Creative citizens: Researching the value of creative citizenship through co-creative action research (A ‘transmedia’ case study)

Sobers, Shawn; Dovey, Jonathan; Agusita, Emma; Baidoo, Vincent; West, Tamara; Chapain, Caroline

Abstract

This session shares the work of the Creative Citizens strand that set out to investigate the impact of informal creative networks on their communities. In Bristol we worked with the network of young people that work around the very informal South Blessed social media platform; in Birmingham the team worked with the Moseley Community Development Trust, a charity organisation which aims to encourage creative business to locate in Moseley through a coworking space, the Moseley Exchange, as well as to support the wider social and environmental development of Moseley as a neighbourhood by enabling its community creative and civic actions. The results of the work identified a wide range of citizenship benefits arising from different kinds of creative entrepreneurship. These include both individual and community transformative outcomes as well as training for creative economy work; informal education; sources of alternative information and community cohesion. However the research also highlighted the ways that the digital framing of creative citizenship can produce exclusion and reminded us of the importance of face-to-face and everyday physical interactions to foster social capital and creative actions. We also developed a range of ways of understanding the importance of place, and material production as a way of producing cohesion and impact.

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: Creative Citizens: The Conference
• Start Date: Sep 18, 2014
• End Date: Sep 19, 2014
• Publication Date: Sep 19, 2014
• Peer Reviewed: Not Peer Reviewed
• Keywords: community media, creative citizens, creative economy, transmedia, alternative media, informal networks
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/811851
• Publisher URL: http://creativecitizens.co.uk/conference/day-two/
• Additional Information: Title of Conference or Conference Proceedings : Creative Citizens: The Conference