According to Klausen (2010), creativity is a human quality that – is unlike acidity and height – in the sense that many people can agree on their judgment albeit they are still susceptible to disagree on it. In the modern world creativity is considered an essential resource in the growth of society. Furthermore, the CEO of most major organizations is expected to be very creative. In addition, creativity is the driver of modern magazine publishing (Runco, 2007). In this regard, this paper seeks to identify the theoretical concept of creativity, how magazine and media companies cultivate creativity, and the effectiveness of tools used to reproduce creativity.
Simonton (2009) points out that for an idea to be described as creative, then it has to satisfy certain criteria. The first criterion is originality. An idea that has already been put forward by other people can never be considered as creative. However, originality does not suffice as a criterion. The second requirement is for the creativity to be useful. The idea that the creative comes up with has to function. Suffice it to say that creativity is the product of these two aspects; the lack of any of these two crucial features means that creativity is lacking from an idea. Creativity can be present even when the combination of the two crucial factors is in varying proportions. In some cases an idea is more original than it is useful while in other cases it can be more creative than it is original.
Psychologists often place creativity into two distinct categories. The first type of creativity is ‘little-c’ creativity. This type of creativity is involved with the creativity of daily life. In our day-to-day activities we encounter numerous problems that we are bound to find solutions for. In most cases, we have to use our creative ability to come up with solutions that work and fix the problem with relative ease. The other distinct type of creativity is ‘Big-C’ creativity. In this type of creativity, the usefulness is more ubiquitous and the originality stands out. It is common to find that no other person had already thought up the idea. The idea is a creative achievement bound to influence a certain change. Furthermore, the idea is such a revelation that it invokes the creation of imitations and some recruits and admirers. As a case in point, Shakespeare’s play Hamlet stimulated entertainers to set up ballets, operas, films, and other noteworthy plays. The magnitude of ‘Big-C’ creativity is several times larger than that of ‘little-c’ creativity. Creativity at the ‘Big-C’ level is known as the work of genius (Bilton, 2011).
In the 1950’s Psychologist EP Torrence defined creativity by pointing out that when a person is faced with a problem that has no straightforward or pre-learned solution then they will have to apply their creativity to find a solution. Another simple definition of creativity can be expressed as Novelty + Appropriateness = Creativity. On the other hand, some scholars believe that it is wrong to make people the focus of creativity because it may lead to the promotion of ‘genius myths’ and shift the focus from the process to the people. The media promotes and supports the ‘genius’ myth involved in creativity. This has been proven to favour the media in two main ways. First, it allows the creative to work for less money, riding on the hope that their creativity will be discovered. Additionally, it gives the industry the opportunity to brand the products by the media (Runco, 2007).
Creativity can be manifested in four main areas; people, process, products, and press. These are the underlying mechanisms that influence creativity. The term people refer to the information on intellect, personality, habits, physique, self-concept, behaviour and defence mechanisms. Process is involved in the perception, learning, thinking, motivation, and communication. The product or the idea is the creative thought passed on to other people in form of metal, stone, painting, fabric, plastic or any other type of material. When an idea is transformed from being intangible to a tangible form it becomes a product. The press is the relationship that exists between human being s and the environment they are in. In 1990, Simonton added another item that he believed influenced creativity – persuasion (Syrett and Lammiman, 2002). Creative people have to have the ability to influence and change how other people reason. Furthermore, Runco (2007) pointed out that potential should also be factored. He believed that people who have potential – those with skills but lacking the ability to express themselves – need the most support and assistance in order to achieve their potential.
However, it is important to steer clear of the bias that often plagues creativity. The art bias and the product bias are common misconceptions that often distort the definition of creativity. Under the art bias, individuals believe that creativity can only be attributed to an artistic individual which is not always the case. Under the product bias, people hold the assumption that creativity can only be manifested in an actual physical product. However, a creative idea can also be expressed without the need for tangible product (Syrett and Lammiman, 2002).
All through the 1990s and the early years of the twenty-first century, magazines have figured as a standout amongst the most dynamic and creative segments of the British economy (DTI, 2002). Somewhere around 1994 and 2003, for instance, the quantity of magazine titles available developed from 2,112 to 3,229. Consumers in the UK today are consequently furnished with a wide range of magazine titles traversing a wide cluster of customer interests. This growth of new magazine titles has been supported by mechanical changes created as a feature of the computerized revolution. The effect of these advances, especially desktop publishing (DTP) and electronic file transfer, in invigorating item development was effectively anticipated by the industry and businesses perspective. In this approach, development in the quantity of new titles was seen as a part of worldwide focus inside the media business overall, of which magazines were imagined to play an auxiliary role (Keen, 2007).
Innovation, essentially regarding product proliferation, was seen to give a vital partnership to the traditional scale advantages that had worked in favour of the the business since the late nineteenth century, empowering the main national magazine distributers to broaden their strength into the global circle. The general overview which has developed within Britain’s magazine industry since 1990, in any case, shows huge contrasts from the universally accepted perspective. The new advancements have not just prompted an increment in the range of titles through globalization; they have further prompted extension in the firm density of the business amongst UK-based distributers. Subsequently the development of the consumer magazine industry in Britain since 1990 gives examples of a number of different strategies that can be employed, as opposed to being the result of increased dominance by a substantial scale as anticipated (Jeffery and Troman, 2013).
Specifically, the foundation of adaptable organization models intended to promote creativity has created another class of organizations rivalling international media conglomerates. Indeed, bigger firms have been endeavouring to reconfigure internally on comparative lines keeping in mind the end goal is to reinforce their creativity systems. It is important to note that change in the innovation process for media houses and magazines was the outcome of a concurrent technological and organizational change (Bilton, 2011).
For the UK magazine industry, the exploitation of the new innovations and advancement of a more imaginative society obliged key authoritative changes to the way in which publishing firms worked. These hierarchical changes include much more prominent utilization of interpersonal systems, such that even the biggest elements in the magazine business now display numerous features connected with networked groups, or virtual associations, rather than firms in the conventional sense. In organization studies, attempts to ponder this movement towards networked structures have concentrated on the idea of project-based organizations (PBO). In such a situation, the conventional idea of a firm seeking reliable, long-term objectives -, for example, production targets – is supplanted or supplemented by the execution of a series of discrete assignments whose success is determined by the managerial co-ordination of the teams. Whilst such authoritative structures have since a long time ago constituted the basic norm for working methods in commercial ventures, for example, development and building, the venture structure has as of late rose as a critical component over an extensive variety of more customary customer driven businesses like cars and textiles. The magazine publishing industry of today would also appear to promptly fall into such a category (Deuze, 2007).
Venture based organizations exemplify cultures that are adapted particularly to promoting creativity, making and adjusting new products and techniques and going past thoughts of just more flexible organization game-plans, for example, outsourcing, contracting and alliances. By using project-based approaches firms in the specific month to month consumer magazine division have possessed the capacity to fashion associations with their readers and grassroots professionals to offer a range of titles and administrations. Aggressive accomplishment inside this procedure is driven by the nature of these systems of connections significantly more than by customary economies of scale(Jeffery and Troman, 2013).
The developing significance of the PBO as an organization structure stems directly from changes that have been achieved by the ICT revolution. Though customarily, the assembling of consumer products under an administration of large scale manufacturing would have been adapted around producer-led product chains, for example, those portrayed by paper inputs and printing presses up to the 1990s. The more adaptable creation and data gathering advancements of the Information Age have had a tendency to encourage customisation which, in turn, has engaged consumers. Product creativity has become a key weapon and has made consumer responsiveness an important determinant of competitive advantage (Deuze, 2011).
For month to month authority magazines this is especially pertinent, as the procedure of close-consumer recognizable proof and criticism are those which give quality to the buyer. In this regard, it has been small and medium-sized firms, working freely yet inside the parameters of the system structures of the business that have developed in significance and have prompted an increment in the firm density of magazine distributers. So, whilst at the worldwide level firm fixation has expanded, in Britain the quantity of pro firms contending in the magazine business has unmistakably ascended following the 1980s. It is the smaller firms which are regularly most competently utilizing computerized innovation and adaptable association keeping in mind the end goal to drive customer focussed creative techniques (Runco, 2007).
As noted earlier, “creativity” is an exceedingly versatile idea which can be utilized to bolster or legitimize an assortment of hypotheses and practices. Two factors come to light in this regard. Firstly innovation and management, having been situated truly as restricting ideas, are progressively uniting in new models of social strategy and business administration. Besides, without clear definitions, whilst there is extension for “creativity” and “administration” to play off one another in fascinating and profitable ways, ‘overseeing creativity’ is troublesome, yet very crucial (Simonton, 2001).
Since the 1990s the overwhelming standard for comprehension of creativity is a sociocultural model which finds individual innovativeness in a network of relations instead of individual moments of brilliance(Cox and Mowatt, 2008).. At the individual level, specialists participate in numerous ventures, depicted by Howard Gruber as ‘a system of endeavours’; particular experiences are hence installed in a more extensive theoretical system, stretching out through the creative persons progressing career. At the social level, creative people work within ‘art worlds’ which give pragmatic backing and imaginative motivation, as well as frameworks for legitimizing the artist’s reputation and the estimated value of the work created. This “structural” model of innovativeness gets to be particularly powerful in connection to the cognitive meaning of the creative process. Creative thinking draws upon ability and skills which are imparted by those working in an industry or field. Intentionally or not, creative individuals rely on their insight and experience inside that particular field (Deuze, 2007).
This blurring of financial and social connections in the creative circles has prompted the charge that creative firms don’t consider their business obligations important, that they are minor ‘lifestyle organizations’. Then again, they additionally stand blamed for abusing informal communities and friendship as sources of independent contracts or inside information. Connections between creative companies don’t appear to be entirely determined by monetary interest; for many, being ‘a part of the scene’ energizes their innovative characters and goals, not simply their monetary records. Creative systems are based not simply on the ‘frail ties’ of economic realism, but also on companionship (Bilton, 2007).
From a business viewpoint, the sociocultural model of creativity fits with a developing accentuation on organizational culture as the source of the firm’s mission and purpose, and with a “transformational” model. While a “value-based” leader propels the workforce through an arrangement of prizes and disciplines, the transformational leader supports the representatives to feel inspired from within, roused by a feeling of mission which is inserted in the company’s culture. Workers who are accordingly inspired are more inclined to go the extra mile in their work, and this state of inborn inspiration connects specifically to elevated amounts of worker creativity. Such a model is grounded in a model of organizational creativity where individual ‘genius’ is established in a collective framework. This movement towards collective creativity is evident also in the ‘innovative industries’, with a developing emphasis on the innovation of administration and systems which encourage creative ability, instead of on the ability itself. In media and in magazines, it is possible to note a shift of creativity from the customarily characterized “creative” department towards the ‘creative process’ and ‘creative managers’ (Dueze, 2011).
Undoubtedly, there are irregularities in cultural strategies towards the creative commercial industries. The British government eagerly embraced the potential outcomes of a creative economy, spearheaded by the creative industries, and yet its policies sell out a conflicting legacy, from the social equitable motivations of civil socialist governments in the 1980s to the flagship-floating, banner waving culture of central government amid the same period. Yet such inconsistencies may be an important malevolence (Cox and Mowatt, 2008).. By settling on either an absolutely “chivalrous” or “structural” model of imagination in future, policy makers may accomplish a more “rational” methodology, however, in the meantime risk ignoring or hindering the moves behind creative industries. The unfashionable traditions of logic might actually allow the impact of individual brilliance and social communities on which creative thinking is dependent (Jeffrey and Troman, 2013).
Since creativity obliges policy makers to look past the individual craftsman at the systems and connections which facilitate innovative work, policy makers have had to make more auxiliary interventions (Bilton, 2011). This has prompted a move far from the conventional social approach policy to different bodies with a more subtle social arrangement transmit. In the UK, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) has contended for an association between creativity and innovation where artistic inventiveness is seen not viewed as an end itself but inserted within a methodology of advancement and enterprise. The advancement process suggests a shift from thought era to the application and execution of thoughts in a mixture of business, social and educational settings. This model of connected imagination is similar to the UK representation of the creative commercial enterprises regarding the business misuse of licensed intellectual property (Cox and Mowatt, 2008).
Furthermore, this moves the concentrate far from the creative to the method and processes which transform crude thoughts into commercial properties. The methodology permits policy makers to address different possibilities down and up the value chain, from access to finances to access to businesses opportunities. This demands a concession of power from social approach to different bodies just loosely associated with government and cultural strategy. NESTA is not directly included in financing of the creative commercial ventures; its purpose is to bolster development. However, the fact that NESTA and different bodies both inside and outside government are discussing creativity and the related industries is a clear indicator of a shift in strategy from approaching creativity as the generation of ideas to the more extensive social associations, infrastructure, and system which transform thoughts into applications.
To conclude, creativity is the driver behind the modern media and magazines. It is a quality – like beauty – that individuals are prone to disagree on often. It is important to note that for an idea to be considered creative it has to be original and useful. In addition, there are two types of creativities according to psychologists. Little-c creativity is the type of creativity that we tap into during our everyday activities to solve some of the problems we come across. Big-C is the type of creativity that is bound to influence a change, because no one has ever come up with the same idea. Creativity can be manifested in people, process, products, and press. Media conglomerates are being rivalled by organizations that are modelled towards the promotion of creativity. The big media houses are rethinking their strategies with an aim of bolstering the creativity systems. Advancements in the UK where the citizens became more imaginative evoked a change in the way publishing firms function. In order to properly manage creativity, firms have to stop viewing creativity as just the original and useful idea; creativity has to be viewed as the broader social infrastructure, system, and associations that transform ideas into applications.
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