Creativity

New media promotes creativity because it allows anyone with a computer and internet access to share their ideas and creations with a world-wide audience. It provides a much larger scope of viewers than those met on a real-life basis. 

To promote creativity, media companies are allowing some creators freedom when using their content (mash-ups), such as the Disney Company or Nickelodeon.  Dan Martinsen, a Nickelodeon spokesman said, “Our audiences can creatively mash video from our content as much and as often as they like” (as cited in Brooks, 2007).  Within reason, if companies become less uptight and stop threatening users with claims of copyright infringement, allowing them to use their media, it can support creativity.

Online sites and platforms are also using feedback and users’ ideas to improve their operations and gain a sense of which features are working and which are not.  According to Miller’s NYT article, “Technology companies have been the most active in relying on others to innovate for them. This is in large part because the Internet lets people exchange ideas easily and rapidly with large groups, and computing tools let people design new products cheaply”(2009). 

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Barnes, Brooks. (2007) Disney Tolerates a Rap Parody of Its Critters.  But Why. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/24/business/media/24crank.html

Miller Cain, Claire. (2009) Twitter Serves Up Ideas from Its Followers. Retrieved from

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/26/technology/internet/26twitter.html