Creative Citizens in 2015

Connected Communities Strategic Advisory Group.

Professor Ian Hargreaves

London: 8 January 2015

Research question:

How does creative citizenship generate value for communities within a changing media landscape and how can this pursuit of value be intensified, propagated and sustained?

Funders: AHRC and EPSRC

Strategic partners: Ofcom, Nesta, The Glass-HouseCommunity led Design, Talk About Local.

Community partners: eg South Blessed, Moseley Community Development Trust, the Mill Walthamstow, Kentish Town Neighborhood Forum,Wards Corner Commuity Coalition, GoldsmithsCommunity Centre, Tyburn Mail, Connect Cannock,Centre for Community Journalism, Cardiff University.

Universities: Cardiff, Birmingham, Royal College of Art,Open University, Birmingham City University, Universityof the West of England, (+Curtin University, Australia.)

Social LinksSocial Links hello@theindigobabies.com theindigobabies.com

Copyright © Indigo Babies

Website Design

What about digital technologies?It depends which creative citizen you ask

Creative citizens inspect each other

What did we learn in general?1. Creative Citizenship works as an idea. Analogies: creative industries

(1980s) creative economy (2005ish). Links: DIY citizens etc.

2. The activities of Creative Citizens have considerable andgrowing value – statisticians and politicians please note.

3. Creative Citizenship: attractive idea politically, but maybe bestsupported through focus on specific areas of creative citizenshipeg local media v. grand concepts eg Big Society/Third Way.

4. Co-design and co-production lie at the heart of the practice of Creative Citizenship, pointing to crucial issues of design, ethics and political science. For Creative Citizens, bottom-up is tops.

5. Technology adds momentum and range to Creative Citizenship, but deployment requires site and case specific attention to detail and high-quality creative thinking/execution skills. Sustainability?

What did we learn about particular areas of practice?

Community Journalism: our work confirms the current importance

and potential of ‘hyperlocal’ news media; identifying patterns of participationfrom three groups: volunteers; paid community/charity workers and former or part time professional journalists. We paint in greater detail than previous studiesa picture of the role/ethos of social media in community journalism and reveal extent to which the new community journalism holds elites to account.Co-creative interventions point towards useful innovations for practitioners(eg the ‘printervention’ and real-time networking via Google Hangout)

Community-led design: our work advances the capability of asset

mapping as a tool and research method, using techniques such as data visualisation/analytics to add impact. A range of co-created media interventions underline the importance of creativity in designing these. Other hot topics: needto spread further media literacy and the importance of balancing professional andnon-professional contributions. Pre-digital media continue to be of greatimportance: Face2Face is even more important than Facebook. Achievingfluidity between professional and non-professional community players is vital.

What did we learn about particular sectors?

Creative Networks: South Blessed, Bristol: detailed study of

network involving music, fashion poetry, skate boarding, street art, Graffiti, film, comics and journalism. Offers rare insight into the strengths of the relationships and creativity which make South Blessed so successful (0.5 million YouTube views and a high profile position in local journalism) whilst also drawing attention to the economic precariousness of their activities. A co-created media intervention to produce Indigo Babies, a short graphic novel, intensified these insights and provided South Blessed with new routes forward.Key insight: nurturing such networks requires close-up/hands-on co-creation.

Moseley Community Development Trust: this study shows how

a long established Birmingham CDT, its co-working space and role in the creative history and ambitions of Moseley Village (suburb) provide a context for differing forms of creative citizenship. Through interviews, observation and a media intervention in digital story-telling, study highlights complexity and tensions in seeking digital enhancement of creative entrepreneurial activities in some situations, points to the need to address differing starting points/experiences but also shows how change can be initiated through co-creation.

The expected and the unexpected?

‘Learn to love the tensions; get their meaning’

e.g. -trans-disciplinarity- uneven distribution of tech skills/appetites;- project management (discipline v diversity)- centre-periphery resource distribution- ‘mixed methods’- community partners: ethics and good practice- value of ‘international mentor’- role of the university

Connected Communities: a high-risk success.

Our impact? ‘We have selected partners who have a strong route to market in terms of

impact (Project bid document July 2011). Eg Stats taken up by Ofcom in its annual communications market reports; co-produced ‘Creative Citizens Variety Pack’ with Nesta; role at Talk About Local ‘unconferences’.

Diverse and abundant media outputs: video, social media, web, ‘First Findings’ report, Cultural Science ‘special’, book. Indigo Babies and Moseley Stories important place-specific interventions. Open access approach

Book chapters cover: politics, theory, creative economy, co-design, asset-mapping, technology, place, value. Engages international debate.

Politics/policy/general election: Creative Citizens conference debate involving four leading political think tanks plus many other appearances at political/policy events, both ‘general’ and specific: eg Localism Bill/Act and follow-up.

Substantial flow of domain-specific publication, notably in design/architecture; journalism/media/community media; economic geography.

Overlaps with research team members’ other interests: substantial routes to impact (eg Hargreaves – IP/Creative Economy/cities many opportunities to present in UK and internationally (North America, Europe, Asia).

Sell-out conference, with outstanding international keynotes from Geoff Mulgan(CEO Nesta); Paola Antonelli (New York MOMA); Jean Burgess (QUT)

Project legacy?

Too early to say, but a range of bids active, under consideration or, in the case of some domain-specific projects in design and journalism already funded.

Bid for a purely engagement-focused Creative Citizen follow-on phase led by two Co-Is.

Influence of Creative Citizens work on other types of bids and developments:eg launch of Cardiff University Centre for Community Journalism (2013) and relatedMOOC; launch of Cardiff University Creative Economy Project (2014). Links withREACT and through REACT to UWE/Watershed, Bristol, Bath Exeter– ‘DIY Citizenship’ conference. Development of Birmingham City University Research

Centre. Future bid collaborations between research team members.

Contribution to Connected Communities interactions, showcases, ideas-sharing; linkswith KF and GM.

Influence on EU interactions/relationship with Lisbon Council (Brussels) andpursuit of Horizon 2020 opportunities. Bids for doctoral/graduate student investment.

Research question:

Q. How does creative citizenship generate value for communities within a changing media landscape and how can this pursuit of value be intensified, propagated and sustained?

A. Value of many different kinds is abundantly generated. Strategies for intensification, propagation and sustainability are available to government at all levels; social enterprise and third sector organisations and many public bodies, not least universities, which themselves face the challenge ofbecoming centres of creative (digital) citizenship.Complexity - Civic complexity – Democratic civic complexity -Creative Citizenship.