The systemic relationship between creative failure and creative success in the creative industries

Success and failure in the creative and media industries are not polar opposites. In a predominantly neoliberal world, with its consuming emphasis on winning at all costs, success is not only easy to identify but is valorised, particularly for individuals, while failure is often hidden or perceived as negative. We argue that the relationship between success and failure is deeply symbiotic and should be examined from a systemic rather than an individual view. Creative practice emerges out of a system where an individual is placed in a relationship to social and cultural factors that enable and constrain creative opportunities. An examination that explains the close relationship between failure and success and how they are managed by players in the media and creative industries, is the foundation for this paper. A theoretical discussion will illustrate the relationship between risk, failure and success and the proposition being presented is that the media industries, operating through SMEs have become highly constrained and, as such, create conditions that restrict creative opportunities. We conclude that further research is needed about the relationship between creative failures and successes and how these are treated by both employers and those seeking to work in the creative industries.