The Creative Citizen Unbound: how social media and DIY culture contribute to civics, democracy, economic wellbeing and creative communities. Edited by Ian Hargreaves and John Hartley (Policy Press, 2016).
Digital social media afford unprecedented opportunities for groups of citizens to collaborate locally and internationally in innovative ways in countless domains. This book seeks to evaluate this potential, drawing upon a broad conceptual analysis and a series of co-creative case studies undertaken by a multi-disciplinary research team with community partners in different parts of the UK. Creative citizenship is shown to be a widespread, even global phenomenon, though the term itself is recent in origin. Creative citizens are active across the whole of society, making distinctive contributions in politics, education, media, environment, urban development, journalism, planning, business and many other dimensions. In its closing chapter, the book draws together the insights from case studies and a wider reflection upon policy options open to government and others to ‘unbind’ creative citizenship. The authors argue for re-consideration of official statistics to reflect the significant but largely uncounted contribution to the creative economy made by creative citizens. The book then identifies other ways in which the potential of creative citizens can be ‘unbound’, in fields such as community journalism, planning and education.
Chapter 1: Are you a creative citizen? - Ian Hargreaves
Chapter 2: A problem of knowledge – solved? - John Hartley
Chapter 3; Citizenship and the creative economy - Caroline Chapain and Ian Hargreaves
Chapter 4: Citizenship, value and digital culture - Jon Dovey, Giota Alevizou and Andy Williams
Chapter 5: Varieties of creative citizenship - Theodore Zamenopoulos, Katerina Alexiou, Giota Alevizou, Caroline Chapain, Shawn Sobers, Andy Williams
Chapter 6: From networks to complexity: two case studies - David Harte, Jon Dovey, Emma Agusita, Theodore Zamenopoulos
Chapter 7: Conversations about co-production - Catherine Greene, Shawn Sobers, Theo Zamenopoulos, Caroline Chapain and Jerome Turner
Chapter 8: Asset mapping and civic creativity - Katerina Alexiou, Emma Agusita, Giota Alevizou, Caroline Chapain, Catherine Greene, Dave Harte, Gail Ramster and Theodore Zamenopoulos
Chapter 9: Civic cultures and modalities of place-making - Giota Alevizou, Katerina Alexiou, Dave Harte, Shawn Sobers, Theodore Zamenopoulos and Jerome Turner
Chapter 10: Technology and the creative citizen - Jerome Turner, Dan Lockton and Jon Dovey
Chapter 11: Reflecting and unbinding: implications for policy - Ian Hargreaves and John Hartley
Annex: The creative citizens debate.