Publication details
Socio-material and spatial dimensions of creativity: The case of news journalists at Czech TV Brno
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| Year of publication | 2018 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | Creativity remains an under-theorized and under-researched aspect of professional journalists' work, identity and professional ideology and this applies particularly to news producers. News journalists are expected to be guided by professional values (particularly impartiality and objectivity) and they are also bound by the formal requirements of the news genre. We argue that the news making process is a creative one and provide some insights into how television news journalists understand it. We also argue that the journalists' creative process needs to be understood in the context of socio-material and spatial influences and illustrate this using a case study from the Czech Republic. Journalists working for the local station Czech TV Brno recently experienced a disruption to their work processes and routines in the form of a move from premises in the city centre to a new purpose-built state-of-the-art building on the outskirts of Brno. The 2016 move represents an ideal opportunity to explore how journalists re-constitute social relationships, adjust to new material and spatial conditions and mainly how these impact on their creativity. In order to explore these issues we are conducting interviews with news journalists working at a range of positions in the television channel's hierarchy. We have not yet concluded our empirical research but we expect that our findings will confirm that social relationships and material conditions – as they are constituted and experienced in a particular location and a particular space – are a key influence on news journalists’ creativity. |