PhD Oral Exam – Mary Elizabeth Luka

Abstract

This dissertation develops the concept of creative citizenship, which suggests that artists and creative workers who engage in collaborative media production and dissemination practices –particularly in public broadcasting and digital media – are also preoccupied with the dynamics of civic engagement. Their responsibility is to their artwork and to audiences through networked flows of social relations and production approaches.

Revisiting literature on cultural citizenship (Hermes 2005, Murray 2005, Uricchio 2004) and the precarity of creative work in the broadcast business (Cunningham 2013, Mayer 2011, Spigel 2008), creative citizenship concerns itself with production practices linking narrowcast audiences, media workers and cultural facilitators to a range of participatory creative activities in mediated sites of engagement. A nuanced understanding of collaborative practices in the long-running television and Internet Canadian public broadcasting project, CBC ArtSpots (1997-2008), helps rethink recent cultural studies of production.

The research involved attends to convergence culture concerns, grapples with gender issues, investigates the activation of policy, and animates artistic interventions. ArtSpots was an innovative, collaborative public broadcasting initiative that produced over 1,200 short videos, several long-form documentaries and a substantial array of virtual and media-based materials for exhibitions, online and mobile devices. It involved more than 1000 cultural leaders and creators in its production and dissemination and featured over 300 artists.

The investigation of ArtSpots in this dissertation generates insights into the transition to a digital media production and multi-modal diffusion environment in the realm of the Canadian media industry at the turn of the 21st century. Contextualizing this work in relation to the cultural economy of creative labour and media production helps show how media and art is produced and shared in public broadcasting. The author’s own professional and reflexive work and networks as the founder of ArtSpots act as catalysts to crystallize the research, grounding analysis in a distinctive expertise about the relationship of Canadian art to the broadcasting industry, and pointing to exciting implications of creativity and collaboration as core commitments and practices in media production and distribution today.