Where Dreams and Nightmares Are From: Creativity and Creative Economy

The notion of creative economy usually refers to a diversified set of activities based on individual talent or abilities.It encompasses a great range of sectors, such as crafts, fashion, the audiovisual, music and book industries and the new software and games.The creative industries are related to social development policies and, differently from other traditional sectors of the economy (Jesus, 2011a; 2012a; 2012b; 2013a;2013b;Jesus & Kamlot, 2016), connect with post-materialistic values, characterized by the attendance of people's aesthetic and intellectual needs (Jesus, 2014a; 2014b; 2017a; 2017b;Jesus & Kamlot, 2017).Although creativity may be often intangible and therefore difficult to measure, it is typically used in creative economy studies to describe the expression of the human potential for realization in activities that generate products and the ability to manipulate symbols and meanings to generate innovations.In the creativity literature, most standard definitions indicate that creativity requires that people make or think something new to the individual and perhaps to the world (novelty), as well as useful or valuable, which depends upon social context or subjective judgement.Process-based definitions of creativity introduce perspectives beyond the singular and gifted individual, but most Western commentators, from Plato to Sigmund Freud, have tended to focus on the divergent, spontaneous, impulsive, and/or irrational aspects of creativity, which are associated with the myth of the individual creative genius, dominant in managerial approaches to creativity and popular culture (Boden, 1994;De Bono, 1992).However, Weisberg (1993) argued that creativity results not from a sudden and mysterious moment, but from a careful and concerted effort and the technical expertise of the creator.The first-hand accounts sometimesThe aim is to examine the multiple meanings of creativity in creative economy.The meanings which reinforce the individual aspect stress that personal characteristics may unlock the wealth that lies within people.The definitions that reinforce the organizational and social aspects understand creativity as a process, which requires knowledge, networks, and technologies that interconnect novel ideas and contexts.The perspectives which reinforce the political aspect see that creativity took the status of a doctrine to secure collaboration between government and industry.However, these notions of creativity stress its instrumental utility and undermine fantasy, play, or uselessness.