Futures of Communication: Communication Studies∼Creativity

This paper proposes that applying models from within creativity research to the discipline of communication will provide innovative ways of examining communication that pushes current knowledge of cultural production beyond established research programmes. At the University of Newcastle in Australia, researchers have been applying the systems model of creativity developed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi to different forms of media practice in an attempt to provide a more comprehensive view of communication.Rather than focusing on either the producer or the receiver as the principal source of creativity, as other communication theories such as the transmission model and the cultural context model have done, this paper will demonstrate that the systems model of creativity allows both the producer and receiver to be examined as equal components within a creative system while also providing the contexts for creative production.Csikszentmihalyi argued that creativity is the product of a system that includes three necessary, but not individually sufficient, elements: a domain of knowledge (the cultural context), an individual who understands and uses that knowledge to produce a novel change, and a field (the social context) that understands the domain and uses that knowledge to judge that the individual's contribution is novel and appropriate. All three elements, domain, individual and field, are equally important in producing a creative outcome.The authors contend that the future of theorising about communication may lie in this confluence-based approach and demonstrate this contention by summarising the findings of creativity research in the communication studies discipline at the University of Newcastle.