Cambios de dureza dentinaria producidos por los irrigantes

Intimately linked with self-identity is the changed relationship between artists and their audiences. According to McQuail (1997), new media (pre-2007) already contained four

factors that influenced an artists’ relationship with his or her audience, namely: (1) the availability of satellite and cable broadcasting, (2) the development of new recording and storage technology, (3) global users, and (4) innovations in computer-based technology. Hence, even before the emergence of social media/crowdfunding, technology played a significant role in changing the dynamic relationship between artists and their audience members.

In discussing the relationship between artists and their audience, Hinton and Hjorth (2013) observed,

Some artists… have engaged with social media, working it into their artistic practice. However, as artists engage with social media and the internet, they also raise

questions about the nature of the artist and his or her relationship with their

audience… Other artists and art collectives… prefer not to see themselves as social media or internet artists at all, but are instead artists who use the internet. For other artists still… social media and the internet open up spaces for critical analysis that engages with audiences and, again, complicates the role of the artist and his or her audience (Hinton and Hjorth, 2013, p99).

For McQuail (1997), ‘the most immediate driving force, as always, is technology… [Now,] the typical audience role can cease to be that of a passive listener, consumer, receiver, or target. Instead, it will encompass any of the following: seeker; consultant; browser; respondent; interlocutor; or conversationalist’ (McQuail, 1997, p129). This (expanded) audience consisted of users and buyers of technology, as well as receivers of messages. Alongside this trend, McQuail analysed the power structure in the media eco- system prior to social media. He concluded that there had been a shift of power to media consumers – putting the receiver more in charge and reducing the manipulative capacity of communication production and distribution organisations. However, he was quick to point out that this also meant that there was no longer any mechanism for exercising this

newfound power on behalf of the collective. The audience had been transformed into a desperate set of consumers with no expressed common interest or institutionalised presence,

making it more difficult to influence individual users (McQuail, 1997, p134).

On the policy side, this meant that ‘for politicians, advertisers, pressure groups, campaigners… who want to influence behavior and opinion, the emerging media situation does represent a potential problem. Much greater ingenuity is now required to catch attention and engage an audience’ (McQuail, 1997, p136).

The literature on audiences also contains well-developed findings on audience reception, audience attitudes, and media impact (Ferreira, 2014; Hazelwood et al., 2009; Livingstone, 1998b). Studies since 2007 have been complemented by research into audience interactivity with social media content, highlighting the changed role from passive to active recipients of information. For example, Jenkins (2006) spoke to the fact that

for years, fan groups, seeking to rally support for endangered series, have argued that networks should be focused more on the quality of audience engagement with the series and less on the quantity of viewers… In the past, media producers spoke of ‘impressions’. Now, they are exploring the concept of audience ‘expression’, trying to understand how and why audiences react to the content (Jenkins, 2006, p63).

The question of how to find one’s actual audience and how to navigate an imagined audience have become significant issues in the new social media environment. Baym (2015) stressed there is always a gap between imagined and actual audiences. The following is her rationale:

Because information is stored and replicable, it can travel to audiences for whom it was never intended. Because it is often searchable, it can be accessed by people with no understanding of the context in which it was created… Much of their activities may be benign, but we simply cannot know whom the information we share online may eventually reach (Baym, 2015, p122).

That is to say, when using social media to develop careers and realise goals, communication is key. To present ideas in a way that others will respond to, many savvy social media users project an imagined audience to help guide their interactions. With respect to how effective this can be, Litt (2012) explained that ‘if people have the right skills and the environment affords it, they can more accurately reach the ideal imagined audience,

or they can at least manipulate their “imagined audience” to appropriately fit the specified context’ (Litt, 2012, p342).

Rich (2014) viewed crowdfunding as a prime example of how to locate one’s audience (both real and imagined). His conceptual starting point was to view crowdfunding as a circle comprised of four categories of project funders, i.e. (1) audience and supporters; (2) the inner circle (family members, close friends, and acquaintances); (3) social network (people known from cyberspace); and (4) a targeted audience within the general public – i.e. strangers who will care about the campaign (Rich, 2014, p79-81). Best practice, Rich went on to explain, is to present information in such a way that it will appeal to funders from every category when launching a campaign. Thus, knowing how to engage these groups – what they will care about – is the cornerstone of building successful relationships with members within them.

2.8 Innovation: artists, the art market, and social media

In the art world, what it means to be creative and artistic is an enduring topic of conversation – one that has also held tenure in academic theory. Generally speaking,

‘creativity’ is understood in two senses. The traditional approach is person-centred, focused on the prominent characteristics that creative people have, their background, and how they develop their work (Amabile, 1996; Barron, 2013; Mackinnon, 1962). The contemporary approach offers an expansion upon creativity’s influence and function, giving credence to the view that creativity is not a trait that is possessed exclusively by certain creative people but rather it is a natural trait among humans.

In that same vein, Amabile (1996) described a componential model of creativity that integrates the following three elements: expertise, creative thinking, and task motivation.

inquiry (Amabile, 1996, p6) Digging deeper, Amabile outlined components of expertise that included ‘memory for factual knowledge, technical proficiency, and special talent in the target work domain’ (Amabile, 1996, p4). In terms of how creative thinking is best applied to our lives and work, Amabile suggested that it is a special thinking tool:

Creative thinking skills depend, to some extent, on personality characteristics related to independence, self-discipline, orientation toward risk-taking, tolerance for

ambiguity, perseverance in the face of frustration, and a relative unconcern for social approval (p. 4).

By that same token, if one lacks creative thinking skills, then that ‘individual cannot produce creative work (Amabile, 1996, p4). These ‘skills include a cognitive style that is favorable to taking new perspectives on [existing] problems, an application of new cognitive pathways, and a working style conducive to persistent, energetic pursuit of one’s work’ (Amabile, 1996, p4). Amabile’s componential model emphasised that expert and creative thinking dictate what a creative individual’s abilities are in their respective domain. Motivation goes hand-in-hand with creativity on this line of argument, enabling individuals to realise their desire for power, experience greater challenges, and compete with others to achieve their goals.

This research project not only draws on Amabile’s model to explore the relationships between artists’ creative thinking and how it bears on their artwork, but also how creative thinking can support artists’ career motivations. According to Amabile, we are each influenced by intrinsic and extrinsic motivators. Intrinsic motivation is triggered by an individual’s interests, curiosity, or desires, while extrinsic motivation is driven by outside stimulus, such as rewards, competitions, reputation, or regulations (an example of which is a deadline). Though it is possible for individuals to create free of any form of motivation, Amabile (1996) referred to a number of studies that have shown ‘a primarily intrinsic motivation will be more conducive to creativity than a primarily extrinsic motivation’ (Amabile, 1996, p7). Given these considerations, a person’s creativity is a matter of

expertise, creative thinking, and task motivation.

Harter (1978) and Dweck (1986) agreed, claiming

without intrinsic motivation, an individual will either not perform the activity at all, or will do it in a way that simply satisfies the extrinsic goals… A high degree of intrinsic motivation can make up for a deficiency of domain-relevant skills or creativity-relevant skills… Highly intrinsically motivated individuals are likely to draw skills from other domains or apply great effort to acquiring necessary skills in the target domain (Dweck, 1986; Harter, 1978; Amabile, 1996, p7).

Following the emergence of social media, there is a growing body of literature that has tied individual creativity and innovation to the influence of social media platforms. In order to explore the relationships between creativity and social media, it is helpful to include a working definition of its cousin concept ‘intercreativity’. Meikle (2016) drew our attention to the definition put forth by the internet’s creator, Tim Berners-Lee. For Berners-Lee, ‘we should be able not only to follow links, but to create them between all sorts of media… Intercreativity is the process of making things or solving problems together’ (Berners-Lee, 1999, p182-183 ; Meikle, 2016, p125).

After drawing on Berners-Lee’s operational definition, Meikle (2016) continued to unpack this concept by identifying four dimensions of intercreativity:

‘textual intercreativity’ - through which existing media images and narratives are reimagined and reworked into entirely new texts or into hybrid subversions of their component images; ‘tactical intercreativity’ - as activists develop online variations of established protest gestures and campaign tactics; ‘strategies intercreativity’ - which builds upon the traditions and conventions of alternative media; and ‘network creativity’ - whose participants work to build new media network models, including those which link open sources of software to experimental online publishing

practices (Meikle, 2016, p125).

This understanding of ‘intercreativity’ contains a holistic retelling of how the networks within social media function and serve as accelerators for interaction and knowledge exchange. This effectively creates tight linkages among users and cultivates a foundation for real-time collaboration, bringing creativity and global thinking to our very

fingertips. In fact, social media is now considered to be one of the most influential forms of innovation media in the twenty-first century.

Gauntlett (2015) has a different take on social media and creativity than those detailed above. Specifically, he proposed that ‘the digital world does not cause more [creative] activity to happen, but it does enable people to make and ––in particular––

connect, in efficient and diverse ways which were not previously possible’ (Gauntlett, 2015, p115). This is based on his observation that people mainly use social media to serve their interests. In Gauntlett’s words, ‘[p]eople use social media services to communicate something for themselves, or about themselves, an urge which has been part of human creativity practices for thousands of years’ (Gauntlett, 2015, p124).

Zolkepli and Kamarulzaman (2014) suggested that ‘social media adoption is highly related to innovation uniqueness, which increases the speed of technology adoption.

Innovation attributes of social media reflect the idea that the greater the innovation, the more room there is for the adoption of the technology’ (Zolkepli and Kamarulzaman, 2015, p192).

To analyse the relationships between innovation and social media, Zolkepli and Kamarulzaman (2015) applied Rogers’ five characteristics of innovation, namely: relative advantage, compatibility, trial-ability, observability, and complexity. Using a mixed methods approach, their findings demonstrated that three of the five characteristics are relevant to social media users’ motivations, that is: relative advantage, compatibility, and trial-ability (Zolkepli and Kamarulzaman, 2015, p194).

Focusing on the role that social media plays for artists, Hinton and Hjorth (2013) shared the following observation:

One of the ways that artists have responded to social media is to make art from social media itself. Artists use social media in different ways: having their work influenced by input from social media like Twitter; producing visual works based on social networks and online interactions; and performing within social media as a platform for delivering art and reflecting on the medium in which it is delivered (Hinton and Hjorth, 2013, p86).

In sum, each of these theorists suggested the characteristics of creativity are ascribed to personality traits, while the characteristics of innovation bear more on the relationships between adopters/users and the medium they use.