[Air-l] The value of creative expression outside pedagogical contexts

[David Brake]

One of the most interesting findings (for me at least) of the last  
Pew survey on weblogging was that the top motivation for it was the  
expression of creativity. I have been trying to find a literature  
that talks about the importance of being able to express one's self  
creatively that doesn't mainly relate either to education or to  
creativity as a way of gaining access to a group with status (eg fan  
creativity). It seems a lot of the work by scholars like Henry  
Jenkins agrees tacitly that the Internet is giving people who might  
not have other avenues for creativity a chance to be creative and  
this is good but I don't recall coming across anyone who elaborates  
on this except Willis, P. (1990). Common culture : symbolic work at  
play in the everyday cultures of the young. Buckingham, Open  
University Press and (in passing) Atton, C. (2001) "The Mundane and  
Its Reproduction in Alternative Media", Journal of Mundane Behavior,  
2 (1).  http://www.mundanebehavior.org/issues/v2n1/atton.htm

There's also Rodríguez, C. (2001) Fissures in the Mediascape : An  
International Study of Citizens' Media, Hampton Press, Cresskill,  
N.J. and others writing about alternative media but they mostly  
concentrate on the political benefits of being able to express  
yourself. I am more interested in broader sociological issues.

Anyway, any ideas?
	
an

---
David Brake, Doctoral Student in Media and Communications, London  
School of Economics & Political Science
<http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/media@lse/study/ 
mPhilPhDMediaAndCommunications.htm>
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