Social network analysis and the creative industries

Sian Joel-Edgar (Exeter University)Kai Lui (Greenwich Univesity)

Social Network Analysis and the Creative Industries:

searching for similarities between creative domains

Creativity"There is a broad consensus that creativity is the capacity to produce things that are original and valuable" (Gaut, 2010 p 039)

- Creativity as individual cognitive attributes and traits ( Sternberg 1985, Tardif and Sternberg 1988, Glynn 1996)

- The network side of individual creativity (Perry-Smith and Shalley 2003, Burt 2004, Perry-Smith 2006)

- "Creative individual be placed within a network of interpersonal relationships” (Simonton 1984a, p. 1273). Creativity “is all in your social network” (Brass 1995)

Creative labour force- Creative Class (Florida, 2002 & 2005)- Freelancers and flexiable labour (O’Connor, 2007)

Theoretical background

Social network in CIs• End of Fordism and “The Rise of the Network Society”

(Castells, 1996) • Social Capital (Lin, 1999; Bourdieu 1986)• Social network market (Potts, J., Cunningham, S., Hartley, J., &

Ormerod, P. 2008) and the role of network to reduce uncertainty and risks (Banks et al, 2000; Raffo et al, 2000; Shorthose, 2004; Bilton, 2007).

• Project-based and networked organisations (Christopherson, 2004; Grabher, 2004)

• Freelancers and Micro business (Banks, 2010)• Creative city and Clusters (Lazzeretti, 2008; Landy, 2012)

Define Creative IndustriesUK’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) as:• “…those industries which have their origin in individual

creativity, skill and talent which have a potential for job and wealth creation through the generation and exploitation of intellectual property” (‘Creative Industries Mapping Document’, DCMS, 2001)

• Advertising, Architecture, Crafts, Design, Film/TV/Video/Radio/Photography, I.T./Software, Publishing, Museums/Galleries/Libraries - DCMS 2015

• In 2012 8.5% of total U.K. workforce was employed in CI• £71.4 billion and 5.2% of U.K. economy

What are the major themes being used by CI research using SNA

Are some CIs using Social Network Analysis more than other CIs

Key research questions

• Literature review: Creative & Cultural Industries research using SNA perspective

• Bottom up approach: looking at individual industrials

• Top down approach: looking at Creative and Cultural industries as a whole

Method and research design

• Decision criteria used:

• 1) "design" + "social network analysis”

• 2) Advanced search [CI + social networks] - Title only

• Search engines used: 1) Google Scholar 2) Science Direct

• Issues of this approach• CIs terms as verbs: e.g. design

• CIs terms that are the application or tool rather than industry. SNA software, not the software industry

Bottom up approach

Variation between each Creative industry

Adverti

sing

Archite

cture Arts

Culture

CraftDesi

gn Film

Museum

Librar

ies

Librar

y

Galleri

es

Gallery

Music

Publishing

Software

05000

100001500020000250003000035000400004500050000

Design Designer0

5000

10000

15000

20000

25000

30000

35000

40000

45000

50000

Each CI industryOver time

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 20140

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

7000

8000

9000

AdvertisingArchitectureArtsCulture CraftDesignFilmMuseumLibrariesLibraryGalleriesGalleryMusicPublishingSoftware

Bottom up science direct results

• Advanced search [CI + social networks] - Title only• 38 papers (across disciplines)

•Qualitative analysis approach: looking for themes

• Diffusion and adoption, team collaboration, learning/skills

and social media

• Decision criteria used:

- Identify the application of SNA in the cultural and creative industries

- All the papers published which explicitly methioned “social network analysis”, “creative industries” and “cultural industries”

- Quality control by only looking at peer reviewed journals

- Initial number of papers 528

- 145 cleaned papers, of which 100 had keywords listed

• Search engines used: Google Scholar (title, abstract and full text)

• Issues of this approach• Doesn’t look at specific industries

Top down approach

Keywords

SNA (S

ocial N

etworks

inclu

ding just

networks

)

Creativit

y/Crea

tive In

dustry/I

ndustries

Culture/

Cultural

industr

y/industr

ies

Cluster

Organiza

tion or Orga

nisation

Innovation

Music

Markets

Film (a

nd motion pict

ure) Art

Producti

on

Socia

l (human

) cap

ital

Media

(not socia

l med

ia)Urb

an

Projec

t

Knowledge

Local

GlobalPolicy

Manag

emen

t

Fash

ion

Game i

ndustry

Communication

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Keyword Visualisation 1

Keywords Visualisation 2

Journal Number of papers

Creative Industries Journal

9

Cultural Sociology

7

International Journal of Cultural Policy

6

Journals

Conlusion

• Bearing in mind that the DCMS definition of Creative Industries is very U.K. Centric and controversial , and each data collection method has its flaws:

• Varying and conflicting results between two methodological approaches

• Is the software industry a "creative" industry?

• Some industries are under-represented e.g. craft.

• Does the craft industry not utilise social capital in the same way other creative industries do?

Future work

•What defines a creative network?

•What techniques are used and what are found in creative networks?

• Look at abstract and title as well as keywords

• Discover themes from each paper found through the top down approach.

Thank you

Sian Joel-Edgar (Exeter University Business School) [email protected] @kurtesysian

Kai Liu (University of Greenwich)[email protected].