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<ET>Media Education Research and Creativity <AU>Alberto Parola
<AF>University of Turin, Italy
<ABS>The relationship between media education (ME) and creativity is based on a happy combination of mutual interests. ME, in all its complexity, is naturally inclined to design creative paths, given that all languages are now strongly intertwined in digital worlds. On the other hand, a creative, innovative, and transformative teaching, oriented to change, easily informs the indications of media education, which come partly from the experience of the schools, partly from the educational and media education research carried out over the last three decades, and partly from research that is still in progress. However, there is a risk that ME and creativity be content of their relationship, while they may have an extraordinary opportunity for further mutual growth. This happens if they follow an approach in which objectives, processes, and evaluations are carefully managed in all the training fields. It is very important that this happens within a media education system in which research, education, the public, and production work together. This system must determine a constant and visible growth of cognitive, emotional, and social skills in all individuals who spend a good part of their day in front of the screens. Media education research has the role of finding the most effective solutions to analyze this significant relationship between ME and creativity and to direct teachers and educators to create paths that allow the development of resources that can be spent in various knowledge and professional fields.
<KW>creativity; educational research; media education; participatory culture systemic approach; teaching training <P>We define media education (ME) as a vast area of knowledge at the intersection of the two great worlds of education and communication. ME abandons the idea of protection as abstinence and is oriented toward protection as proactive behavior. The difference is subtle but significant, since self-protection allows the development of individual awareness and coparticipation, unlike the problematic approach based on prohibition. The most fruitful approach is to use the media as opening a formative, creative, and professional opportunity for the whole of life (Masterman, 1985; Giannatelli and Rivoltella, 1995; Rivoltella, 2001; Buckingham, 2003; Hobbs, 2011). Currently the “digital” is bringing out new and complex problems. The practices related to them (privacy defence, writing skills, empathic approach, risk perception, construction of one’s own identity, and so on) must be understood in depth, given the remarkable
acceleration of all the informal learning processes of the last three decades. These are issues that confront us with unknown ontological and epistemological questions. The theme of creativity, declined in its various forms, can be a key to developing remarkable skills and competences. In this sense, it is necessary to ensure that the individuals’ biology is better matched to the screen’s mediation and the cognitive and emotional difficulties of managing relationships. We have observed creativity connected to media in different historical moments, in individual or social situations, in significant proposals of the digital citizen, and in the use of different languages such as comics, photography, music, video, and so on, thanks to original mash-up forms. In general all these languages tend to hybridize and create new modalities of communication and expression, also through remediation attempts (Bolter & Grusin, 1999). Furthermore, creativity occurs when we reflect and make observations and research on thought, intelligence, cognitive processes, knowledge approach, language itself, mental images, interface and objects design, learning spaces, and so on (the list is by force partial). Not being able to address all the issues here, this entry will limit itself to providing some theoretical– practical categories that can better represent the relationship between ME and creativity.
<A>The relationship between ME and creativity
<P>If imagination is essentially an immaterial personal mental experience, creativity is free thought and concrete behavior. Lehrer (2012) states that the reality of the creative process requires perseverance, the motor of the ability to complete a given task. The “creativity question” is one of the most long-lived on which man has tried to reflect. Already the first philosophers questioned for a long time about this mysterious gift entrusted to human beings. After thousands of years, it continues to be a complex concept that no one has yet been able to fully define: at the moment it continues to escape attempts at scientific explanation. From the birth of psychology in the middle of the nineteenth century, and then shortly after, with the first experimental research in the educational field, creativity was brought closer to the concept of intelligence. These two aspects can be partly assimilated (those who are creative are also intelligent), partly perceived as opposites (those who are intelligent, in the sense of convergence, could be not very creative, in the sense of divergence). If creativity has been subjected to numerous investigations, this is thanks to twentieth-century studies related to the works of Binet and Simon (intelligence tests), Piaget (evolutionary stages), Guilford (factorial theory), Sternberg (the metaphors of the mind and the triarchic model)—and one should not forget Vygotskji (the relationship between thought and language), Bruner (cultural psychology), and, more recently, Gardner (multiple intelligences). The first useful indications in terms of creativity come from those who have observed the gifted (Terman, Bartlett, and Monks among others), but also from the acute analysis of extraordinary characters, great artists and scientists such as Leonardo and Einstein, who used creativity as the instrument of their works and discoveries (think of the studies of Wallace and Gruber). Every creative individual is a unique product that describes a cross between individual processes and cultural situations within a specific historical period. In different moments and situations, creativity has been conceived of as consisting of different factors linked to thought: we can mention, besides Guilford’s divergent thinking and the Bruner’s narrative thinking, Bartlett’s original and adventurous thinking (which is similar to the Morin’s “systemic thinking”), Wertheimer’s productive thinking, Norman’s cognitive artifacts idea, or the research on the collective and connective intelligence carried out respectively by Levy and De Kerchkove. Creativity, of course, is also expressed through interfaces, objects, and space design, an increasingly significant element in the digital field (one may think, in this sense, of Munari’s pioneering analogical work, which still has contemporary relevance). After an initial phase linked to intelligence, flexibility, and originality, studies on creative thinking moved toward personality aspects, which until then had remained on the margins: this is, in particular, the risk acceptance, humor, nonconformity and the ability to play with ideas. Of course, all these aspects find (and have found in the past) a fertile ground in media education activities carried out in schools. From here comes the double role of the teacher-researcher who allows students to apply creativity in media education. For example, we need to know that, if the “fixation factor” (that is, the formula or rigid model that prevents you from leaving standardized schemes) can negatively affect creativity, a sufficient period of “incubation of ideas” can favor it. The two concepts at work here are the concept of organization (creativity depends on a flexible operating context) and the concept of time (creativity requires tranquility, freedom, silence and long times). The mind must be able to wander, as stated by Corballis (2015). Not by chance, with the advent of the web, the moments of confrontation in relation to the “maker movement,” the meaning and the start-up process and the constant evolution of the Internet of Things, are increased significantly in every corner of the planet: this means that the media and the digital automatically inspire a union (coniunctio) between creativity and intelligence, between divergent and convergent thinking, waiting for useful solutions. The school suffers from organizational problems and time management. We know well that the current school is no longer sustainable, since it is rigid and fixed on narrow schematisms and does not allow incubation periods for the students’ and their teachers’ good ideas. ME allows us to
abandon the fixation model and to proceed toward a different didactic and a better management of space and time. The good practices of the last three decades certify this clearly. The model proposed by Urban (1995) in Table 1, which is a little dated but still effective and complete, highlights the richness of the components of the construct “creativity” and, above all, places the concept within a social context.
General concept
Indicators
General knowledge
Memory, reasoning
Specific knowledge
Skills, special skills
Dedication to the task
Concentration, persistence
Grounds
Curiosity, need for news, game,
communication
Openness to the experience
Availability to new, risk, adaptability,
non-conformism
Divergent thinking
Flexibility, fluidity, originality
<TC>Table 1 Urban’s creativity model. <TS>Adapted from Urban (1995).
In relation to media education research (MER), it is very important to rely on effective theoretical models with reliable indicators, since in many media education areas it is easy to confuse creativity with a simply animating activity. Thinking of congenial solutions, creativity must creep into many original digital situations, such as the themes of competence, play, and risk, which are very similar to the attitudes and behaviors of prosumers or participative citizens. This also applies to optimal teaching methods designed to reach the competences goals. Among other things, we can cite the simulation methods and the serious games: media creativity, in this case, can manifest itself both as a teacher’s project and as a project, also didactic and self-evaluative, of the student. Other very important aspects are those related to visual thought and metaphor: with the advent of the digital, especially mental images (over time studied above all by Kosslyn, Shepard, Pylyshyn, and Paivio) are once again at the center of the interest of pedagogues and psychologists— given the hypothesis that the children of today can no longer imagine precisely because, partly paradoxically, they receive too many visual stimuli as a result of the elaboration of a great quantity of images. Not only cognitive aspects and appropriate soft skills guide us toward a model of creativity that must be adapted to contemporaneity, but also psychodynamic aspects (and, in some cases, various elements referable to psychopathology) such as regression, openness to the world, equilibrium breakdown, and everything that competes with the coexistence of primary and secondary processes. These aspects are also connected with Goleman’s (1995, 2007) emotional and social intelligence, Berthoz’s (2013) concept of vicariance (as simplex principle and creative deviation), and Mallgrave’s (2013) studies of space empathy, which refer to the theme of classrooms and formal and informal learning environments.
Buckingham (2003) argues that historically the media materials production at school has always been criticized, due to fear of a vague imitation of the “mass formats” by children and young people. The production of creative potential was strictly subordinated to the demonstration of the message’s comprehension, necessarily directed against the dominant ideologies. Today the scenario is different, because the opposition should eventually be directed against the “giants of the web,” but this attitude would represent a paradox (“How can I criticize Google and Facebook for what they offer me for free?”). The sure fact is the importance of simulation in creative production that, as already mentioned, requires rigorous work and a good dose of persistence. A final theme to be addressed is that of the relationship between MER and evidence-based education (EBE). The work of Hattie (2009) about “visible learning” leads us to reflect very carefully on the factors that really affect school education. For example, in a compendium of more than 60 research studies and meta-analyses, Deasy (2002) analyzed the possibility of transferring skills from art (visual arts, dance,
theater, music) to learning in other school areas (reading skills, problem-solving, motivation, linguistic development, writing, mathematics, science), but also noted changes related to the motivation to attend school and self-confidence. In short, if we compare the concept of “creativity” to the media, we can think of the former in the following ways: <BL>
as fuel to ME and to the development of different categories of thought and media skills;
as facilitator of a balanced relationship between biological reality and digital reality (complexity and “simplexity”); as epistemic writing (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987) and production through the various languages and their recoding transcoding;
as observation of the invisible thanks to the production and recognizability of mental images that, for example, allow us (e.g., by means of media educative coding activities) to shed light on often unexplained cognitive processes;
as an essential element for Hattie’s (2009) visible learning;
as the integration of “deep learning,” understood not only in a cognitive and meta-cognitive sense, but as a meta-quality, the result of the encounter with one’s own self, as many psychodynamic theories suggest.
<P>Therefore we can argue that the triangulation ME–MER–creativity can act as an engine to plan, observe, and evaluate paths oriented to the goals of competences. Therefore, in order to achieve organizational change, it is necessary to disassemble and restructure the school and its schematisms in large areas of the world.
<A>Creativity and media education research
<P>The relationship between creativity (media and digital) and media and MER is productive only within an organized and virtuous partnership. We define MER as the sum of cognitive, comprehensive, and change-oriented research strategies in a recursive perspective on data interpretation and the design of good media education practices, oriented toward a participatory research based on different and repeated cycles of action. This continuity allows a perpetual process of exchange between theory and practice and an upgrade of the teacher’s professionalism that, in this sense, as already mentioned, also assumes the role of observer-researcher (Parola, 2008). This can be accomplished within a system designed beforehand, which provides for the harmonious interconnection between subsystems such as research, educational contexts in schools and territories, the public and the citizens, and the world of media production (TV, editorial, cinematographic, digital, crossmedia, etc.). We can call it media education research system (MERS). As can be seen in Figure 1, the scheme has four main dimensions and these activities annex other subdimensions as they connect to one another. In short, we can reason on different axes that connect keywords in reciprocal bidirectional mode, with research at the center (in our case, MER): the result will be composed of the activities arising from such links.
<FIG1>
<B>The link Ri-Pr (the relationship is between research and production)
<P>The production (of TV programs, animation shorts, apps, videogames, media in general) can stimulate the design and carrying out of a research, as a product can be considered of interest for an in-depth study, or because a publisher may request advice from a research group in order to evaluate their product. The Ri environment sends feedback to Pr, which collects information to improve or adapt the product itself. This happens only through Pr’s “educational” availability. Viceversa, Ri can ask Pr to check and document the quality of its products with a view to producing in line with an educational minor’s needs, for example through a system of quality indicators. We assume that the ME can’t
evolve and develop by renouncing the support of media education research. The hypotheses regarding the effectiveness of a given intervention, the observation of the contexts in which the experiences take place, the experimental research on the fruition behaviors, the learning, the emotions, and so on represent the basis on which the individuals’ education can be built. The keywords are therefore observation of processes, assessment of skills (supported by divergent thinking), and experimentation in educational contexts: they represent a methodological strategy of research in ME, which should be considered particularly urgent. A close collaboration between Ri and Pr allows the producer herself to be able to reflect during the creative phase and to fine-tune the product; and this establishes a dialogue between researcher, producer, and public (Pu) prosumer. The goal is to know how to observe and understand creative ideas.
<B>The link Ed-Pu (the relationship is between education and the public or citizenship)
<P>Teachers, educators, parents, and children, faced with media use, ask a series of questions, expressing a need for knowledge and training: for example, educators and parents worry about the relationship between children and the media (especially smartphones), teachers question their teaching (in an unstable balance between skills and creativity), while the boys, more open to media experiences, reflect on questions about their future with the media and how they can exploit them in their favor, even in their free time, from a personal and creative, relational and professional point of view. They can thus become good users, but also effective media readers and writers, taking on greater critical
autonomy and enhancing their chances of communicating effectively and in an original way. The two main drivers of the relationship between the keywords are:
<NL>
1. the network, that is, the relationships that are established—must be established—between the different actors of ME through their “doing cognitive and relational network” (ME can not disregard a constant and meticulous work of this kind);
2. training, intended as a double level of activation of ME paths, in a given context (school or territory) and as training of trainers (teachers, educators, media educators).
<P>The goal is to develop teaching and parenting creativity through the recovery of divergent thinking.
<B>The link Ri-Ed (the relationship is between research and educational and training contexts)
<P>Training or education designate the traditional mission of educational institutions, new initiatives at school, and university-level, local, and territorial initiatives, in collaboration with the world of associations. The research identifies the critical dimensions in terms of ME and invites the partners to fill any gap, thanks to training courses or educational interventions (school, family, territory, etc.). Furthermore, the research suggests the paths to be taken (the curricula) and tests them through the educators’ collaboration. Here creativity is expressed in terms of scientific divulgation or third mission (Ri translates paradigmatic thought into narrative thought), while Ed makes creativity a pillar of the ME, provided that, as already said, it does not turn into an animating activity that is an end in itself. The objective is the cyclicity of actions, the recurrence of reflections, the design of good practices informed by empirical evidence.
<B>The link Ri-Pu (the relationship is between research and audience)
<P>This ratio is the weakest, by definition and tradition. Even if the publication of the research carried out in the academy often does not reach users in a direct and effective way, it is possible to involve the passive listener or reader and the prosumer, questioning him or her and stimulating that person to learn more and better (think about fake news),
to provide opinions, formulate judgments, suggest modifications and elaborate observations of what he or she sees, reads, and listens every day in relation to the media. Research will restore the conditions for a better interaction and relationship between the person and the media system. Also in this case, the prosumer presents the discourse linked to the “third mission,” understood as an ability to disseminate information and research among citizens. However, while Ed can actively deal with it, Pu still tends to live it passively: in this sense, the prosumer should develop more skills around the relationship between information, thought, and behavior. If the prosumer understands what Ri says, he or she is not able to ask him- or herself: “How can I translate scientific concepts into something understandable and return a shareable product to my network?” The initial input can come from Ri, when the researcher, for example, is interested in making a study of the relationship between teenagers and smartphones; from Pr if it is the medium itself to express, for example, a need for quality monitoring and requests self-evaluation; from Pu if, for example, an association of parents raises a problem or makes a fear known; from Ed if teachers express opinions or design media education courses. Once the circuit has been activated, this can take on different forms: the important thing is that each “node” has sufficient propulsive energy, thanks to the assumption of responsibility, the presence of resources, and the skills of all the actors of the system, at the local level and, more generally, at the institutional level. The goal is to conceive of
creativity as the engine of planning and understanding the close relationship between narrative thinking and paradigmatic thinking.
<B>The link Pr-Pu (the relationship is between production and the public or citizenship)
<P>Here we introduce the theme of the quality of media production, including the creative aspect. Today as in the past, media production tends on one hand to homologate styles (old television), on the other to foster children’s creativity (various apps and software, YouTube, and much more). Therefore we risk that the personal expressive capacity is less creative and the languages less articulate and more rigid; then the hybridization of styles and the contamination of genres through the original bricolage form makes the scenario open to a great many ideas. From the point of view of the reflective ability of the student who learns informally, having available a mental scheme of good quality and a well-established culture of quality and beauty would allow him or her to manage and govern a series of cognitive operations that can also be exercised at school, thanks to the techniques learned through continuous experimentation. The media are psycho-technologies (De Kerckhove, 1991) and those who use them must know the relationship between their psychology and that of the interface with which it is interacting (and therefore the designer). Others speak of these aspects from a sociosemiotic approach. This also applies to the link Ed-Pr: if the producer (or publisher) is open to a training project within the educational environments, negotiating the main guidelines, teachers and students will be able to acquire skills that go well beyond the paths made in the institutional enclosures. The goal is a possible consolidation of the relationship between critical thinking and divergent thinking, thanks to transmedia paths that envisage a project based on the past–present–future process structure with reference to knowledge and skills useful to the competence development.
<XREF>SEE ALSO: ieml0004; ieml0015; ieml0053; ieml0070; ieml0074; ieml0075; ieml0081; ieml0088; ieml0113; ieml0178; ieml0181; ieml0230; ieml0241; ieml0243
<X>References
<REF>Bolter, J.D., & Grusin, R. (1999). Remediation: Understanding new media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Bereiter, C., & Scardamalia, M. (1987). The psychology of written composition. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Buckingham, D. (2003). Media education: Literacy, learning, and contemporary culture. Cambridge, MA: Polity/Blackwell.
Corballis, M.C. (2015). The wandering mind: What the brain does when you’re not looking. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
De Kerckhove, D. (1991). Brainframes: Technology, mind and business. Utrecht, Germany: Bosch & Keuning. Deasy, R.J. (2002). Critical links: Learning in the arts and student achievement and social development. The arts education partnership: Washington, DC.
Giannatelli, R., & Rivoltella, P.C. (1995). Le impronte di Robinson: Mass media, cultura popolare, educazione. Rivoli, Italy: Elle Di Ci.
Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence. New York, NY: Bantam Books. Goleman, D. (2007). Social intelligence. London, England: Harrow.
Hattie, J.A. (2009). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. London, England: Routledge.
Hobbs, R. (2011). Digital and media literacy: Connecting culture and classroom. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin/SAGE. Lehrer, J. (2012). Imagine: How creativity works. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcour.
Mallgrave, H.F. (2013). Architecture and embodiment: The implications of the new sciences and humanities for design. London, England: Routledge.
Masterman, L. (1985). Teaching the media. London, England: Routledge for Comedia/New York, NY: MK Media Press.
Parola, A. (2008). Territori mediaeducativi. Trento, Italy: Erickson.
Rivoltella, P.C. (2001). Media education: Modelli, esperienze, profilo disciplinare. Rome, Italy: Carocci.
Urban, K.K. (1995). Different models in describing, exploring, explaining and nurturing creativity in society. European Journal for High Ability, 6, 143–159.
<X>Further Reading
<REF>Arieti, S. (1979). Trattato di psichiatria. Turin, Italy: Bollati Boringhieri.
Bartlett, F. (1958). Thinking: An experimental and social studies. London, England: G. Allen. Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an ecology of mind. New York, NY: Ballatine Books.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Bruner, J. (2003). Making stories: law, literature, life, Cambridge (Mass.), London: Harvard University press. Buckingham, D. (2009). Creative visual methods in media research: Possibilities, problems and proposals. Media, Culture & Society, 31(4): 633–652
Creswell, J.W., & Plano Clark, V.L. (2011). Designing and conducting mixed methods research. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Gardner, H. (1984). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. London, England: Heinemann. Guilford, J.P. (1956). The structure of intellect. Psychological Bulletin, 53, 267–293.
Hobbs, R., & Jensen, A. (2009). The past, present, and future of media literacy education. Journal of Media Literacy Education, 1, 1–11.
Kosslyn S. (1980). Image and mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Livingstone, S. (2002). Young people and new media: childhood and the changing media environment. London, England: SAGE.
Mezirow, J. (2000). Learning as transformation: Critical perspectives on a theory in progress. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Morin, E. (2001). Seven complex lessons in education for the future. Paris, France: UNESCO. Norman, D.A. (2013). The design of everyday things. New York, NY: Basic books.
Parola, A., & Ranieri M. (2010). Media education in action. Florence, Italy: Florence University Press. Sternberg, R.J. (1980). Handbook of intelligence. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Trinchero, R. (2013). Costruire, valutare, certificare competenze. Milan, Italy: Franco Angeli.
Wertheimer, M. (1966). Productive thinking. London, England: Social Science Paperbacks in association with Tavistock.
<FC>Figure 1 Media education Research Systems (MERS).
<BIO>Alberto Parola is associate professor of educational research at the Department of Philosophy and Education Sciences, University of Turin. His main areas of interest are research methods in education, media education, and learning technology. He authored and coauthored Regia educativa (2012), Media education in action (with M. Ranieri; 2010) and Scritture mediali (with L. Denicolai, 2017)—among many other books. Currently he is co-director of the journal Media education: Studi, ricerche, buone pratiche and president of Cinedumedia (Interdepartmental Research Centre on Digital Education) at the University of Turin. He was vice president of Media Education Italian Association and has collaborated with RAI Italian television, the Ministry of Education, and different institutions in European projects.
