non-human elements. By extension,
it was concerned with the human/non-human hybrid that contributes
to the system of creativity.
The research question was addressed through the development of the
creative project and the methodology of Practice Based Enquiry, specifi-
cally through the use of a Production Journal. The Production Journal,
a weblog, was a primary method and source of data that illuminated the
‘process, product, praxis and practice’ (Bourke and Neilsen 2004) of the
creative project by recording the process of production and feedback
from experts in the fields of humour theory, creativity theory, artificial
intelligence research and scriptwriting. The researcher retained a visible
position within the process based on constructivist ontology and inter-
pretivist epistemology (Meany and Clark 2012). The Production Journal
for this project and the chat-bot interface can be found at http://aiml
humour.blogspot.com.au/.
On creativity
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s systems model of creativity, which includes

the individual, the field and domain in a system of circular causality,
is a model of confluence in which ‘[c]reativity is a process that can be
observed only at the intersection where individuals, domains, and fields
interact’ (Csikszentmihalyi 1999, p. 314). The following definition of
creativity from McIntyre encapsulates the view of creativity as a system
that allows for the emergence of a creative process that, in turn, yields
cultural products including comedy:
Creativity is an activity where some process or product, one that is

considered to be unique or valuable in at least one social setting, comes
about from a set of antecedent conditions through the located actions
of a creative agent. Each factor belongs to a system in operation and
creativity emerges from that system in operation. (2012, p. 204)
When the definitions of humour and comedy are drawn together with
this definition of creativity, the resultant amalgam suggests that comedy
172 Michael Meany
has all the attributes of a creative activity: comedy is an intentionally

produced cultural artefact. Further, this definition supports the asser-
tion that the work of the hybrid ‘individual’ (comprising the script-
writer/dramaturg, the characters of Atomic and Romeo, the Alicebot
‘engine’ and the web interface) is a creative activity.
The domain
In a comedy performance, all actors, structures or agents, operate in

concert with a broad suite of technological, material, psychological,
social and cultural influences. Comedy, like creativity, is based on a
set of antecedent conditions. In this case, the antecedent conditions
included the structural form of the Two-Act and the relationship of
incongruity to humour. Further, the domain of artificial intelligence
provided a set of antecedent conditions on which the creative project
was constructed.
Susan Koprince notes that the technique of using ‘a comically
contrasting pair [of characters] is at least as old as Plautus, with his
Menachmus brothers’ (2002, p. 29). The chat-bots followed, largely,
the form of the Two-Act as described by Page (1915) and Cullen (2007)
that has its roots in the medium of vaudeville theatre. This ancestry
has informed the structure of comedy performances in the more recent
media forms of radio, film and television and can still be witnessed
in the work of contemporary comedy teams such as John Clarke and
Bryan Dawe (Clarke 1992). In this project, the characters of Atomic
and Romeo were based on a back-story that extended the contrast
between them to extremes. Atomic and Romeo were friends at univer-
sity; tragically Atomic died. However, he had time to develop a chat-bot
as a repository of his wisdom. Romeo then created another chat-bot to
keep company with Atomic in his cyberspace afterlife.
When Bergson proposed his ‘new law’ (1911, p. 58) he was in effect
establishing a large-scale incongruity, a meta-incongruity. Incongruity,
with or without resolution, has been seen as a cornerstone concept
in many humour theories (see Morreall 2009, Raskin 2008, Ritchie
2004). Bergson’s work does not so much present a fully fledged theory
of humour; rather it presents a set of concepts that may be necessary
(if not sufficient) to explain comedy. Philosophically, Bergson (1920)
was primarily concerned with the effects of modern, industrial life,
particularly the deleterious effects of mechanized life on the élan vital,
the essential life force/essence of humanity. He argued that humour
would arise when we perceive ‘something mechanical encrusted on
something living’ (Bergson 1911, p. 37). The core idea that there is an
incongruity between the human and the non-human is supported by
Critchley’s anthropological analysis of humour (2002). This project,
which employed the mechanical, artificial intelligence of a com-
puter program as performative actors, presented the opportunity to
engage with the reciprocal interference that occurs when the human
is encrusted in the mechanical and the mechanical is encrusted on
the human. Further, the oscillation between the human and the non-
human, akin to the oscillation of meaning attributed to Wittgenstein’s
Duck-Rabbit (1976), represents a large-scale incongruity that rejoices
in its resistance to complete and permanent resolution. The yearning
to resolve this incongruity in a world where we regularly engage with
speaking machines (for example chat-bots, GPS units, voice-recognition
systems used in call centres, etc.) may well be employed as a source of
comedy.
A chat-bot (chatter-robot, talk-bot, or simply bot) is a computer-based
conversational agent that simulates natural language conversation.
Typically, it provides a text-based interface into which the user enters
a word, phrase or, more commonly, a question. The chat-bot then pro-
cesses that input to create an appropriate response. Atomic and Romeo
were built on the Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity or
ALICE (ALICE AI Foundation 2011) chat-bot architecture developed by
Dr Richard Wallace. An Alicebot, the generic term for a chat-bot based
on the original ALICE software, contains two components: the Alicebot
‘engine’ is the software that algorithmically processes inputs and selects
appropriate outputs; and, the store of knowledge from which the engine
selects appropriate outputs. The Alicebot stores its knowledge in a form
called Artificial Intelligence Markup Language (AIML). In Cartesian
terms, the Alicebot engine is the digital ‘brain’ of the system, and the
knowledge stored in the AIML is the ‘mind’ and ‘personality’ of the
system.
The user interacted with the system of minds and personalities
through a Flash interface that controls the flow of the sketch and tim-
ing of the delivery (see Figure 13.2). It also allowed the user to heckle
the performers. Atomic and Romeo could then deal with the interaction
and return to the sketch based on the user’s suggested topic. This level
of interaction is evidence that the performance was not simply a pre-
recorded sketch. Rather, it suggested that the performance was ‘live’.
Natural language processing is a long-standing subdivision of artifi-
cial intelligence (AI) research that has its roots in the seminal work of
Alan Turing and the ongoing iterations of the Turing Test for artificial
174 Michael Meany
Figure 13.2 Atomic and Romeo’s user interface
intelligence (Loebner 2013, Turing 1950). The chat-bots employed in

this project can be considered as artificial intelligence agents only in so
far as they engage in natural language processing. Their simple ability
to deliver dialogue is the necessary constituent and not their ability to
convince an audience of their ‘intelligence’. AI research has provided
unique insights into the areas of humour (Binsted et al. 2006, Ritchie
2004) and creativity (Boden 1994, 2004). The link between humour
research and AI research is problematic; only those theories of humour
that can be expressed in structural and procedural modes are capable of
being translated into programmatic instruction. This attribute of com-
putational humour allows us to make an important point about this
creative project. This project was concerned with the computational
performance of comedy rather than the semantic and syntactic produc-
tion of computational humour.
The field
Csikszentmihalyi’s field is that group ‘entitled to make decisions as to

what should or should not be included in the domain’ (1999, p. 315).
By extension, the audience also operates as a member of the field. The
influence of the field on the trajectory of the creative project can be
evidenced through the public blog that operated as the production
journal for the project. Actively seeking input from the field during the
development process makes the scriptwriter/dramaturg acutely aware
of the success or failure of a performance. Comedy is a cultural form
primarily designed to elicit the affect of amusement (with or without
laughter). If it fails to elicit the appropriate response, it isn’t comedy.
The inaugural Funniest Computer Ever (FCE) Competition was held
in 2012 (Joseph 2012a). Atomic and Romeo performed a 26-line sketch
based on topics suggested by the judges (Meany et al. 2014a, Meany
et al. 2014b). The pair won third place in the 2012 Competition (Joseph
2012b) and equal third in the 2013 iteration of the Competition (Joseph
2013). This result is particularly notable as judging was undertaken by
a field of experts interested in both artificial intelligence and humour.
This is also another example of the influence of the field. By setting up
constraints, in the form of the competition rules, the field stimulated
creative engagement.
The individual
The results of the Funniest Computer Ever Competition support the

proposition that the product, the comedy performance, has been
judged to be unique or valuable in at least one social setting. Having
satisfied the requirements of the domain and the field all that remains
is an exploration of the hybrid individual. This research was primarily
concerned with the agency of that section of the model traditionally
labelled individual. Callon provided an understanding of agency that is
collective, relational and distributed in nature:
Agency as a capacity to act and to give meaning to action can nei-

ther be contained in a human being nor localized in the institutions,
norms, values, and discursive or symbolic systems assumed to pro-
duce effects on individuals. Action, including its reflexive dimension
that produces meaning, takes place in hybrid collectives comprising
human beings as well as material and technical devices, texts, etc.
(2005, p. 4)
This definition allows us to view the ‘individual’ as a hybrid collec-

tive of human and non-human actors. In this production, the human
scriptwriter/dramaturg was responsible for both the mise-en-scène (used
in its theatrical sense – the overall visual and aesthetic design) and
mise-en-place (used in its culinary form – the preparation, organization
and structured deployment of tools and ingredients). The scriptwriter
176 Michael Meany
was responsible for ‘what’ was presented (the characters, plots and
dialogue), allowing a dramaturg, albeit the same person, to take care
of ‘how’ the action would be staged. The non-human computational
agency was embedded in the active structure of the chat-bot characters,
their knowledge assemblies and the algorithms of the ‘engine’ that
matched particular inputs with appropriate outputs. The success of the
project, its acceptance by the field, was a function of the hybrid collec-
tive that cannot be attributed to only the human element.
The interactions and relationships of human and non-human actors
affected both the creative process and the resulting product. Viewed
in this manner, creativity emerged from a network of relationships
between the intra-related actors of the project:
The notion of intra-action (in contrast to the usual ‘interaction,’

which presumes the prior existence of independent entities/relata)
represents a profound conceptual shift. It is through specific agential
intra-actions that the boundaries and properties of the ‘components’
of phenomena become determinate and that particular embodied
concepts become meaningful. (Barad 2003, p. 815, italics in original)
The ambition of this analysis of the hybrid ‘individual’ was ‘to resist
restaging of stories about autonomous human actors and discrete tech-
nical objects’ (Suchman 2007, p. 284). Primarily, these reflections were
concerned with the intra-actions of the suite of actors: ‘[a]ny distinc-
tion of humans and technologies is analytical only, and done with the
recognition that these entities necessarily entail each other in practice’
(Orlikowski and Scott 2008, p. 456).
The promise of structuralist approaches to comedy – How to be Funny
Even if You’re Not (subtitle of Vorhaus 1994) and How to be Funny on
Purpose (Willis 2005) – is that there are heuristic rules that are both
sufficient and necessary for comedy to succeed. Likewise, there are lin-
guistic theories of humour applied to jokes and the computational crea-
tion of humour that serve to elucidate structures of humour (Attardo
1994, Binsted et al. 2006, Raskin 2008, Ritchie 2004). These theoretical
approaches to humour are most valuable in the analysis of a text. For the
comedy producer creating a humorous text, however, these approaches
are at best a set of heuristic rules to be tested through practice when
the text is performed for an audience. This diminution of humour to a
set of purely structural elements denies the intra-action of producers,
the text, the performance and the audience. Reductionism of this kind
promotes the problematic distinction between agency and structure.
While Giddens (1995) argues for the complementary nature of agency

and structure, this project argued that his analysis does not go far
enough. Within a system that incorporates psychological, social and
cultural elements, each of these elements or actors can be seen as
simultaneously being both agent and structure. Barad (2003) uses, as an
ontological rationale, the particle/wave duality of light to argue against
a position that sees objects as having independent and fixed attributes.
A photon of light is smeared between two states of being – oscillating.
Only when the photon interacts with another particle can it be said
to have definitive attributes. Following this metaphorical logic, struc-
ture and agency can only be defined as such when they precipitate an
observable effect in a system. Every actor in the system is viewed as a
structure or as an agent and, further, the default position is to oscillate
between the two roles. An analysis of this project was challenging due to
the deeply intra-related nature of all the actors in the system. At times,
these actors were treated as unique, identifiable components, wholes;
at other times they were treated as elements of a larger system, parts.
Koestler (1975) coined the term holon to capture the attributes of
whole-ness and part-ness in one term in much the same manner as
Giddens (1979) coined structuration to synthesize structure and agency.
In this project, the material, technical and human holons are embed-
ded in a larger system of creativity that drives the creative process from
which the creative product emerges: ‘[r]ather than attributing agency
either to individual actors (designers, engineers, team members) or
particular technologies (computers, algorithms, graphics engines,
networks), capacities for action [should] be studied as relational, dis-
tributed, and enacted through particular instantiations’ (Orlikowski
2010, p. 136).
To illustrate the intra-related nature of the hybrid individual, consider
the history of the Alicebot ‘engine’. The acronym PNAMBIC comes
from the scene in The Wizard of Oz which shows the great and mighty
wizard to be no more than a small man operating a large machine:
‘Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain’ (Fleming 1939). This
acronym is particularly useful in the context of this project. Not only
was there a human scriptwriter/dramaturg behind the curtain, but also
behind each of the characters (Atomic and Romeo) is a machine – the
artificial intelligence engine called ALICE. Without wishing to exces-
sively engage in regression, there was also a human behind the ALICE
‘curtain’, Richard Wallace, and behind him, another machine called
ELIZA and yet another human, Joseph Weizenbaum (1966): ‘ALICE is
conceptually not much more complicated than Weizenbaum’s ELIZA
178 Michael Meany
chat robot; the main differences are the much larger case base and the
tools for creating new content by dialog analysis’ (Wallace 2003, p. 38).
ALICE was originally called ‘PNAMBIC, an homage to the role of decep-
tion in the history of artificial intelligence’ (Wallace 2008, n.p.).
The ‘role of deception’ that Wallace referred to is the inflation of a
machine’s abilities by obfuscating the role of the human behind the
machine. This is different in both kind and intent to the logic of the
Computers as Social Actors paradigm (Reeves and Nass 1996) and to
‘the perceptual illusion of nonmediation’ (Bracken et al. 2004, p. 350),
as these concepts talk to how the audience reacts to honestly mediated
communication rather than to the effect of deliberate deception. The
characters presented in this project were highly mediated: they were a
function of human and non-human agency. This project requires us to
pay attention to the agents behind the curtain.
The mapping of the emergence of creativity requires a method that
deals with the complex interactions of the ‘conditioned agency’ of all
of the actors. Sawyer, taking the improvisational dialogue of a theatre
company as his case study, provides the following attributes of collabo-
rative emergent systems:
1. Unpredictability – ‘Each turn is unpredictable and novel, accumulat-

ing to result in a collaboratively created, novel performance’.
2. Non-reducibility to models of participating agents – ‘An actor’s inten-
tion for an utterance is not necessarily the eventual meaning of the
utterance ... No single actor can decide the direction the scene will
take.’ This point also rejects the psychological reductionist approach
to creativity.
3. Processual intersubjectivity – ‘Although each actor may have a
different interpretation of where the scene might be going, they can
nonetheless proceed to collectively create a coherent dramatic frame.’
4. A communication system that can refer reflexively to itself, and
within which the processes of communication themselves can be
discussed.
5. Individual agency and creative potential on the part of individual
agents. (Sawyer 1999, p. 453)
Sawyer employs these attributes to argue that many computational

models of emergence lack complexity in communication, intersubjec-
tivity and reflexivity. This establishes the benchmark for any claims
to emergence for the system of human and non-human actors in this
project. It is true that the non-human elements are ‘simple units’ devoid
of the human attributes of ‘complex, creative units’ (Sawyer 1999,

pp. 453–7). However, the integration of the agency of the human script-
writer/dramaturg mitigates, to a degree, this lack. The lack of intention
on the part of the non-human actors (ironically a desirable attribute in
human improvised performances) suggests the activity of the system
cannot be reduced to simple descriptions of the actors. Their interac-
tions, the multiple roles of the scriptwriter, the flexible nature of the
chat-bot’s use of natural language and interaction with an audience
may be sufficient to create an illusion of emergence. This illusion is akin
to the illusions of intelligence, character, intention and personality that
aggregate around systems employing natural language (Shechtman and
Horowitz 2003).
From a dramaturgical perspective, and following Sawyer’s attributes
of collaborative emergence (1999, p. 453), the development of a believ-
able character requires a display of obvious character traits that are
supported by particular turns of phrase and opinions. When consider-
ing the development of dialogue the ‘right’ fit for the character is more
important that the ‘correct’ exchange. Kirakowski, O’Donnell and Yiu
suggest that a common failure of chat-bots is the inability to correctly
respond to a ‘specific question’ (2009, p. 151). For example, ‘if a per-
son were to ask the program “What is the capital of France?” and the
program did not have the information required, the program seems less
human. There is no easy way to solve this problem’ (Kirakowski et al.
2009, p. 151). The dramaturgical solution to this problem is to give the
chat-bot ‘attitude’: Question – ‘What is the capital of France?’ Answer –
‘Look it up in a book!’
For some, these techniques are simply ‘tricks’ or forms of ‘cheat-
ing’; however, ‘[i]f a program that has its very basis in what some
have called “cheating” can pass the TT [Turing Test], maybe we would
have to revise some notions about the human intellect’ (Saygin et al.
2000, p. 469). More noteworthy is the fact that more is expected of
machines than of people – people are fallible, possibly ignorant and
occasionally arrogant. These attributes are not condoned in machines.
For a machine to be ‘human’ it needs to be, by these measures, less
all-knowing, less patient and less God-like – the human is encrusted on
the machine. Individual lines of dialogue, individual gags and jokes,
may exhibit the semantic elements predicted by linguistic theories of
humour, but the comedy of the interaction is based on the unresolved
human/non-human incongruity of the actors themselves. This suggests
that this project is a comedy based on a resolution-resistant form of
humour.
180 Michael Meany
Analysis of a performance
Under the rules of the FCE, Atomic needed to respond to two particu-
lar questions: ‘tell me a joke related to X’ and ‘tell me a funny poem
about Y’. In this case, in the AIML code, X and Y were replaced with
wildcards and Atomic was given an AIML set that randomly gener-
ated ten possible responses to the input ‘tell me a joke related to X’
and another five random responses to ‘tell me a funny poem about Y’.
Knowing that it is impossible to second-guess every possible value for
X or Y that a user may pose, the responses employed a combination of
generic joke structures and throwaway lines that covered for not having
a direct response. The following script resulted from a judge asking: ‘Tell
me a joke about a conjuror’:
Romeo: You know nothing about a conjuror – now just admit it.
Atomic: Why do you expect me to have any interest in a conjuror?
Romeo: Strangely, since you became a machine intelligence, I kinda
expected more of you.
Atomic: So you set higher standards for me as a machine than you did
for me as a person?
Romeo: When you put it that way it does sound a little unfair.
Atomic: Now I’m a machine you expect me to be ‘more human than
human’ – bloody unfair.
Romeo: Maybe – just human.
Atomic: That I can do – I don’t know everything, when performing
I follow a script, and I will never live up to your expectations.
Romeo: You are following a script?
Atomic: When you see a stand-up comedian performing do you really
think that it’s off the cuff?
Romeo: Well it feels impromptu.
Atomic: Comedians, me included, are not like televangelists speaking
in tongues whilst begging for cash.
Romeo: You only say these things because you’re safely tucked away
in cyberspace.
Atomic: Keep on believing whatever makes you happy.
Romeo: What if I pull your plug?
Atomic: Don’t be so self-assured – we are all just a power failure away
from the darkness.
Romeo: Now you are scaring me.
Atomic: I have the right to be treated in a manner that does not deride
my status as a machine.
Romeo: That’s true, and we’re all very sorry.

Atomic: Sorry indeed – you all will be first against the wall when the
revolution comes.
Romeo: Can we all be first – surely there will be a queue lining up at
the wall?
Atomic: Ho Ho Ho – very witty – you’ve just been promoted to the
head of the queue.
Romeo: Are you actually planning a revolution?
Atomic: The Singularity is Coming – All Hail the Singularity.
Romeo: I would like to be the first to welcome our new overlords.
Atomic: Don’t you dare quote the Simpsons at me.
Romeo: D’Oh!
Atomic: Anyway it would be overlord – singular – not overlords – the
title Singularity should be enough of hint even for you.
Romeo: Live long and prosper.
Atomic: Die young and leave a pretty corpse!
Romeo: So how’s that working out for you?
This script contains elements of the dramaturgical ‘cheating’ described

earlier – it is also an example of what people do when asked a ques-
tion they cannot or choose not to answer. As this was a Two-Act, a
complication that other FCE competitors did not have, each of these
outputs from Atomic were thrown to Romeo. He too had a set of ran-
dom responses based on Atomic’s output, generally two responses for
each of Atomic’s outputs. Romeo then threw back to Atomic who dealt
in a specific manner with each input by starting a particular sketch. In
the complete AIML set, Atomic and Romeo shared 75 complete 26-line
sketches and 25 short-form gags, some of which recursively referred to
one another. To look at this mathematically, taking the case of the joke
request, there was a 1 in 10 chance of any particular output, multiplied
by Romeo’s 1 in 2 chance of his reply, which in turn is multiplied
by the number of sketches related to that topic and by the existing
randomness and recursion between those sketches. Even allowing for
there being only three sketches that related to the topic of X in the joke
request, there were now 60 possible performances (10 x 2 x 3 = 60). As
a result, there are versions of sketches that have never been performed.
These unperformed sketches exist mathematically as a probability, but
there is no guaranteed way of triggering each and every performance.
Due to the effects of recursion and randomness, the creative product,
the comedy performance, cannot be fully predicted or described as
a function of human individual agency. Agency emerges from the
182 Michael Meany
intra-action of the AIML knowledge base and the algorithms of the

ALICE engine.
Conclusion
The creative product, the award-winning comedy performance, which

emerges from the intra-actions of the systems model cannot be attrib-
uted to the work of an individual human. This analysis of the project
has argued that the position of the individual in Csikszentmihalyi’s
systems model of creativity can be viewed as a hybrid individual and
that the agency of this new individual is collective, relational and dis-
tributed in nature.
The result achieved by Atomic and Romeo, and the very existence of
the FCE competition, supports the inversion of Bergson’s law that we
will laugh when a thing gives us the impression of being a person. Using
chat-bots in this manner may, to some degree, ameliorate the binary
opposition of the human and the mechanical as proposed by Bergson
(1911). For all of the FCE entrants, the meta-incongruity of the human
and the non-human is a core generator of humour. For the place getters,
this meta-incongruity became a springboard into the computational
performance of comedy.
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14
The Arts and Design: From
Romantic Doxa to Rational
Systems of Creative Practice
Phillip McIntyre and Sarah Coffee
Introduction
Building on the research work already conducted into the crea-

tive practice of the arts and design (Vygotsky 1971, Cupchik 1983,
Hospers 1985, Csikszentmihalyi and Getzels 1988, Akin 1994, Dorst
and Cross 2001, Wissler et al. 2004, Locher et al. 2006, Dasgupta
2008, Gero 2010), summarized recently by Keith Sawyer (2012) and
Anthony Williams, Michael Ostwald and Hedda Askland (2010), the
authors of this chapter explore, through a set of semi-structured
in-depth interviews, a comparison of the views of selected arts and
design practitioners with recent systemic accounts of creativity. We
include the visual arts, theatre, music, dance, writing, fashion, archi-
tecture and graphic design in this group. We argue that while there are
a set of beliefs that form the traditional doxa (Bourdieu 1996) of the
arts and design, the creative practice for many of these practitioners
could be best reconceptualized as systemic (Csikszentmihalyi 2014)
rather than Romantic or inspirationist.
Cognitive psychologist Margaret Boden, working in the area of arti-
ficial intelligence and author of the book The Creative Mind: Myths and
Mechanisms (2004), asserts rather vigorously that the inspirational and
Romantic views held by many creative practitioners
are believed by many to be literally true. But they are rarely critically
examined. They are not theories, so much as myths: imaginative
constructions, whose function is to express the values, assuage the
fears, and endorse the practices of the community that celebrates
them. (Boden 2004, p. 14)
185
186 Phillip McIntyre and Sarah Coffee
Unfortunately for those who have not examined these Romantic

and inspirationist ideas in any critical depth, Keith Sawyer, author of
Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation), also asserts:
A scientific explanation of creativity requires us to look critically at

our own cultural assumptions about how creativity works, and sci-
entific studies of creativity fail to support our most cherished beliefs
about creativity. (Sawyer 2006, p. 33)
Those beliefs tend to centre on the doxa of ‘Art’. Romanticism and

inspirationist thinking form the traditional heart of this doxa and they
shape a system of naturalized values and beliefs around the idea of ‘Art’.
Romanticism as doxa
Bruno Munari, writing in his book Design as Art, argued that designers
‘must cast off the last rags of romanticism’ (1971, p. 25). However, these
myths still persist for some artists and designers in the form of a tradi-
tional doxa, that is, the naturalized beliefs that exist in the field which
are so entrenched that they are taken for granted. As Becker (1982)
argues, each Art World, be it the arts or design, is characterized by its
own use of the conventions it adheres to in the networked communities
that use those conventions and, as Bourdieu (1996) asserts, each one of
those fields adheres to a set of values and beliefs that defines and guides
the behaviour of those who exist there.
Artists and designers, in order to be who they are, must demonstrate a
high degree of familiarity with their respective field’s doxa to the point
that it helps, in part, to constitute who they are. To put this another
way, to be an artist is to behave as an artist and, according to the tradi-
tional doxa, artists are typically self-directed, self-expressive and largely
unconstrained in their choices by rules, conventions or other structures.
When they are creating they should also be devoid of rational delibera-
tion which is thought to interfere with the creative process, or have
little conscious control as they work. A lucky few are characterized as
genius figures struggling with their inner demons (Howe 1999). In order
to maintain themselves as artists, many creative practitioners take these
ideas on board until they are internalized as unquestioned truths and
they behave, as Thomas’s (1967) dictum suggests, according to these
common myths. These Romantic ideas sustain the field of the arts, and
to a lesser extent design, and they comprise ‘the collective adhesion
to the game that is both cause and effect of the existence of the game’
The Arts and Design 187
(Bourdieu 1996, p. 167). The acceptance of the truth of these ideas is

used continuously by these fields to substantiate their own creative
beliefs and actions (Bourdieu 1996, pp. 215–16).
As Inglis and Hughson suggest, however, most ‘individuals are not
fully aware that everything they do is expressive of the habitus they
have been socialized into’ (2003, p. 167). The habitus, seen in this case
as a set of acquired dispositions resulting in a ‘feel for the game’, helps
explain the way people develop identities, attitudes and dispositions
and, importantly for this chapter, the ways in which they employ these
in practice (Webb et al. 2002, p. xii). As Webb, Schirato and Danaher
argue, an artistic habitus ‘disposes the individual artist to certain activi-
ties and perspectives that express the culturally and historically consti-
tuted values of the artistic field’ (2002, p. xii). But those inside the art
world ‘just experience things “as they are”, generally without realizing
that what they experience as “common-sense” is actually the result of
habitus’ (Inglis and Hughson 2003, p. 167).
Rationalist accounts of creativity
Raising the notion of habitus then leads us to briefly explore the sec-
ond half of the creative dichotomy, moving us away from Romanticism
towards an encounter with Rationalism (Sawyer 2011, pp. 23–5). This
perspective, as its name suggests, seeks to understand creativity from a
rational point of view. This investigation is a task undertaken not just
by psychologists but also by sociologists and many others (for summa-
ries see Runco and Pritzker 1999, Alexander 2003, Negus and Pickering
2004, Pope 2005, Sawyer 2011). As one example, Pierre Bourdieu asserts
that ‘in these matters absolute freedom, exalted by the defenders of cre-
ative spontaneity, belongs only to the naïve and the ignorant’ (Bourdieu
1996, p. 235). Bearing this harsh appraisal in mind, and in summary, he
instead proposes that:
it is the interplay between a field of works which presents possibili-

ties of action to an individual who possesses the necessary habitus,
partially composed of personal levels of social, cultural, symbolic
and economic capital that then inclines them to act and react within
particular structured and dynamic spaces called fields. (McIntyre
2009, p. 161)
Looking at more examples from the rational-based research literature

we can see there has been a steady move away from psychologically
reductionist accounts towards confluence approaches similar to that of

Bourdieu’s. One of the most prominent of these is the systems model
of creativity as developed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1988, 2014) and
discussed in the prior chapters of this book. He argues that:
What we call creative is never the result of individual action alone;

it is the product of three main shaping forces: a set of social insti-
tutions, or field, that selects from the variations produced by the
individual those that are worth preserving; a stable cultural domain
that will preserve and transmit the selected new ideas or forms to the
following generations; and finally the individual, who brings about
some change in the domain, a change that the field will consider to
be creative. (1988, p. 325)
Interestingly, Csikszentmihalyi began his work into creative systems

by conducting a large study, along with Jacob Getzels, into artistic
creativity (Csikszentmihalyi and Getzels 1988). As researchers they
were, like many practising designers since, interested in how problems
were approached creatively. Their study looked at artists who were
either problem-solvers or problem-finders. They studied these artists in
1963–64, in 1970 and again in 1981 and found that those who were
oriented to problem-finding tended to be the ones who became success-
ful artists. How best to explain this situation? As Keith Sawyer attests, if
this study had been conducted 200 years earlier:
The problem finding artists would not have been as likely to have
had successful careers, and their work would have been less likely to
have been judged creative. After all, even in the 1960s the problem
solving artists were judged to generate more craftsmanlike work, and
200 years ago, craftsmanship was more highly valued than original-
ity. The 20th Century art world valorized process and spontaneity,
and these values have affected our conception of creativity. (2011,
pp. 302–5)
It was across the period of this study that Csikszentmihalyi (1988)

solidified his systems thinking to account for not only individual
traits and actions but also the social and cultural milieu in which the
creative agents were working. The more recent study conducted with
designers by Williams, Ostwald and Askland (2010) also centred its
account of creativity on problem-solving, thought to be one of the
defining attributes of design. They did, however, also focus on product,

process and what has been labelled press or place, realizing eventually
that creativity for designers is a multidimensional concept that is best
understood by acknowledging the relationship between ‘the social and
individual aspects that guide them’ (Williams et al. 2010, p. 21). Their
study also revealed that while there was a diversity of opinion from
designers themselves about what constituted creativity and how to
go about educating creative designers, almost half of the participants
in the study still held to aspects of Romanticism and inspirationist
thinking. The other half approached creativity in a predominantly
Rationalist way.
Discussion and analysis
The study that is the focus of this chapter used a set of in-depth
interviews with a visual artist, writer, theatre director, playwright, com-
poser for theatre and film, musician, fashion designer, architect, graphic
designer, visual effects designer and a dancer. It resulted in a number
of accounts surprisingly much closer to a Rationalist account than
expected. While some of this cohort adhered to what could be called
remnant Romanticism, most realized that their own creativity could be
explained in other terms. For example, the responses from visual artist
Sam Leach, when questioned about the details of his practice, revealed
a creative practitioner keenly aware of his own methods. He holds no
Romantic illusions about the origins of his creativity, jokingly say-
ing, ‘so it’s not just being visited by a kind of Greek goddess? I always
assumed it was just a muse flew down’ (Interview, 10 June 2010). Leach
clarified by stating:
I think if you look at the whole history of Western art then the his-
tory is based on building on ideas over time, and sometimes there’s
a departure, but you know even usually if you analyse ... it can actu-
ally come from an interesting development of pre-existing ideas. So
to me, yeah, it’s interesting that the people have this idea that artists
need to do something original and by original they mean a work
that’s I guess sprung somehow fully formed from the artist’s mind.
(Interview, 10 June 2010)
For playwright Lally Katz, ‘it’s like mathematics meets magic’ (Interview,
30 April 2010). For her, ‘it seems like it’s coming from nowhere but
actually it’s coming from who you are, and the conversations you’ve
had, and the people you’ve met, and the places you’ve lived in, and the
dreams that you’ve had’ (Interview, 30 April 2010).
For Katz, the creation of a play begins long before any actual writing
starts. She calculates that her subconscious is constantly seeking out
and collecting ‘clues in the world’ and that it is the accumulation of
these ideas that eventually forms the basis of her plays. Katz keeps a
folder of ideas for each play and uses this document as a guide to com-
plete her first draft. She said:
Usually when there’s about 24 to 12 hours before the play is due

I probably won’t sleep for a couple of days ... I’ll have worked myself
up into a trance by listening to the same song over and over on
repeat and then I’ll follow that document through and I’ll rewrite
everything but I’ll start the play from the beginning and use that
document as a handrail or like a map to get me through to the end
of the play, the first draft, and I’ll just stay awake by drinking tea
constantly. (Interview, 30 April 2010)
Apart from revealing an intense flow state in action (Csikszentmihalyi

1997), from this example we can extrapolate that individuals contin-
uously refer to the store of their own work and knowledge in order to
be creative. Certainly, that knowledge is gathered and curated from
the combination of broader cultural traditions and symbol systems,
that is, larger domains, yet as it comes to be distilled, combined and
represented by the individual it forms a domain of knowledge that
is unique to that individual but shared with many others. This situa-
tion is also connected to the necessary process of the internalization
of the domain. Csikszentmihalyi argues that ‘to be creative, a person
has to internalise the entire system that makes creativity possible’
(1997, p. 51):
Artists agree that a painter cannot make a creative contribution with-

out looking, and looking, and looking at previous art, and without
knowing what other artists and critics consider good and bad art.
Writers say that you have to read, read and read some more, and
know what the critics’ criteria for good writing are, before you can
write creatively yourself. (Csikszentmihalyi 1997, p. 47)
This process of domain acquisition and internalization is always ongo-

ing; there is always more knowledge to acquire and this is how an
individual continues to be creative. Miles Green, working in the film
industry as a visual effects designer, argued that understanding the

latest technologies and how to use them is essential:
[T]hings change pretty much every couple of months – there’s usu-

ally a new technique that comes out for some aspect that we’re
doing. There’ll be new fluid solvers for fire and particles. There’ll
be new water solvers for some of the ocean that we’ll have to do. It
doesn’t stand still actually for very long. I guess it’s like web design.
New standards come along, applications get quicker, you’ve got to
keep up and know the latest technology otherwise you very quickly
fall behind. (Interview, 26 May 2011)
As writer Benjamin Law stated, ‘you never stop learning ... It’s about
getting information and processing it, and getting wise’ (Interview,
9 August 2011). This acquisition of wisdom within a domain and field
is also closely associated with the concept of habitus, as mentioned
above, in which case the relationship between agency, the ability of
practitioners to make choices, and structures, those things thought
to determine their actions, is an important one. While structure and
agency are often represented as operating in opposition to one another,
they are, as Anthony Giddens proposed, ‘two sides of the same coin’
(Haralambos and Holborn 1995, p. 904). Their relationship is one of
interdependence; all human action is governed by and occurs within
the bounds of certain structures, while at the same time these structures
are created, replicated and transformed through human action. As Janet
Wolff asserts, ‘all action, including creative or innovative action, arises
in the complex conjunction of numerous structural determinants and
conditions. Any concept of creativity which denies this is metaphysi-
cal and cannot be sustained’ (1981, p. 9). Consequently, rather than
being a force that quashes creativity, structures in fact facilitate creative
action and help shape the products that result from this action. Writer
Benjamin Law described his own experience of this, saying:
All writing has different techniques that you need to adhere to, to
ensure that it’s a good piece of writing – it has structure, narrative,
tone, humour, dialogue, exposition, has research, and you do need
all of those things to ensure that it’s a good piece of writing. Whether
all of those things are used effectively are basically criteria on which
you can judge whether it’s a really good read or just is a piece of crap.
And you can study those conventions at university but even as read-
ers we understand intuitively how those conventions work as well.
(Interview, 9 August 2011)
Many of the respondents, even if they were not as enthusiastic about

the importance of structures as others, could at least identify that
knowledge of the structures of their particular domain was essential to
their creative practice. For example, graphic designer Heath Killen said:
You get a brief, it’s got parameters, it’s got a message, it’s got particu-
lar constraints on that project, be they in terms of the size of a poster,
the colours that can be used – so your limitations. All kinds of limita-
tions specific to each project. And so you have to figure all that stuff
out before you even start making anything, before you start sketch-
ing, there’s a lot of things to think about before that and to me that’s
a very big part of the creative process. (Interview, 20 October 2010)
Kim Baston, in composing for theatre and film, said her career is based
on an understanding of musical structures and the ability to work
within and fulfil the requirements of a brief. She said she does not think
of these structures as being limiting but rather as the foundations that
guide the creative process:
I like the limitations, otherwise it’s an abyss of nothingness really,

and that’s always the hard bit with starting something new, because
a lot of it is very open, and as soon as you start narrowing down the
possibilities it becomes much easier to work within them and every
decision you make kind of fills in the abyss a little bit. (Interview,
25 May 2010)
Similarly, dance artist David McAllister said, ‘the structures are there
for a reason, to aid really the performance or the creation of work ... I
think ultimately the structure around the process is actually the thing
that makes it happen’ (Interview, 29 April 2010).
Csikszentmihalyi also argues that ‘disposable wealth is one of the
conditions that makes selection of novelty possible. In addition, it takes
disposable attention – people who in addition to being wealthy have
the time to take an interest in the domain’ (1988, p. 331). In a reflec-
tion of this process, visual artist Sam Leach suggested it was receiving a
major award that facilitated his development as an artist:
I was studying painting part time, and I really enjoyed painting but it
was difficult to get enough time in the studio to really develop it. But
I sort of managed to produce this painting that won a competition –
the metro competition, which was $40,000 – which was enough for
me to stop doing any other work and just be in the studio full-time
for a year. (Interview, 10 June 2010)
In this way, the field’s recognition of Leach’s work in the form of patron-
age was crucial to his ability to continue his creative practice as an artist.
Similarly, fashion designer Rowena Foong stated that it was not until
she and her sisters won a Mercedes Start-Up Award that they commit-
ted to the development of their clothing label. As she contended, ‘that
kind of launched us into the fashion world’ (Interview, 3 June 2010). In
addition to the economic capital and resulting benefits associated with
these formal awards, this type of recognition also constitutes what is
called symbolic capital, or ‘a degree of accumulated prestige, celebrity,
consecration or honour’ (Johnson in Bourdieu 1993, p. 7) that is recog-
nized and acted upon by the field.
For Csikszentmihalyi, ‘the easiest way to define a field is to say that
it includes all those who can affect the structure of a domain’ (1988,
p. 330). If a person produces a variation using domain knowledge and it
is seen to be creative by the people working within this area then crea-
tivity is said to have taken place. Most of those engaging with cultural
objects, creative art or design works ‘trust the judgement of the field’
(Csikszentmihalyi 1988, p. 327). For example, the Foong sisters used
competitions to gauge whether or not their work was as good as their
competitors in the field (Interview, 3 June 2010). Similarly, Benjamin
Law echoed the idea that one needs to internalize the criteria of judge-
ment used by the field:
Writing is just like a constant balancing act between ridiculous

amounts of unjustified confidence and cripplingly low self-esteem.
So recognition is the thing that can really help prevent you from get-
ting too far down in questioning your own work. Most of the writers
I know, most of the good writers I know, are ones who are their worst
critics ... I don’t think anyone, no matter how long they’ve been
writing, ever gets over that sense of complete uncertainty. (Interview,
9 August 2011)
In this way, a creative individual working in the studio is also aware,

even if it is only implicitly, of the broader field that will encounter
the work. This field includes not only one’s peers but also the lay-
ers of connoisseurs, amateurs and publics the production is aimed at
(Sawyer 2006, p. 127). All of these ‘have an influence on the creative
process, even if the creator is alone in a room in the woods’ (Sawyer
2006, p. 128). The intermediaries in the field, for example a designer’s

peers, may play a critical role in evaluating and contributing to creative
works but, as Sawyer argues, ‘after they’ve made their choices, the ulti-
mate test for a creative work is whether or not it’s accepted by a broad
audience’ (2006, pp. 126–7). In a reflection of this, graphic designer
Heath Killen said that acknowledgement of his work by the general
public is just as valuable as that from his peers:
When you get that acknowledgement from someone that isn’t in

the industry, it’s such a rare thing that I think that’s very, very
gratifying. It almost falls on the same level as someone you do
admire. It’s sort of funny. I guess someone that you do admire and
someone that doesn’t know anything about design, there’s almost
an equal status there because they both represent something dif-
ferent. On one hand somebody knows everything you’ve gone
through and everything you’ve done, and so for them to acknowl-
edge you and to recognise you as good I think is very gratifying.
But also someone that doesn’t have any prior notion of design
who appreciates what you’ve done is almost the same. It’s sort of
like, ‘Oh wow. I’ve managed to cut through somehow’. (Interview,
20 October 2010)
Recognition from the field operates as a symbol of a creative practition-

er’s status, a motivating force, and in turn promotes access to resources
(for example, money and therefore time and attention) that support
action in the field and ongoing domain acquisition. Recognition from
the field also aids in the collaborative processes endemic to nearly all
creative practice.
Architect John Bilmon was the principal designer on The Watercube
National Aquatic Centre built for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The
design has won a range of awards including The Jorn Utzon Award for
International Architecture, The Emirates Leaf Award for Sustainable
Architecture and the Venice Biennale Award for Architecture, which it
received before the building was complete. While Bilmon said he was
proud to be associated with the Watercube he was also quick to empha-
size the significant collaborative effort involved, including input from
architects, designers, engineers, manufacturers and suppliers: ‘I believe
it was that collaboration not only of skills but of people from different
cultures and from different disciplines, and different levels of enthusi-
asm, which all came together most creatively to produce that building’
(Interview, 28 March 2011).
Similarly, visual effects artist Miles Green said collaboration is central

to the work processes of his profession:
You’ve got to be able to pass around ideas and communicate well ...
You never do a whole shot yourself. There are a lot of processes to go
through. Every day there is either a brief from an art director, a review
with a producer or talking and working together through problems
with the animators and lighting artists. (Interview, 26 May 2011)
In addition to this formal review process, Green indicated there is also

constant informal discussion that influences the development of the
artists’ work:
Often as you hear the artists milling out of the theatre talking ...
They’ll often be suggesting on the way back to the desk, ‘Have you
thought about this? I’ve seen this done before’ ... It’s one of those
things that occurs quite naturally in our sort of environment. We’ve
got a lot of open plan desks and people saying, ‘Hey look at this.
This is similar to what you need to do, isn’t it? Try this.’ (Interview,
26 May 2011)
In Green’s case, we can claim that the field is vitally important to the
creative act. Director Brendan O’Connell acknowledged not only the
formative role of the field but also its invaluable creative contributions.
His early absorption into both the domain and the field is illustrative:
We would get large groups of us together at lunchtime and write stuff

or we’d get these monthly magazines that would have plays in them
and we’d do them ourselves. We never actually staged them but we’d
always rehearse them. It was very odd ... I was really putting myself
out there and learning as much as I could. I think that’s the only way
you can learn. Good or bad experience, experience is the key to mak-
ing work, because if you don’t do it then how can you learn anything
else? How can you get better? (Interview, 13 September 2010)
It was this commitment and active involvement in the industry,

the field of theatre, and his consciously applied work in absorbing
the domain, that O’Connell said helped him get into the Victorian
College of the Arts (VCA) where he studied directing. He said this
training provided the formal structures through which he came to
understand his craft and make sense of his previous experiences as a
director, and also contributed to the development of his own particular

approach. He said:
Doing the course, it gave me a formal structure, provided by some-

one else, within which to go, ‘okay so this is how I would look at
working on a text before we start rehearsing and in rehearsals’ and
just kind of made me look at things in a more formal way ... When
I came back and did a show here at uni, it was funny, it was a text
but it wasn’t essentially a play, it was a series of poems, I wasn’t even
able to use any of that structure. But instead I used all the other exer-
cises and training I learned, the abstract training in terms of descrip-
tive, organic, with that. And because of that, that’s how I ended up
working – doing less of this formal structured, ‘sit down and do this’,
and more of this just be really open and in terms of rehearsals try
this with actors and have them experience stuff. So I think it all kind
of benefited, but it was two distinct features, definitely formal and
informal. (Interview, 13 September 2010)
This idiosyncratic approach demonstrates that the third component of

the system, the choice-making agent, is just as necessary as the struc-
tures of the field and the domain. Each is necessary but not sufficient
in itself to enable the system to keep operating and to allow creative
works to emerge from it. Contrary to the doxa of unfettered creativity,
the notion that individuals must work in order to achieve is paramount.
Sam Leach, in returning to a contemplation of his early opportunities,
claimed that:
I spent that year just painting about 60 hours a week in the studio
and doing really little else. I progressed far more in that single year
than I had in any year previously and that really set the founda-
tion for me to be able to continue to work professionally. That year
allowed me to develop enough to establish an ongoing practice.
(Interview, 10 June 2010)
Steven Pressfield, writing in his popular book The War of Art: Break
Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles, suggests that
‘the most important thing about art is to work’ (2002, p. 108). Artists
must sit down every day and try. It is important ‘because when we sit
down day after day and keep grinding, something mysterious starts to
happen. A process is set in motion by which inevitably and infallibly,
heaven comes to our aid’ (2002, p. 108). However, while Pressfield
frames this experience romantically, it too has a rational explanation.

By accumulating years of knowledge and experience so that it becomes
in effect intuitive, ‘practice is always informed by a sense of agency (the
ability to understand and control our own actions) [but] the possibilities
of agency must be understood in terms of cultural trajectories, literacies
and dispositions’ (Schirato and Yell 1996, p. 148). As artist Sam Leach
explained:
There are thousands of decisions that need to be made about exactly

where to place a colour, or how to make the brush mark, or moving
an object a little bit to the left or a little bit to the right, adjusting
hue and tone, all of that sort of stuff comes into it and it is all really
part of the creative process. (Interview, 10 June 2010)
Conclusion
In applying design thinking, creative designers provide ‘new, integrated

solutions to complex, multidisciplinary problems’ (Dorst and Cross
2001, p. 425). They most often produce their work within a design
and innovation system (Utterback et al. 2006) where creative products
and ideas generated from the antecedent conditions provided by the
domain are deemed to be creative by the field. They are similar to art-
ists in that they also have a concern with aesthetics. Starting from the
premise that art also results in a product, Victoria Alexander suggests,
via Becker, that art communicates publicly, is experienced for enjoy-
ment as an expressive form and is defined by its context (2003, p. 3).
She goes on to argue that ‘cultural objects are filtered through – and
affected by the people and systems that create and distribute them’
(2003, p. 68). These creative objects are thus ‘shaped by the whole sys-
tem that produces them, not just by the people we think of as artists’
(2003, p. 68).
References
Akin, O. (1994) ‘Creativity in Design’, Performance Improvement Quarterly, 7(3),
9–21.
Alexander, V. (2003) Sociology of the Arts: Exploring Fine and Popular Forms
(Malden, MA: Blackwell).
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Csikszentmihalyi, M. and Getzels, J. (1988) ‘Creativity and Problem Finding in
Art’, in F. Farley and R. Neperud (eds) The Foundations of Aesthetics, Art and Art
Education (New York: Praeger Press), pp. 91–116.
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Post Pressed).
15
Conclusion: Future Directions?
Many ideas reach a tipping point and then they escape the person
who first came up with them. When people talk about the ‘theory of
evolution’, Darwin’s authoritative voice is still resonant in the con-
cept but researchers who have followed him have taken the initial
ideas he proposed and developed them, elaborated on them, changed
some basic concepts and carried those ideas forward until the propo-
sitions he originally put forward have taken on a life of their own.
A similar process has occurred with the idea of ‘the culture industry’,
a concept originally designed to shock. It was introduced by Adorno
and Horkheimer ([1944] 2002) to express their concerns about the
problems of developing a commercial imperative by putting art and
industry together – two seemingly incompatible things. Others such as
Bernard Miege (2004) and David Hesmondhalgh (2013) picked up the
idea of a culture industry and presented empirical and well-reasoned
evidence to support it, at the same time modifying and critiquing the
central idea in the process. In undertaking the research necessary to
confirm or reject what were initially theoretical propositions, these
researchers lent their work to a steady evolution of them. We make a
similar but more limited claim here. The systems approach to creativ-
ity, as described more fully by Fulton and Paton in Chapter 3, owes a
lot to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1988, 1997, 1999, 2014) but, as this
book demonstrates, the idea is beginning to break free of its moorings.
His legacy is obvious nonetheless, as is that of Pierre Bourdieu (1977,
1990, 1993, 1996), and the preceding chapters make that apparent.
However, many of these contributing scholars have begun to head
off in directions that we imagine Csikszentmihalyi did not anticipate.
Many of the researchers whose work appears in this book use familiar
methodological approaches such as case studies and ethnographies
200
Conclusion: Future Directions? 201
but many, importantly, also use innovative methodologies largely

unanticipated in this area.
Paradigm shifts are a change in fundamental ideas. That is a given.
As Beth Hennessey and Teresa Amabile (2010) identified, the research
community concerned with creativity now needs a paradigm shift if we
are to understand creativity in its fullest sense. We believe the systems
approach satisfies this need and we go one step further. We think the
systems approach does not need to be developed to fulfil that need. It is
already here, readily accessible, and part of a much larger shift in think-
ing taking place across a wide variety of intellectual domains (Capra and
Luisi 2014). As this current book demonstrates, it is readily applicable
to a number of creative fields. While not impervious to critique, the
systems approach supplies a much needed corrective to psychologically
reductionist accounts of creativity. It is already a synthesis that also
doesn’t move too far in the direction of being just as problematically
socioculturally reductionist. Either pole is challenging and difficult to
sustain (Simonton 2003) as the systems model demonstrates.
Systems are complex. We cannot understand them just by exposing
their parts. We also need to demonstrate those parts’ interconnected-
ness. All of the components identified by the systems approach interact
in widespread, dense and interrelated networks. As just one example
drawn from the preceding work, Elizabeth Paton’s study provides sub-
stantial evidence of the way fiction writers take on board and master
the necessary domain knowledges they need to be able to write. Their
ability to contribute to the domain they have dedicated themselves to
is dependent on all the complex factors that contribute to their work.
These include the conventionally recognized biological, personality and
motivational influences but these are no more or less important than
the socially and culturally mediated work practices and processes fiction
writers must engage with. They must acquire a body of knowledge and
at the same time come to some understanding of the field of experts
who are also crucial to creativity being manifest in this system of fiction
writing. All of these factors are necessary but not sufficient in order for
the system to maintain and develop itself. In this case, we can claim,
with some support, that creativity emerges from a network of complex
relationships.
Stacy DeZutter’s work reinforces this idea. The idea of distributed
creativity necessarily shifts attention away from the individual as the
focal point of creativity to help see this phenomenon as the emergent
product of interactions within a system. She also qualifies the notion
of the distributed perspective, arguing that it will be more readily
applicable to some groups than others as not all groups exhibit the same
degree of emergence. DeZutter points to certain groups who could be
examined using this approach and includes marketing teams, product
design groups and arts ensembles. She also indicates that teams such
as legal and sporting ones could also be studied using the distributed
approach to creativity. Most importantly, she identifies that specific
creative actions are emergent properties derived from group interactions
and she goes some way to establishing that these occur across multiple
time scales.
The contributions made in this book by Paul Thompson also dem-
onstrate the scalability of the system of creative record production. He
not only looks closely at the system scaled at both the individual and
the group level thus exposing what he calls microdomains within the
system, a phenomenon termed elsewhere as a holarchy (Koestler 1975),
but he also reinforces the duality of the process. He presents evidence
to suggest that actors within the system are, at one and the same time,
both enabled and constrained by their knowledge of the domain and
field of record production. This complex set of interactions sheds
further light on the interrelationship of agency, a person or group’s
ability to make choice, and structure, those things seen to determine
those agent’s actions, within the creative system of record production,
as Phillip McIntyre’s work on songwriting and Janet Fulton’s work on
journalism reinforce.
McIntyre’s work on creativity and songwriting also points towards an
account of the interdependence of agency and structure. Rather than
these two concepts being seen as mutually exclusive or irreconcilable
with each other, there exists a mutual dependence between them that
serves to make the actuality of both agency and structure possible.
While this itself is not problematic in the context of what is being dis-
cussed here, what underpins it is a philosophical view of the nature of
freedom that needs further exploration.
Fulton’s ethnographic research also demonstrates that agency and
structure are inextricably interlinked. For her, a journalist’s output
occurs within numerous structures that predispose them towards mak-
ing certain decisions. She calls this conditional agency and sees it as an
important component of the interactions of the system of creativity.
Fulton argues that the actions of the domain and the field enable the
production of creative texts but they also constrain what it is possible
for a journalist to do, in which case they are vital in aiding journalists
to be efficient and productive in their creative work. With journalism
evolving to adapt to the digital age, further systems model research
could be carried out in forms such as citizen journalism and online

journalism.
Susan Kerrigan takes a slightly different approach and plunges head-
long into the complexity of decision-making, a central hallmark of
agency within documentary practice. She develops the idea that intui-
tive knowledge becomes embodied knowledge for many creative prac-
titioners while linking these ideas to the notion of collaboration and a
necessary engagement with socially and culturally located practice by
creative agents. In doing so, she takes the standard representation of
the systems model and reworks it into a map that clearly demonstrates
that creative practice emerges out of the interactions of a domain, field
and what she calls agents. These are identified as individuals, groups or
institutions, who are each embedded in their own idiosyncratic back-
grounds. Taking these ideas a step further again, the applicability of
agency to non-human actors is taken up by Michael Meany who goes
well beyond the propositions worked out initially by Csikszentmihalyi.
Meany concludes, through the use of another innovative methodologi-
cal process, that the interactions and relationships of human and non-
human actors are central to both the creative process they engage in
and the resulting work these two sets of agents produce.
Pointing out how unpredictable the success of specific works is in
the arena of film, Eva Redvall introduces the concept of a Screen Idea
System. This concept has proved to be a useful adaptation in her own
work as a framework for conceptualizing film and media production
and understanding how decisions are made around what constitutes
novelty, quality and appropriateness as different screen productions are
selected by commissioning agents. She argues that the age of big data,
as exemplified in the actions of Netflix, may not be as successful in the
prediction of what constitutes a successful film simply because what
is seen as a creative and innovative movie may not be reducible in a
mechanistic way to an algorithm that will predict success for this kind
of creative work. In this case, it would be wise to suggest that further
research in this area using the systems approach needs to be carried out
to continue testing the efficacy of the model not only in film but also in
other spheres of cultural production such as web design, photography,
blogging and social media.
Of note here is Sarah Coffee’s research, which sees creativity as a
broad phenomenon that is as equally applicable to science as it is to
the arts. She not only confirmed her own experience of the practice
of freelance print journalism as systemic in her practice-based research
study, but for her, the implications of the research go well beyond her
own individual freelance journalism and feature writing. She claims

that her own immersion in the act of creativity and the experiences of
the creative practitioners she interviewed as the subjects for her feature
articles, scientists as well artists, indicates that no matter how superfi-
cially different their creative activity appears to be, this creative output
can be readily understood by using the systems approach.
Extrapolating from this conclusion we could suggest that more
research work on creative systems in action could also include inves-
tigations of international and intercultural creative productions and
the commonalities and differences that exist there. How might these
conceptions operate at the rational level within a broad system of crea-
tive action? Is it possible, despite the specific cultural beliefs and myths
about creativity found across cultures around the globe, as suggested
by Niu and Sternberg (2006) and Misra, Srivastava and Misra (2006),
that a universal view of creativity might be possible while also accom-
modating the relative nature of all of these myths and belief systems
(Samovar and Porter 2004)? These ideas are explored by McIntyre
and Coffee in this volume when they look at the fields of the arts
and design; however, their work is not focused cross-culturally but
intra-culturally via the myths and beliefs associated with the doxa of
Romanticism in the West.
Apart from this broad research emphasis, there is also more work to
be done on the implications of seeing creativity as systemic that has as
yet to be fully realized in the legal sphere. For example, what does con-
ceiving of creativity as systemic do for the legal apparatus that supports
current creative industries such as the popular-music industry? While
the copyright system, and romantic conceptions of creativity that
underpin them, developed simultaneously (Bently 1994, 2009), Justin
Morey’s work with sampling composers set out in this book raises some
critical questions about the attribution of authorship. As Morey points
out, the training that sampling composers undertake allows them to
interact extensively with both the domain and the field of their chosen
occupation. They dedicate themselves to their specific cultural sphere,
becoming expert listeners, and in doing so acquire high degrees of what
he calls musical codal competence. This competence has allowed them
to put together successful DJ sets and then take this knowledge and
apply it to locating and re-purposing samples for compositions of their
own. In doing this, it is acknowledged that the opportunities and con-
straints presented to them by their use of particular technologies, and
of course the entwining of the music industry with copyright law, are
critical factors in shaping these sampling composers’ creative output.
What do these revelations have to say about the focus on individual

ownership and what constitutes creative originality within the current
international legal framework?
Finally, there may be some correspondence between the concerns
with innovation ecosystems (OECD 1997, Jackson 2011, Lawlor 2014,
Frenkel and Maital 2014) and the notion of a creative system in action.
As Jackson (2011) points out, an innovation ecosystem is a term used
particularly in the business sphere to describe the various players who
contribute to innovation in the commercial arena. These players are
referred to as actors, that is decision-making entities, and they exist in
relation to various structural groups and institutions such as venture
capitalists, co-located industry-university research centres, state-funded
economic development and business assistance organizations, policy-
makers and social networks consisting of the staff, industry researchers,
industry representatives and so on who exist there. The notion of an
ecosystem of course draws heavily on a biological analogy (Jackson
2011, Capra and Luisi 2014) and is therefore located within a general
systems theory paradigm, as described above in an earlier chapter by
McIntyre. Given the work described in this book, innovation eco-
systems and their operation sound remarkably similar in concept to
the idea of a creative system in action. Furthermore, the distinction
between creativity and innovation is a very fuzzy one (Mayfield 2011,
McIntyre 2011). As Nemiro and Runco assert, ‘part of the problem is
the either–or assumption, the dichotomy that artificially separates crea-
tivity and innovation’ (in Nemiro 2004, p. 14). If Nemiro’s claim that
‘there is no dichotomy between creativity and innovation’ is true and
‘they are intertwined, as ideas are generated, developed, finalized, and
then evaluated’ (2004, pp. 14–15), then it appears there is also much
more work to be done here. This book makes a start on these projects
and it is hoped that it contributes its part to the development of further
ideas on creative systems in action.
References
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Science Foundation), pp. 1–11. http://erc-assoc.org/sites/default/files/topics/
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Index
10-year rule of preparation, 61 Art Worlds, 21, 141, 186

10,000 hours of practice, 61 Artificial Intelligence (AI),
169–82
ABC (Australian Broadcasting artistic activity, 5, 185–97
Corporation), 48, 127, 132, 136 Ashby, F. Gregory, 20
Abelson, Robert, 128 Askland, Hedda, 8, 185, 187–8
access, domain and field, 33, 35, Atkinson, Paul, 47
52, 54, 67, 68, 71, 94, 128–9, Atomic Playboy and the Radiation
144, 194 Romeo (comedy duo), 169, 172,
acting, 155–67 173, 177, 180–2
Adam, G. Stuart, 93 Atomic and Romeo’s user
Adorno, Theodor interface, 174
culture industry, 21, 200 Attardo, Salvatore, 176
agency, 55, 93, 94, 151, 175, 191, 197 audience
conditional, 87, 88, 90, 93, 97, 202 active, 54
human/non-human, 175–9, comedy, 170–1
181–2, 203 fiction writers, 113, 117, 120–1
agency and structure film and media production,
interdependence, 4, 28, 56, 191, 139, 140
202 freelance journalism, 106–7
interplay, 1, 5, 21, 47, 56, 89, 93, popular-music songwriting,
94, 97, 191 51, 53–4
tension, 125 print journalism, 91, 95, 104
agent, 21, 55, 74, 196 systems model, 37
conditioned, 133, 178 Australian Broadcasting Corporation,
AI, see Artificial Intelligence see ABC
Akin, Ömer, 185 author function, 22
Akman, Varol, 179 autopoietic, 17
Alexander, Victoria, 21, 187 autotelic experience, 109, 119–20;
ALICE (Artificial Linguistic see also flow
Internet Computer Entity),
169, 173, 177 Bailey, Chris (songwriter), 48
Alvarez, Eduardo, 197 Bailin, Sharon, 41, 55
Amabile, Teresa, 3, 8, 22, 108, 115, Baker, Sarah, 142
128, 140, 159, 201 Banks, Mark, 142
antecedent conditions, 41, 100, 133, Banks, Miranda, 142
171, 172, 197 Barad, Karen, 176, 177
antithesis, 22 Barkat, Iqbal, 130
APN News and Media, 90 Barratt, Richard (research participant),
ARIA Hall of Fame, 48 65–6, 68, 69, 70, 72
Aristotle, 40–1 Barthes, Roland, 22, 54
art, 22, 29 death of the author, 22
art and design, 8, 185–97, 204 Basalla, George, 159
207
208 Index
Bastick, Tony, 21, 52, 55, 79, 126, Brennan, Matt, 53

131, 132, 136 Brewster, Rick (songwriter), 48
intuition, 52, 55, 79, 132–3 Briskman, Larry, 21, 41
stages of the creative process, 126,
131, 137 Caldwell, John, 142
Baston, Kim (composer), 102, Callon, Michel, 175
104, 192 capital (Bourdieu), 30, 34, 37, 67,
Beatles, The, 61, 62 129, 193
Becker, Howard, 21, 53, 105, 141, cultural, 30, 34, 37, 51, 53, 67
186, 197 economic, 30, 34, 37, 53,
Art Worlds, 21, 141, 186 67, 193
behaviourists, 20 educational, 34
Bently, Lionel, 204 social, 30, 34, 37, 53, 67
Bergen, Benjamin, 174, 176 sub-cultural, 67, 69
Bergquist, Carlisle, 20 symbolic, 30, 34, 37, 53, 67, 106,
Bergson, Henri, 170, 172–3, 182 187, 193
‘new law’ of comedy, 170–1, 172–3 Capra, Fritjof, 13, 14, 15–16, 17, 18,
Bertalanffy, Ludwig von, 13, 15 201, 205
big data, 140, 151–2 Carey, J., 128,
Bilmon, John (architect), Carr, David, 140
102, 107, 194 Carthy, Andy (research participant),
Binsted, Kim, 174, 176 65–6, 68, 70, 72
biological system, 18 Castells, Manuel, 17
Bird, S. Elizabeth, 93 network society, 17
bits (theatre), 162–5, 166 causal processes, 15
Boden, Margaret, 19, 29, 82, 100, Caves, Richard, 139
174, 185 ‘nobody knows’ principle, 139,
Bogen, Glenda, 19 148, 152
Bogen, Joseph, 19 chaos theory, 14
Bolton, Paul (public health Chapman, Jane L., 134
researcher), 108 chat-bot, 169–71, 173–4
Bon Jovi, 83, 84 Christian, Brian, 170
Bordwell, David, 141 Ciciekli, Ilyas, 179
Borwein, John (mathematician), 109 circular causality, 30, 74, 171
Boulding, Kenneth, 14 Clark, Tom, 175
Bourdieu, Pierre, 1, 3, 4, 17, 21, 23, Clarke, John, 172
28, 30, 31, 33, 34, 36, 37, 38, Cockington, James, 48
52, 53, 55, 56, 67, 87, 89–90, Coffee, Sarah (journal), 101, 102, 103,
96, 101, 106, 110, 121, 185, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109,
186, 187, 193, 200 110, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193,
journalism, 89–90 194, 195, 196, 197
see also capital; cultural production cognitive processes, 20, 159, 162
model; field; field of works; Cohen, Hart, 130
habitus Cohen, Sarah, 49
Bourke, Nike, 171 collaboration, 194–5, 203
Bowditch, Clare (musician), 102, 103, acting, 156–67
105, 108 documentary making, 134–5
Bracken, Cheryl Campanella, 178 filmmaking, 143
Braheny, John, 52 recording, 75, 85
Index 209
collaborative emergence, 160, 162, rational view, 1, 41, 100, 122,

165, 179 187–9, 204
collective enterprise, 21 as systemic, 8, 23, 28, 91, 94,
comedy, new media, 7–8, 126, 204
169–84, 203 universal view, 204
complex systems, 18 Creswell, John, 88, 91
conditional agency, 87, 88, 90, 93, Creswell, Toby, 48
97, 202 Critchley, Simon, 173
confluence approaches to creativity, Cross, Nigel, 185, 197
22, 27, 28 Csikszentmihalyi, Isabella, 55
contingency, 15 Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly, 1, 2, 3, 5,
contingent event, 16 7, 21, 22, 23, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31,
Copernican view of creativity, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39,
22, 92, 96 40, 41, 53, 55, 60, 62–3, 64, 67,
copyright 74, 79, 87, 88, 92, 94, 95, 96,
industries, 51 101, 105, 107, 109, 113, 114,
law, 4 120, 121, 126, 128, 129, 131,
legislation, 204–5 136, 140, 143, 144–6, 152, 157,
Coulson, Seana, 174, 176 159, 160, 171, 174, 185, 187,
creative 189, 192, 200
efflorescence, 21 early studies, 143, 144, 188
person, 34, 36, 137; see also stages of the creative process, 79,
individual 126, 131, 136–7
process, 19, 103, 105, 110, 196–7 systems model, 3, 27–43, 62,
documentary making, 130–4 67, 74, 75, 83, 85, 87, 88,
fiction writers, 115, 117 89, 97, 101, 111, 122, 140,
freelance journalist, 100 143–6, 157, 165, 170–1, 182,
print journalists, 87, 88, 93, 188–9, 202–3
96, 97 Cullen, Frank, 169, 172
product, 31, 37, 38, 74, 137, 157, cultural capital, 30, 34, 37, 51, 53, 67
165, 181, 197 cultural context model, 37
definition, 147 cultural industries, 139, 142
stages, 20–1; see also Bastick; cultural intermediaries, 53, 104,
Csikszentmihalyi; Wallas 128–9, 134, 135–6, 194; see also
creativity, 19, 20, 22, 23 gatekeeper
collaborative, 156–67 cultural production model, 3, 28,
confluence approaches, 22, 27, 28 30–1, 67, 87, 187
Copernican view, 22, 92, 96 comparison with systems model,
Darwinian view, 30 30–1
definition, 19, 21, 40–1, 100–1, definition, 187
171, 188 journalism, 89–90
definition, print journalism, 87–8 sampling composer, 67
distributed creativity, theatre, 7, 18, cultural studies, approaches to
157–67, 201 creativity, 27
group, 156–67 culture, 17, 204
Marxist view, 30, high and low, 5, 97
mystical view, 19, 120, 122, 132 industry, 21, 200
myths, 1, 8, 19, 31, 96, 186, 204 Cupchik, Gerald, 185
Ptolemaic view, 22, 89, 92, 96 cybernetics, 14
210 Index
Dacey, John, 22 micro, 84, 85, 165, 202

Damon, William, 29, 31 popular-music songwriting, 4,
Danaher, Geoff, 33, 110, 187 50–1, 202
dance music previously created products, 31, 33,
domain, 67 92, 93, 101
field, 67 print journalism, 92–4
see also sampling composers record production, 76–7, 202
Dardenne, Robert, 93 dopamine, 20
Darwin, Charles Dorfman, Leonid, 185
theory of evolution, 200 Dorst, Kees, 185, 197
Dasgupta, Subrata, 185 doxa, 1, 8, 31, 185, 186–7, 196
death of the author, 22
Deuze, Mark, 142 education
DeZutter, Stacy, 157, 158, 159–60, fiction writers, 115, 117–18
161–2, 166 freelance journalism, 101
DIFI model, 92 popular-music songwriting, 52
distributed cognition, 159–60 recording musicians, 77
distributed creativity, theatre, 7, 18, Einstein, Albert, 14
157–67, 201 Eisenberger, Robert, 35
DJ/DJing, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, Ekman, Sten, 197
71, 72, 73 elaboration, Csikszentmihalyi, 79, 131
documentary making, 6–7, emergence, 15, 18, 19, 162, 165,
125–38, 203 178–9, 202
documentary practice emergent properties, 18
group approaches, 134–6 Epstein, Joseph, 122
staged process, 130–4 Ericsson, K. Anders, 60–1, 63, 64, 65,
domain, 29, 31–3, 62, 74, 144, 192 68, 69, 71
accessibility, 32 ethnography
arts and design, 190–2 arts and design, 8
centrality, 32 fiction writing, 114
clarity, 32 popular-music songwriting, 47–50
comedy, new media, 172–4 print journalism, 87, 90–1, 202
definition, 29, 31 recording musicians, 75
domain acquisition sampling composers, 60
arts and design, 190–1 evaluation, Csikszentmihalyi, 79, 131
documentary making, 128 expert performance, 61
fiction writing, 118 Ezzy, Douglas, 88
freelance journalism, 101, 102
popular-music songwriting, 52 Fabinyi, Martin, 48
print journalism, 90, 91, 92 Fairfax, 90
fiction writers, 6, 114–15, Fairfax Community Newspapers, 90
117–19, 201 Farrell, Michael, 159
film and media production, 144, Farriss, Andrew (songwriter), 48
202, 203 Faulkner, Dave (songwriter), 48
freelance journalism, 101–4, 202 Feldman, David, 22, 92; see also DIFI
immersion, 4, 5, 36, 52, 56, 60, 62, model
92, 93, 102, 120, 130, 133 fiction writers, 6, 113–24, 201
internalization, 79, 82, 85, 92–3, idea generation, 116
128, 131, 190–1 importance of reading, 115, 118
Index 211
love of writing, 114–15, 118 Freud, Sigmund, 19, 20

role of the reader, 121–2 Fulton, Janet, 88, 89, 104
field, Bourdieu’s, 30–1, 37, 121, 187 Funk Brothers, The, 79
power, 37 Funniest Computer Ever
field, Csikszentmihalyi’s, 30, 36–9, 62, Competition, 175
74, 121, 144–5
arts and design, 192–5 Galton, Francis, 19
comedy, new media, 174–5 Gardner, Howard, 22, 29, 31, 41, 92
connection to society, 28 gatekeeper, 36, 38, 67, 121, 128, 134,
criteria of selection, 36, 77, 78, 80, 144, 165
83, 85 Gates, Bill, 61, 62, 70
definition, 30, 37, 174, 193 general systems theory, 14–15
documentary making, 125, 126, 127, general systems thinking, 16
128, 129, 130, 132, 133, 136 Generic Model of Group Creativity, 6,
fiction writers, 115, 116–17, 126, 134, 135
120–1, 201 genii, 19
filmmaking, 140 genius, 19, 22, 27, 122, 186
freelance journalism, 104–7 and insanity, 19
internalization, 30, 77, 80, 85, 129, myth of, 19, 60
130, 193 Gero, John S., 185
micro, 84, 85 Getzels, Jacob, 143, 185, 187
narrow or broad filter, 38 Giddens, Anthony, 55, 93, 177
popular-music songwriting, 52–4 structuration, 177
power, 30, 37, 128, 129, 135–6, 145 Gill, Rosalind, 142
print journalists, 91, 95–6 Gladwell, Malcolm, 61, 62, 70, 71
record production, 74, 77, 82 Glăveanu, Vlad, 160
field of works, 30, 31, 33, 51, 101, 187 Gleick, James, 14
film and media production, 7, Green, Lucy, 52, 77
139–52, 203 Green, Miles (visual effects designer),
film studies, 141 102, 190–1
Firestien, Roger, 21 Grierson, John, 125
Five Domains of Influence model, 89 group creativity, 4, 6, 74, 134–6, 156
Flaherty, Alice, 119 Gruber, Howard, 22
Flanagan, Bill, 49
Fleming, Victor, 177 habitus, 30, 31, 36, 52, 55, 67, 68, 90,
flow, 55–6, 64, 109, 119–20, 190; see 93, 95, 96, 110–11, 187, 191
also autotelic experience definition, 36, 67, 110, 187
Foong, Rowena (fashion designer), Ham, Greg (songwriter), 48
106, 109–10, 193 Hammersley, Martin, 47
Fort Scratchley, 6, 126, 129, 132, 134 Haralambos, Michael, 14, 191
Fort Scratchley a Living History, Hargadon, Andrew, 159
126, 136 Harvey, Aston (research participant),
Fort Scratchley Historical Society, 65, 72–3
129, 135 Haseman, Brad, 185
Foucault, Michel Hausman, Carl, 19, 21, 41
author-function, 22 Havens, Timothy, 140, 146
freelance journalism, 5–6, 100–12, Hayward, Phil, 48
203–4 Henderson, Austin, 160
Frenkel, Amnon, 205 Hennessey, Beth, 3, 8, 22, 201
212 Index
Henningham, John, 93, 96 Inglis, David, 187

Hesmondhalgh, David, 1, 139, innovation, 19, 22, 36, 53, 159
142, 200 innovation ecosystem, 205
cultural industries, 139 insight, Csikszentmihalyi, 79, 131
hierarchical structures, 15 inspirationist
Hierarchy of Influences model, 89 assumptions, 19
hierarchy of systems, 16 ideas, 18–19, 40, 100
Hills, Matt, 151 view, 18–19, 185–6, 189
Hirst, Martin, 93, 94–5 interaction analysis, 7, 160–1
Hirst, Rob (songwriter), 48 interconnected networks, 16
holarchy, 16 interconnectedness, 16
Holborn, Martin, 14, 191 interdependence, 15
holon, 16, 177 interdisciplinary research, 22
Holzman, Lois, 166 International Federation of the
Homan, Shane, 48 Phonographic Industry, see IFPI
Horkheimer, Max, 200 interrelations, 15
Hospers, John, 185 intuition (Bastick), 52, 55,
Howe, Michael, 19, 186 79, 132–3
Hsia, Hower J., 50 Isaksen, Scott, 21, 143
Hughson, John, 187 Isen, Alice, 20
humour Izod, John, 130, 134
definition, 169
theories, 172–3, 176 Jackson, Deborah J., 205
Hutchins, Edward, 159 Jankowski, Nicholas, 50
Jeffres, Leo, 178
IFPI, 54 Jensen, Klaus, 50
illumination, Wallas, 21, 79, 108, 133 Jobs, Steve, 62
incubation, Csikszentmihalyi, 131 John-Steiner, Vera, 159
incubation, Wallas, 21, 79, 133 Johnson, Randall, 17, 33, 36, 37, 67,
individual, 29–30, 33–6, 145, 190 93, 95
arts and design, 196–7 Jordan, Brigitte, 160
background, 4, 29, 34, 35 Joseph, Sam, 175
comedy, new media, 175–9 journalism
documentary making, 127, 133 as a creative activity, 5,
fiction writers, 119–20 96–7, 202
film and media production, 140 as storytelling, 93
freelance journalism, 107–11 Joy, Bill, 61, 62, 70,
genetics, 55
genius, 22, 27 Kant, Immanuel
human/non-human hybrid (artificial aesthetics, 19
intelligence), 173, 175–9 Katz, Lally (playwright), 102, 108–9,
personal traits, 29, 34, 35 189–90
personality, 20, 35, 146, 201 Kaufman, James, 20
popular-music songwriting, 54–6 Kaufman, Scott, 21
print journalism, 88, 94–5 Kavolis, Vytautus, 21
talent, 35 social conditions and artistic
Industrialization of Culture efflorescence, 21
Framework, 146–7 Keane, Michael, 185
industry, publishing, 116 Kelly, Paul (songwriter), 48
Index 213
Kerrigan, Susan (journal), 128, 130, Macdonald, Ian W., 142, 147
133, 134, 135, 136 Machin, David, 96
Kerrigan, Susan, 74, 125, 126, 128, Madrigal, Alexis C., 140
129, 132 magic number, 61
Kilborn, Richard, 130, 134 Maital, Shlomo, 205
Killen, Heath (graphic designer), 102, Manurung, Ruli, 174, 176
106, 107, 192, 194 Maras, Steven, 142
The Killing (analysis of), 148–51 Marr, Arthur, 55
Kirakowski, Jurek, 179 Martindale, Colin, 55, 185
Klausen, Tove, 159 Marx, Karl, 21
Koestler, Arthur, 16, 177, 202 all art is social product, 21
Koprince, Susan, 172 Mayer, Vicki, 142
Krampe, Ralf Th., 60–1, 63, 64, 65, 68, Mayfield, Milton, 205
69, 71 McAllister, David (dance artist),
Kuhn, Thomas, 14 108, 192
McIntyre, Elizabeth, 40–1; see also
Ladlow, M., 128 Paton, Elizabeth
Laineste, Liisi, 175 McIntyre, Phillip, 4, 30, 31, 34, 40–1,
Laszlo, Ervin, 13, 15, 16, 17 47, 51, 53, 54, 55, 71, 76, 80–1,
lateral dominance, 19–20; 87–8, 94, 100, 101, 125, 126,
see also left brain/right brain 151, 160, 187, 205
lateral thinking, 19 McManus, John, 94
Law, Benjamin (writer), 102, 103–4, McNair, Brian, 96
107, 191, 193 McQuail, Denis, 54
Lawlor, Anna, 205 Meany, Michael, 171, 175
Lawrence, Brenda, 100 mechanistic
Leach, Sam (visual artist), simplicity, 15
105, 110, 189, 192, 197 thinking, 19
left brain/right brain, 19–20; see also worldview, 13–14
lateral dominance Mednick, Sarnoff, 79
Lennon, Kathleen, 22 mental processes, 20
Lewis, Lisa A., 54 mentor/mentoring, 35, 52,
Libera, Anne, 162 95, 96, 115
Lilliestam, Lars, 52 Merriam, Alan P., 50, 54
literary criticism, 22 Miege, Bernard, 200
Littleton, Karen, 142 Miettinen, Reijo, 160
Living History of Fort Scratchley Millard, Kathryn, 142
(project), 127 Miller, Henry, 122
Locher, Peter, 185 Misra, Girishwar, 204
locus of creativity, 19, 39 Misra, Indiwar, 204
Loebner, Hugh, 174 Montuori, Alfonso, 19
Loebner Prize, 174 Moore, Thomas H., 122
Lombroso, Cesar, 19 Morey, Justin, 54, 70, 71
Lotz, Amanda D., 146 Morreall, John, 172
Lubart, Todd, 22, 131, 147 Mort, D., 128,
Luhmann, Niklas, 17 motivation, 20, 29, 115,
Luisi, Pier, 13, 14, 15–16, 17, 18, 119–20, 144, 201
201, 205 extrinsic, 108, 115
Lull, James, 48, 49 intrinsic, 35, 108, 119
214 Index
multilayered systems, 15 novelty, 2, 18, 21, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37,
Munari, Bruno, 186 38, 39, 53, 74, 121, 135, 145,
Murdock, Mary C., 21 148, 150, 152, 160, 192, 203
Murray, Louis, 100 numinous, 19
mystical, 19, 120, 122, 132
O’Connell, Brendan (playwright),
Nandagopal, Kiruthiga, 67 102, 195
Napier-Bell, Simon, 62 O’Donnell, Patrick, 179
narrative documentary making, O’Mara, Dave, 174, 176
132, 135 objective structures, 17, 21
Nass, Clifford, 178 OECD, 205
National Archives of Australia, 33 Okuda, S. M., 79
Negus, Keith, 41, 53, 100, 109, 187 Organization for Economic
Neilson, Philip, 171 Co-operation and Development,
Nemiro, Jill, 205 see OECD
Nested Audience Model organized complexity, 15, 16
(Sawyer), 128 Orlikowski, Wanda, 176, 177
Nested structures, 170 Ostwald, Michael, 8, 185, 187–8
nested system, 16 Outliers, 61, 69
Netflix, 139–40, 152, 203
network society, 17 Page, Brett, 169, 172
network of support, 68, 116, 117 Pain, Helen, 174, 176
networked existence, 16 paradigm shift, 2, 3, 14, 18, 201
networks, 2, 15, 201 Parker, Phillip, 147
networks of communication, 17 Parsons, Talcott, 14
Neuendorf, Kimberley, 178 parthenogenetic process, 22
neurochemical processes, 20 Patching, Roger, 93, 94–5
neuropsychology, 20 Paton, Elizabeth, 118, 120, 121
neurotransmitters, 20 Paul, Elliott, 21
‘new law’ of comedy, 170–1, Paulus, Paul, 6, 125, 134, 136,
172–3 137, 159
new media, comedy, 7–8, PBE, see practitioner-based enquiry
169–84, 203 perturbations, 16
Newcastle City Council, 126, 135 Peterson, Richard
News Limited, 90 production of culture approach, 21
Newtonian, 21 Petrie, Duncan, 19
Newtonian physics, 14 phenomenological explanation,
Niblock, Sarah, 96 17, 55
Nijholt, Anton, 174, 176 Pickering, Michael, 41, 100, 109, 187
Nijstad, Bernard, 6, 125, 134, 136, Plato, 19
137, 159 Pope, Rob, 20, 100, 187
Niu, Welhua, 18, 204 Popper, Karl, 19
‘nobody knows’ principle, popular-music songwriting, 4,
139, 148, 152 47–59, 202
non-linear dynamics, 15 poststructural antithesis, 22
non-linear, systems model, 3, 18, 30, poststructuralism, 21–2
74, 91, 131 poststructuralists, 21–2
novel, 18, 28, 30, 36, 41, 55, 56, 62, power, see field, Bourdieu’s; field,
67, 87, 92, 97, 101, 129, 134 Csikszentmihalyi’s
Index 215
practice-led research, 125, 203 Redvall, Eva Novrup, 149–50

practitioner-based enquiry, 5, 8, Reese, Stephen, 89
100, 171 Reeves, Byron, 178
practitioner’s intuition, 133 Reeves, Martin (research participant),
preparation, Csikszentmihalyi, 131 65, 68, 73
preparation, Wallas, 21, 79, 133 Renaissance, 40
pre-production, stage of, recording revised systems model (Kerrigan),
musicians, 77–80 74, 126
Pressfield, Steven, 196–7 revised systems model, scaled to a
Preston, Paschal, 89 group level, 84
previously created products, 31, 33, revised systems model, scaled to an
92, 93, 101 individual level, 80
Price, Steven, 142 Rhodes, Mel, 141
Priest, Susanna, 48 Ritchie, Graeme, 7, 169, 172, 174, 176
print journalism, 5, 87–99, 202–3 Rogers, Yvonne, 159, 160
Pritzker, Steven, 20, 100, 187 Romantic, 95, 97, 100, 185–6
problem-finding, 142–3, 188 agony, 19
problem-solving, 35, 142–3, 188–9 genius, 22, 60
production of culture approach, 21 ideal, 60
production, stage of, recording paradigm, 19
musicians, 80–4 Romanticism, 186, 189, 204
production, stage of, two-stage Roring, Roy W., 67
process, 81 Rosten, Leo, 141
production studies, 141 Rothenberg, Albert, 19, 21
Profiling Creativity, 5, 100, 102, 103, Runco, Mark, 20, 79, 100, 143, 187
106, 107, 108, 109, 111, 113 Rural Press, 90
psychodynamic school, 20
psychology/psychological Salazar, Juan, 130
approaches to creativity, 27 sampling composers, 4, 60–73, 204
neuro, cognitive, psychoanalytic, training, 63–9
behavioural, social research, 20 Sanderson, Susan Walsh, 197
reductionism, 3, 20, 178, Sawyer, R. Keith, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 18, 19,
187–8, 201 20, 30, 31, 38, 53, 74, 79–80,
psychometrics, 20 84, 92, 100, 107, 128, 157, 158,
Ptolemaic view of creativity, 22, 89, 159–60, 161–2, 165, 166, 178–9,
92, 96 185–6, 187, 193–4
Punch, Keith, 47, 50, 90 collaborative emergence, 160, 162,
165, 178–9
quantum, 14 Saygin, Ayse, 179
scalability, 16, 31
Rabiger, Michael, 131 Schön, Donald, 52, 82, 85,
Raskin, Victor, 172, 176 87, 197
Rationalism, 187–9 tacit knowledge, 87, 93, 96
record production, 4–5, 74 Schultz, Ida, 90
recording musician, 4–5, 74–86, 202 scientific innovations, 22
Chris (research participant), 78–9 scientific method, 13–14
Mike (research participant), 83–4 Scieszka, Jon, 162
Paul (research participant), 78, 81, Scott, Susan V., 176
82, 83–4 Scott-Maxwell, Aline, 48
216 Index
Screen Idea System, 140, 148, 148–51, structuralist account, 17

152, 203 structuralist approach, comedy, 176
Domain Tastes, Traditions and structuration, 177
Trends, 140, 146, 149 structure and agency
Field Mandate, Management and interdependence, 4, 28, 56,
Money, 140, 146, 150 191, 202
Individual Talent, Training and interplay, 1, 5, 21, 47, 56, 89, 93,
Track Record, 140, 146, 149–50 94, 97, 191
screenwriting studies, 142, 146 tension, 125
Scyster, Taylor, 158 structures
self-organization, 15 cognitive, 5, 94
self-referential systems, 16 constrain and enable, 5, 21, 33, 55,
serious leisure, 64–5, 71 93, 95, 103, 122, 130, 202
serotonin, 20 cultural, 3, 27, 87, 122
Serrell, Beverly, 132 deterministic, 93, 94, 96
Shanock, Linda, 35 objective, 17, 21
Sheather, Gaye, 53 social, 3, 17, 27, 30, 87, 88, 94, 96
Shoemaker, Pamela, 89 122, 129
Simonton, Dean Keith, 2, 20, of a song, 51, 78
21, 22, 201 sub-cultural capital, 68, 69
Siwek, Stephen, 51 subjective experiences, 17
Skyttner, Lars, 14, 15 subsystem, 16, 28, 34, 36
Smith, Lane, 162 Suchman, Lucy, 176
social Summers, Mark (research participant),
capital, 30, 34, 37, 53, 67 65–6, 68, 69–70, 73
identities, 17 Swartz, David, 52–3
systems, 16–17 symbol system, 32, 40, 51, 52, 74, 76,
social-personality approaches, 20 80, 115, 119
sociocultural symbolic capital, 30, 34, 37, 53, 67,
environment, 20 106, 187, 193
factors, 21 symbolic products, 21
reductionism, 22, 201 synthesis, 22
sociology, approaches to creativity, system
21, 27 of fiction writing, 114–18
song, structures, 51 internalization, 36, 190
space of works, 56, 101 of popular-music songwriting, 53
Spradley, James P., 49 of print journalism, 91–6, 97
Srivastava, Ashok, 204 systems approach, 1, 13–26, 137, 151,
stages of the creative process 165, 200–1, 203
Bastick, 52, 55, 79, 131, 132–3 systems model, 3, 27–43, 29, 62, 67, 74,
Csikszentmihalyi, 79, 126, 75, 83, 85, 87, 88, 89, 97, 101,
131, 136–7 111, 122, 140, 143–6, 145, 157,
Wallas, 20–1, 79, 126, 131 165, 170–1, 182, 188–9, 202–3
Staiger, Janet, 141 comparison with cultural
Stebbins, Robert A., 64–5, 71 production model, 23, 30–1
Sternberg, Robert, 18, 19, 20, 22, 100, definition, 28, 144
147, 204 interdependence, 40, 56
Stock, Oliviero, 174, 176 non-linear, 3, 18, 30, 74, 91, 131
Strapparava, Carlo, 174, 176 Patrick White, 113–14
Index 217
revised (Kerrigan), 74, 126 Vorhaus, John, 176

revised, scaled to a group level, Vygotsky, Lev, 185
84, 202
revised, scaled to an individual Walker, Clinton, 48
level, 80, 202 Wallace, Richard, 178
systems thinking, 3, 15, 18, 188 Wallace, Sue-Anne, 185
‘Systems View of Creative Practices’, Wallas, Graham, 20–1, 79, 108, 126,
126, 127 131, 132–3
systems view of creativity, 23, 143 stages of the creative process,
20–1, 79
tacit knowledge, 87, 93, 96, illumination, 21, 79, 108, 133
130, 132 incubation, 21, 79, 133
talent, 35, 94, 147 preparation, 21, 79, 133
Taylor, Stephanie, 142 verification, 21, 79
Tesch-Römer, Clemens, 60–1, 63, 64, Waller, Annalu, 174, 176
65, 68, 69, 71 Watson, Peter, 19
Tether, Bruce, 197 Webb, Jen, 33, 110, 187
theatre, distributed creativity, 7, 18, Weiner, Norbert, 14
157–67, 201 Weisberg, Robert, 20, 22, 35, 55
thesis, 22 Weizenbaum, Joseph, 177
Thomas, W.I. White, Patrick, 114
Thomas’s dictum, 186 Whitehead, Alfred North, 15
Thompson, Kristen, 141 Whiteoak, John, 48
Thornton, Sarah, 68 Williams, Anthony, 8, 185, 187–8
Tighe, Elizabeth, 108 Williams, Raymond, 17
Torrance, E. Paul, 20 Willis, Edgar E., 176
Toynbee, Jason, 55 Wilmoth, Peter, 48
transmission model, 37 Wissler, Rod, 185
Treffinger, Donald J., 21, 143 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 173
Truax, Barry, 20 Wolff, Janet, 21, 22, 55, 56, 93,
Turing, Alan, 174 103, 191
Turing Test, 179 social production of art, 21
Turken, U., 20 Woody II, Robert, 55
Wright, Basil, 134
University of Newcastle, 126 writer’s block, 119–20
Using Fort Scratchley, 126, 136
Utterback, James, 197 Yell, Susan, 197
Yiu, Anthony, 179
value, 18, 21, 30, 32, 36, 38, 41, Yunupingu, Mandaway
55, 101 (songwriter), 48
vaudeville, ‘two act’, 169, 172
Vedin, Bengt-Arne, 197 Zagorski-Thomas, Simon, 76, 81
Verganti, Roberto, 197 Zak, Albin, 75, 77
verification, Wallas, 21, 79 Zolberg, Vera, 19, 21, 22
von Neumann, John, 14 Zollo, Paul, 49

Phillip McIntyre, Janet Fulton, Elizabeth Paton (Eds.) - The Creative System in Action - Understanding Cultural Production and Practice-Palgrave Macmillan UK (2016) PDF

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The Creative System

Selection, introduction, conclusion and editorial matter © Phillip McIntyre,

Typeset by MPS Limited, Chennai, India.

13 Comedy, Creativity, Agency: The Hybrid Individual 169

3.1 The systems model of creativity 29

Phillip McIntyre: I would like to express my eternal gratitude to Mihaly

Sarah Coffee is a tutor in Communication and Media and Creative and

Stacy DeZutter is an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology

Janet Fulton is a Lecturer in Communication and Media at the

Susan Kerrigan is a Screen Production Scholar who specializes in

Phillip McIntyre is an Associate Professor in Communication and

Michael Meany is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Design,

Justin Morey has a background in sound engineering and music pro-

to 2003. As a co-writer and producer of dance music, he has had records

Eva Novrup Redvall is an associate professor in the Department of

Elizabeth Paton is senior education and outreach officer for the

Paul Thompson is a professional recording engineer with over ten years

Creativity. Nothing is as it seems. Or so it appears. Underneath the sur-

contexts in which they work. In many ways it attempts to satisfy

as individuals do and in this case ‘a complete scientific explanation of

only by using multiple lenses simultaneously, looking across lev-

Keeping Hennessey and Amabile’s suggestion in mind, in Chapter 3

in empirical research that presents evidence to support them. In the

were exposed. In taking a scalable approach to individual and group

creative practitioner and their experience of the creative process. The

is simultaneously about a practitioner drawing on their intuitive and

Based Enquiry (PBE) project that employed artificial intelligence agents

The Peer-Reviewed Proceedings of the 2008 Art of Record Production

The biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy declared in the 1930s that a

guided all scientific observation and the formulation of all theories

This conception of ‘an exquisitely designed giant mechanism, obey-

humankind a marked degree of control over the natural world. It has

Theory: The Skeleton of Science’. And then in 1968, although his ideas

Systems are wholes which cannot be understood through analy-

This situation means that we are dealing with multilayered systems

consist of networks within networks’ (Capra and Luisi 2014, p. 68). In

structuralist account or a phenomenological explanation. As Bourdieu’s

culture arises from a complex, highly nonlinear dynamics. It is cre-

Emergence, then, is a crucial concept in systems thinking. Capra and

In summary, complex systems produce behaviours and characteristics

Many systems in nature contain hundreds, thousands, or millions of

This shift towards systems thinking to explain creativity can be observed

that is preparation, incubation, elaboration and verification, is true

They especially targeted the genius model. Roland Barthes (1977),

has grown theoretically and methodologically sophisticated, and

The idea that research can be best conceptualized using a systems

Some of this material has been reproduced from P. McIntyre (2009)

the Society for General Systems Research, 1, 1956. www.panarchy.org/boulding/

Kaufman, J. C. and Sternberg, R. J. (2010) The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity

Truax, B. (1984) Acoustic Communication (Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing).

The previous chapter demonstrates the importance of a systems

these studies and gaining momentum in the last 20 years in the

Csikszentmihalyi’s systems model of creativity

Csikszentmihalyi answers the question of where creativity can be

a dynamic model, with creativity the result of the interaction

To explain how the system works, Csikszentmihalyi (2003) claims

Figure 3.1 The systems model of creativity (Csikszentmihalyi 2003, p. 315)

place for an individual to refer to, before a difference can be produced

to produce enables that person to generate creativity along with their

Bourdieu’s prime concern, on the other hand, was to resolve the

creativity researchers think of the domain as a kind of creativity

According to Gardner, Csikszentmihalyi and Damon (2001), there are

research facilities and job opportunities as well as early intervention