Social media and the future of creativity at work

Carter, Chris James

Abstract

Over the last decade social media have played an increasingly prevalent role in work-related creativity, whether enabling employees to shape their career paths via the phenomenon of personal branding or laying the groundwork for the emergent gig economy. However, the social web has also brought challenges for individual creative expression in the form of employee surveillance, reputational risk, and information overload. Drawing from the creativity literature and the burgeoning field of social media research, this chapter considers the future of creativity at work by critically examining three key arguments relating to these social technologies: that they have had a democratizing effect on access to knowledge and information, that they provide the individual freedom necessary for creative expression, and that they have enhanced agency and control over when and how creative labour is remunerated. In doing so, the chapter outlines existing tensions in the literature and, subsequently, areas with considerable potential for future research.

Citation

Carter, C. J. (2018). Social media and the future of creativity at work. In L. Martin, & N. Wilson (Eds.), Palgrave handbook of creativity at work, 543-562. Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-77350-6_26

• Online Publication Date: Jul 18, 2018
• Publication Date: Jul 19, 2018
• Deposit Date: Dec 11, 2018
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Pages: 543-562
• Book Title: Palgrave handbook of creativity at work
• Chapter Number: 26
• ISBN: 9783319773490
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77350-6_26
• Keywords: Creativity; Work; Social media
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1405508
• Publisher URL: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-319-77350-6_26