Reconstructing creative work due to COVID-19

Reconstructing creative work due to

COVID-19

Exploring the impact of COVID-19 and the role of

media for creatives newly working from home

By: Lucie Váňová

Supervisor: Staffan Ericson

Södertörn University | School of Culture and Education Master’s dissertation 30 credits

Media, Communication and Cultural Analysis | spring 2020

Abstract

Title: Reconstructing creative work due to COVID-19

Keywords: boundary theory, covid-19, connectivity, connectedness, disconnection, creativity, creative industries, creative work, work from home

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the impact of the situation imposed by the spread of COVID-19 on people working in creative industries and their creative processes, and analyse the role of media in reconstructing their work and leisure spaces at home. The research topics include handling of this change by the creatives, the role of media in reconstructing creatives' homes and the impact of this situation on their creativity. The methodology for gathering data is centred around interviews with the representatives of the group of people working in the creative industries. The empirical data is analysed with the help of the theoretical framework. Among the theories, the six most important topics are: Connectivity versus connectedness, Front region and back region, Boundary theory, Transformations between regions, Reasons to disconnect from media, and Influences on creativity. On one hand, the conclusion of this thesis is that creatives were handling the change of their work environment mostly well, possibly, perhaps creativity is usually influenced by internal factors, and as such the changed work environment as an external factor doesn't influence it as much as the social isolation situation due to COVID-19 as a whole. On the other hand, for many creatives the changed work environment provided calmer conditions for work and offered more time for leisure, although the majority of the participants were working more in this new situation than before. Due to the fact that all of the interviewees had to use their digital technologies and internet in order to work, the escape to the offline world often served as a place for relaxation.

Acknowledgment

The process of writing this thesis has been rather difficult as the global situation around COVID-19 influenced the relevance of my previously chosen topic. It was with the help of my supervisor Staffan Ericson, that I found new relevant grounds for my thesis, and I dare to say that the current topic is better than the original. I sincerely thank him for his honest opinions and thorough remarks which helped to navigate this thesis into an improved direction.

Further, I would like to thank my boyfriend Wolfgang Biersack whose proofreading and support provided tremendous help in delivering this thesis with sanity and calmness.

1. Introduction

News and information about the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are in the current situation everywhere, and reader behold, this thesis does not offer an escape from it. The original aim of this thesis was to study the relationship between being unplugged (digitally disconnected) and self-perceived creativity by people working in the creative industries. Yet, with the changed circumstances, being connected to the internet became essential for

working. As José van Dijck stated “For many of the plugged-in, opting out is not an option: it would mean opting out of sociality altogether, since online activities are completely

intertwined with offline social life.” (van Dijck, 2013, p. 173). Therefore, seeking people for an unplugging experiment seemed highly irrelevant in a situation where the broader social life (or work-life) is the online life. In comparison to the worldwide changes which COVID-19 brought, the change of the course of this thesis seems then less dramatic.

With the arrival of COVID-19, many professionals have experienced a switch to home offices. The “normative” way of work has been shaken and many people had to adopt to new ways of working. No matter how long this crisis will last, it offers a great time for reflection which can be fruitful for these specific times, as well as for after the crisis. Since social isolation and digital connection is the reality of many people right now, it is worth exploring what the impacts of it on individuals are. This isolated, always-online plugged-in

1.1 Creative industries

Creativity in times of social distancing, deep digital connection and transformed home environments into workplaces is a novel experience for many working in the creative

industries. Therefore, looking into influences on creativity in the 'regular' (before COVID-19) state is relevant for seeing what social distancing workplaces, regular workplaces and

creativity have in common.

Besides my personal interest in the creative industry, the choice to select people working within the creative industry as a group in focus, is academically anchored. Creative industries even before the enforced work from home (WFH) situation have often been consisting of freelance work with flexible working hours. In fact, according to a study (Upwork, 2019.), people within arts and design, and entertainment were the two leading occupations in terms of freelancers, where in both fields there were proportionally more freelancers than non-freelancers. Although the previous study was financed by a freelancing website, similar results were found in Statista (2020) where instead of the global market, Germany was the country of interest. According to this study, cultural occupations are leading by far the freelancing market as well.

In other words, interest in creative industries not only follows the tradition of media scholars who were interested in the creative industry for its important role as 'symbol creators'

(Hesmondhalgh 2013, p.20), often creating products that are widely distributed, and which are helping to share a common set of 'cultural packages' (Hansen, 2010, p.112). The creative industries are also working with “deep-seated cultural assumptions and anxieties” (Hansen, 2010, p.112), and having impacts on the creation of norms in wide societies (Hall, 1973). Further, it is also the factor of a high level experience of work from home previously to this situation among creative workers (Upwork 2019, Statista 2020), and a combination with the fact, that people working in the creative occupations are more likely to suffer from mental problems (Kyaga et al., 2012). Therefore, there is an interest in how creatives are being affected by the novel situation. This combination of reasons makes people working in the creative industry highly unique and relevant in the time of work from home due to COVID-19. Furthermore, to approach this topic and comprehend it, choosing a group of interest to assess these changes with, acted as a way to scale down the topic.

2. The objective

The aim of this thesis is to explore the impact of the situation imposed by the spread of COVID-19 on people working in creative industries and their creative processes, and analyse the role of media in reconstructing their work and leisure spaces at home.

The general relevance of this topic lays in how the novel situation may be a window to alternative ways of work. The general relevance of focusing on people working in the

creative industry as a focal point to view this thesis, has been expressed in the following way by Hesmondhalgh (2013, 4):

“The importance of the cultural industries in modern societies rests on three related elements: their ability to make and circulate products that influence our knowledge, understanding and experience (texts); their role as systems for the management of creativity and knowledge; and their effects as agents of economic, social and cultural change.”

Moreover, as a quote by Kaun and Treré (2018) suggests “freelance work that enhances the precariousness of boundaries between work and private life” (p. 14), shows that industries which have had a large experience in remote or 'freelance' work prior to the enforced WFH (Upwork, 2019, Statista, 2020), with the problematic of keeping boundaries between work and leisure, have been of an academic interest prior to this new situation. These points in combination with the fact that creatives are more prone to mental health problems (Kyaga et al., 2012) and creative work being highly individual (Amabile, 2012, p 10), thus perhaps more independent of teamwork, invites further research on the creative industries in these times.

This area is interesting for gaining a deeper understanding of what individual creatives think of this situation professionally and how do they perceive the switch compared to their

2.1 Research topic

In the times of quarantine or social distancing, people seek digital connections in place of real life ones. However, how is creative work in the constant state of digital connection being affected, in an environment which needs to encompass both creatives' work and private lives? Are people who face this situation working well creatively? Drawing on similar questions, I developed these research questions:

2.2 The research questions

RQ1: How do the creatives handle the change from their regular work and leisure environment to the digitally connected yet socially isolated spaces at home?

RQ2: What role does the presence and absence of media have in reconstructing the creatives' work and leisure environment at home?

RQ3: Do the creatives notice any impact on their creative processes caused by the changed situation in their digitally connected yet socially isolated homes?

This thesis is structured in such a way so as the Literature review is first discussing the topic of interest from a broader and more diverse perspective. It is followed by the Theoretical

context where theories and texts related specifically to my thesis and aim are described.

3. Literature review

This chapter puts the thesis into relation with previous research on related topics and introduces suitable concepts for it.

3.1 Literature on digital connection

The internet and digital connection are great technologies in times like these as they allow many people to work from home and to secure income. Without internet and digital technologies, the impact of this crisis on livelihoods would be imaginably much greater. Digital connection is the glue that makes larger social gatherings, work and forms of entertainment possible. However, they also create very special environments (not only) at home when in order to work, one has to plug-in, therefore literature around impacts of digital connection on people is of relevance.

When writing about digital connectivity and its impacts, José van Dijck and her work should be introduced. José van Dijck is a professor of Comparative Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam. She focuses her work on media technologies, social media, media theory, and technology communication. According to her, social media work with the normative values people cherish, particularly of belonging and of being liked (van Dijck, 2015, p. 173) and they are important to research in order to understand the 'normative systems underpinning the platform connectivity'.

In her book The Culture of Connectivity (2015) she draws on an example of the Alvin family and their frequent interactions with social media, which could be described as a family of “netizens” (p.1). This book is an attempt to comprehend the history of quickly evolving social media which she argues for calling “connective media” instead. She combined two

Her “disassemble platforms and reassemble sociality” (van Dijck, 2015, p. 24) which refers to “reassemble the social” by Bruno Latour (2005) is speaking of analysing those normative systems and reshaping them from connectivity to connectedness. With this book she explains that connectivity follows a longer historical trend towards re-shifting boundaries between private, corporate and public domains (p.12). Here I would argue, that the 'work domain' should be included as well.

Connection is also a theme emerging in Sherry Turkle's Always-on/Always-on-you: The

Tethered Self (2008). Although this connection lies rather between humans and their devices

in the embodiment and disembodiment of people and digital technologies, where

technologies (most often cell phones) are an always available medium through which other people can contact the owners of those devices (2008, p. 122). Similarly, to Moores (2012), Turkle (2008) writes about people consumed by digital technologies, but her definition is closer to Meyrowitz (1985) when she calls their lack of focus in the real world as a 'tethered state'. Furthermore, Turkle is (similarly to van Dijck) interested in the blurring boundaries between leisure and work and its harder separation together with difficulties of detaching oneself from work. Moreover, according to Turkle (2008), blurring work and leisure is not a trait to be celebrated but instead to be worried by its negative impacts on humans (Clark 2000, Desrochers and Sargent 2003; Shumate and Fulk, 2004). As stated in Turkle (2008), digital technologies undermine the traditional rituals of separation, therefore in response to that, a push back comes as people need places to hide from their technology rich

environments (2008, p.131).

Turkle (2008) concludes her book with a reflection on “relational artefacts” which are technological objects designed for stimulating emotions in people (e.g. Paro, the robot seal). She writes “It is not exact to think of people as tethered to their devices. People are tethered to the gratifications offered by their online selves.” (2008, p. 125). Devices such as these relational artefacts can be then very helpful in securing social gratification in their users in otherwise socially isolated environments.

Moreover, Miller's (2008) view on digital communication is that in modern media, the social (networking) function is the most important aspect of communication rather than

individualization as the drive to “actively construct their own biographies and social bonds” (2008, p. 388). He refers to the style of communication with frequent but poorer content as phatic communication. However, he argues that sociologically the meaning of such

communication goes beyond content.

Miller (2008) concludes his article with shining light on the problem that having a phatic material is ideal for data mining and the big corporations are profiting by user generated data which, when phatic, can be easily commodified. With possibly increased digital activity this topic is of a high relevance. In van Dijck's (2013) terms, Miller would argue that what we can often see in digital behaviour is that digital 'connectivity' is more important than human 'connectedness'.

A similar notion can be found in Portwood-Stacer (2012) who writes about connectivity in combination with the issue of productivity. According to her, online activity supports production and labour of aspects which were supposed to be reserved for leisure and not be exploited.

“[...] the issue of productivity is complicated by a political economy driven by user generated content, immaterial labor, unceasing surveillance by both corporations and the state, and (if we’re feeling optimistic) participatory democracy through media channels. Being “more productive” while offline, then, may actually simultaneously entail becoming less productive in the new ways that productivity has come to be defined for today’s media-using citizens.” (Portwood-Stacer, 2012)

Besides having direct impact on people's behaviour, media also influence the sense of understanding places. Seeing the situation more positively than Joshua Meyrowitz (1985) who criticised the 'placelessness’ of social and intimate events transformed onto digital platforms, Shaun Moores (2012) argues that rather than being ‘placeless’ and isolated, people can experience new ways of being social by engaging with digital technologies and actually uses a term by by Paddy Scannell (1996) as ‘doubling of space’.

can still chat online with his friends from old school, thus have a sense of familiarity in a new environment). However, perhaps this can go the other way too as illustrated in this quote from the BBC article: “It doesn't matter whether you call it a virtual happy hour, it's a meeting, because mostly we are used to using these tools for work.” (Petriglieri in Jiang, 2020). If media, that are usually used for work (such as computer/zoom/skype) are then used for non-work related communication, they perhaps can be doubling the space of work in the leisure space.

Omitting completely the separation between media and non-media, digitally plugged-in and out life, Deuze's (2012) main theme in Media Life is about understanding modern digital media around us as living in the media. Media, according to Deuze is everything that amplifies or structures communication between people thus it can be many things. Furthermore, Deuze is interested in how we can use media to become more real or more aware of ourselves. Deuze writes about the notion that media is everywhere so it became 'invisible', as invisible as the water is to fish, which is a problem when people try to criticise it.

Moreover, digital connection can take on many forms and as such brings along advantages and disadvantages. On one hand, several scholars (Liapis et al., n.d.) from Digital Games and Computer Science were interested in the crossroad between computers and humans

Furthermore, contemporary media have loosened up our former “natural” relation to, and ties between, time and space (McLuhan 1964/2003, Meyrowitz 1985). In the media world the sun doesn't go down, it is a place of eternal activity and thus for those who want to “stay up”, the darkness won't be the problem. On the same note, there is the matter with space.

Communication with people on the other side of the globe is also possible (although here might be the tie with time of relevance) and often when “speaking” with people, we don't even have to be aware of their geographical whereabouts, as if location became less relevant.

3.2 Literature on digital disconnection

Every trend has a counter trend and that is why when talking about digital connection, digital disconnection should be mentioned as well because understanding one term might help understanding the other.

Digital disconnection and its nuances have a large terminology through academia. Although similar, the terminology has slight differences which Hesselberth (2018) suggests to

distinguish. While media refusal, media resistance and media push-back include negative actions and a “refusal to accept the way media operate and evolve” (Syvertsen,2017, p. 9), they don't require wholesome rejection of the media technologies (Portwood-Stacer, 2012), for example, Strömbäck, Djerf-Pierre, and Shehata (2013) exclusively focus on the non-use of certain content (such as news).

Media resistance has collective components unlike the media non-use, which is an individual action where participants intentionally and significantly limit their media use

(Woodstock,2014, p. 1983) and which is related to the field of audience and reception studies (Hesselberth, 2018). On the other hand, media disruption discourses focus on strategies to shake-up hegemonic conceptualizations of media ecologies (Hesselberth,2018).

and 'digital disconnection' will be the two mostly used concepts in this thesis in relation to this topic and they will be used interchangeably.

When writing about disconnection, it is important to see the reasons why did people choose to do so. The reasons for people to unplug or disconnect are usually several. In the work of Booth (2015), people in question described feeling “overwhelmed” by digital technology. In Agosto et al. (2016) the interviewees described being distracted by their devices when socialising with others. Furthermore, several people pointed out feelings of being burnt out from “an ever-accelerating conveyor belt of content” (Haber, 2013). Miksch and Schultz (2018) identified the reasons for digital detox as: 'keeping self-control', 'increasing performance', 'improving the well-being', 'being in the moment' and 'maintaining real-life relationships'. Similarly, Brubaker et al. (2016, p.383) who was writing about people leaving Grindr, a dating app for homosexuals, discovered reasons for leaving certain media 'in regaining time' and 'eliminating distractions' while for others it had more complex effects. There have been many works written around people who chose to disconnect from certain media (Brubaker et al, 2016; Kaun and Schwarzenegger 2014; Marwick, 2013; Portwood-Stacer, 2013) permanently or for some period of time (Brubaker et al. 2016; Light and Cassidy, 2014). For example, Kaun and Treré (2018) write about media refusal as a part of a social activism that might not be directly connected to media as objects. Although the reasons and motivations behind these actions differ, what remains however similar is the individual, self-regulating nature of these actions.

Self-regulation is playing a big role in the digital unplugging practices, as in the default setting, being plugged into digital devices is easier. As Syvertsen and Enli (2019, p.1) put it

“[...] digital detox texts illuminate the rise of a self-regulation society, where individuals are expected to take personal responsibility for balancing risks and pressures, as well as representing a form of commodification of authenticity and nostalgia.”

This topic is discussed on a political level, for example, in France where the labour law in 2016 included a 'right to disconnect' from work email during evenings and weekends (“French Get Right to Avoid Work Emails,” 2016). Similarly, Germany made certain steps towards limiting work-related digital stress (Kaun and Treré, 2018). On the corporal level, some big corporations, including BMW, Daimler and others introduced regulations of work-related tasks after working hours (Hesselberth,2018). We might possibly see more of this in the future as setting up boundaries for themselves is a hard task for many and the well-being of their employees is an important goal employers want to achieve in the long run (Fish, 2017, p.362).

Furthermore, when compiling literature for the previous direction of this thesis, a lot of literature on digital detoxes was collected. With the high saturation of digital presence many people witness in this new situation, it is interesting to read what many digital detox

organizers were promising their participants, what were the reasons for people to disconnect or who participated in them (some of these topics are further discussed in the Theoretical context).

Ironically many people from digital giants such as Google, Twitter or Facebook attend digital retreats (comprising usually of few days in the nature, devoid of all modern technologies and work-talk) to deepen “interpersonal connection, a reverence for nature, and a celebration of direct experience” (Fish, 2017, p.357). With the use of terminology by van Dijck (2013) it can be said that the same people who promote 'digital connectivity' are those who cherish real life 'connectedness'. Moreover, the following quote illustrates the overall mind-set of the people coming in to digital detox camps:

The participants in media retreats have problematised the role of technologies in their everyday lives. They come to the redwood forests of California somewhat

disillusioned by the promise that new technologies and new working environments make digital labour less alienating. Through networked productivity, labour was supposed to be more humane, participatory, liberating, democratic, and inclusive. (Fish, 2017, p.362)

more fulfilling as shown in a quote by Fish (2017) “A founder of Camp Grounded claims that time spent on social media is time not spent on analogue creativity, in-person connection, traditional arts, and oceanic experiences within nature” (p.360)

The following section departs from the dichotomy between connection and disconnection and rather focuses on the boundaries created for different purposes.

3.3 Boundaries and regions for different behaviours

The role of spaces (regions) and human behaviour was an interest for several scholars. Among those we can count Erving Goffman, Sherry Turkle (2008), Stina Bengtsson (2006) Christena Nippert-Eng, (1996) and others.

Erving Goffman was an American sociologist whose work centred around the notion of people's lives being constructed by combinations of ritual states (routines). He was interested in the social interactions, construction and framing which affects the behaviour of people's everyday life.

Stina Bengtsson, a professor at Södertörn University in the Media and Communication Department, built her article “Symbolic Spaces of Everyday Life, Work and Leisure at Home” (2006) upon the work of Erving Goffman, but as his work was conducted in times where media was less present in everyday life, she reformed parts of it.

The core interest of her article lies in the ritual states which are constituting our everyday lives and the role of media in co-creating them. The following is Bengtsson's (2006) definition of ritual states:

As a method, she used a thick description of participants, where she interviewed and observed participants in their work/home environments. Her work was an important early effort in times of the shift in the organization of labour.

Blurring boundaries of different social environments, often possible thanks to digital

technologies (Woodstock (2014, p.1991), was present also prior to the situation imposed by COVID-19. Miksch and Schulz (2018) argued that the professional, the private and the social environment cannot be separated as they all affect each other. However, this statement goes against the self-complexity theory (Linville, 1985) which assumes that multiple contexts for variety of social interactions and happenings are healthy for individuals. In other words, the self-complexity theory (Linville, 1985) highlights the importance of segmenting boundaries between different ritual states such as work, relaxation or a birthday celebration.

It is possible that the lack of these boundaries or its integration has negative impacts on the people, which can result in burnouts or mental problems. Sadly, according to Bruce (2019) “[...] the burnout epidemic is a clear and growing threat.” This is reminding of an excerpt from the French law concerning (besides others) the right to disconnect cited by Collins (2016) “The development of information and communication technologies, if badly managed or regulated, can have an impact on the health of workers.... Among them, the burden of work and the informational overburden, [and] the blurring of the borders between private life and professional life…”

A similar notion was described in an article by the BBC (Jiang, 2020). The article was based on an interview with Gianpiero Petriglieri, an associate professor at Insead, who explores sustainable learning and development in the workplace, and Marissa Shuffler, an associate professor at Clemson University, who studies workplace wellbeing and teamwork

3.4 Literature on creative Industries

This thesis is centred around exploring views and behaviours of people working within the creative industries, thus this term requires further explanation: what is it, which industries it refers to, and what different terminologies are used when describing it.

Building on the influential mapping and measurement exercise undertaken by the UK New Labour government of Tony Blair in 1997 in a document called Creative Industries Task Force Mapping Document, researchers, policy makers and practitioners considered sectors such as advertising, architecture, art and antiques, computer games, crafts, design, designer fashion, film and video, music, performing arts, publishing, software, TV and radio as belonging to creative industries (DCMS, 2001).

This categorization stayed and reached other countries, even after the rule of the Labour party ended (Flew, 2012). Cunningham and Flew (2019) add that even after more than 20 years have passed since the formulation of the original document, its core, although challenged, remains largely intact. The objective of the New Labour document's updated categorization was to rekindle growth and prosperity in places that faced decline of traditional

manufacturing industries. Hesmondhalgh (2017) notes that in a capitalistic society there is an interest of strengthening creative/cultural industries for their economical contribution rather than for well-being, or other non-economic goals.

The Creative Industries Task Force Mapping Document describes jobs falling under the “creative industry” as “those (...) which have their origin in individual creativity, skill and talent and which have a potential for wealth and job creation through generation and exploitation of intellectual property.” (DCMS, 2001).

Despite the overall agreement, some scholars tried to organize the creative industries differently internally. For example, Throsby (2001) suggests to reorganize them into:

Thus even though there is a consensus of what creative industries are, the position of importance within them differs. The organization above is clearly putting the “traditional” cultural occupations on top of the imaginary hierarchical pyramid and putting advertising on the bottom. On the contrary, Hesmondhalgh (2013) argues that only industries that create texts/cultural artefacts and participate in some level of reproduction (advertising,

broadcasting, film, music, publishing and computer games) should be considered the ‘core cultural industries’.

3.4.1 Creative or cultural industries?

Some scholars according to Mangematin et al., (2014, p.6) have criticised this neoliberalist approach to the industrialising production that has put Adorno and Horkheimer's term 'cultural industries' at the use of a national agenda. Yet to have an overview of this problematic, what is the difference between creative and cultural industries?

‘Cultural industries’ is a term coined by Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer in 1948. This term is also used by David Hesmondhalgh (2013) who draws his definition of cultural

industries on firmly defining the term “culture” first. He bases that on Raymond Williams' definition of culture as a 'signifying system'. Hesmondhalgh (2013) builds on that notion and argues that as such, cultural industries are involved in the production of social meaning through industrial production and circulation of texts (2013, p. 16). Moreover, he notes that cultural industries are “often referred to interchangeably with the ‘media industries’” (2013, p.23).

The following are the core cultural industries according to Hesmondhalgh (2013): broadcasting, film, music, print and electronic publishing, video games, web design,

marketing and advertising. Furthermore, he defines 'peripheral' cultural industries which are involved in the reproduction of symbols with mainly semi-industrial or non-industrial methods, thus the volume of audience/impact reach is much smaller. Such industries are for example theatre or broad visual art.

hierarchy among the different creative industries was creating clashing problems by ignoring differences of class society.

Often other terms are being used which Hesmondhalgh (2013, p. 23) acknowledges and suggests the following alternative terminology:

a) 'Creative industries': Most often used interchangeably but with slight differences which are further discussed below this paragraph.

b) ‘Media industries’: “The cultural industries are often referred to interchangeably with the ‘media industries’ [...] But the concept of media is not without its problems of definition either.”

c) 'Information industries’: Which include also “[...] the telecommunications, internet, and information and communication technology (ICT) sectors.”

d) The Leisure Industries: Including also “[...] sport and tourism alongside what I am calling the cultural industries here.”

Hesmondhalgh (2013) argues that the biggest difference between cultural and creative industries is, that the creative industries are centred around the 'artist' notion of subsidy while cultural industries are centred around the audience-oriented vision. (p.145)

Drawing on the above differences and accounting for my own purposes (being oriented more on the “producers” and their creativity), the term creative industries is more fitting. For a different purpose, such as studying audiences, I would argue for the ‘cultural industries’ term.

3.5 Literature on creativity and creative processes

Creativity, as another key term in this thesis, is connected to creative industries. It is an important term to understand further as its meaning has changed over time. The definition of creativity as understood in this thesis is further discussed in the Theoretical context.

As such, creativity as a field is mostly rooted in social psychology but it has applications in a number of areas, such as business or education (Amabile and Pillemer, 2012, p.3). During the last century, creativity as a term also underwent a transformation. Describing the consensus of the literature from the 1950s, 60s and 70s, Amabile and Pillemer (2012, p.3) wrote the following:

Creativity is a quality of the person; most people lack that quality; people who possess the quality––geniuses––are different from everyone else, in talent and personality; we must identify, nurture, appreciate, and protect the creatives among us—but, aside from that, there isn’t much we can do.

which is not what the majority of scholars in psychology agree with today.

Although the majority opinion was that creativity is a character trait, it doesn't mean that no other opinions on that matter could be found. Amabile and Pillemer (2012, p.4) wrote about the earlier currents of studying creativity, that unlike the mainstream in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, described creativity as a skill rather than a trait that might be “taught, learned, practiced, and improved” (2012, p.4) and are more in agreement with today's understanding of

creativity.

Later on in their work, Amabile and Pratt (2016) defined creativity as the production of novel and useful ideas while innovation is the implementation of creativity. Mumford (2003) described that views on creativity has reached a general consensus as “creativity involves the production of novel, useful products" (p. 110). However, a few questions remain, such as “useful for whom?” or “who decides?”. These seem to be answered in the definition by Csikszentmihalyi (1997, p.6) where he describes creativity as:

“A system – composed of three elements: a culture that contains symbolic rules, a person who brings novelty into the domain, and a field of experts who recognize and validate the innovation.”

In the creative industry, the process of coming up with new ideas often comes from placing an idea into another environment, combining several ideas or less often inventing something completely new (Velikovsky, 2012). Additionally, as Csikszentmihalyi (1999, p.315)

suggests, “For creativity to occur, a set of rules and practices must be transmitted from the domain to the individual. The individual must then produce a novel variation in the content of the domain. The variation then must be selected by the field for inclusion in the domain”. Furthermore, Zhou (2003) suggested that creativity at the 'regular' workplace is influenced by the level of supervision and creativity of co-workers but its impacts are lowered by having a creative personality. This notion is further developed by Mumford and Simonton (1997, p.5) who write that the levels of creativity are influenced by environmental factors, such as the “climate, culture, and structure” of companies.

Moreover, creativity has different names throughout academia with similar meanings, such as divergent thinking (Areeba et al., 2019), flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 2008) innovation (Amabile and Pillemer, 2012) or fluid intelligence (Silvia and Beaty, 2012) and is often connected to the well-being or flourishing (Hesmondhalgh, 2017) of a person. It is mostly researched in psychology studies, however as it is connected to many creative industries that work with media, I would argue that Media and Communication studies should not be oblivious of this concept.

Even though creativity is a hard-to-grasp notion and thus hard to measure, there are ways to do so. One of those ways is the Torrance test of creative thinking (TTCT) which was developed by Ellis Paul Torrance in 1966 and re-worked several times after that. This test, however, again assumes the skilled individual that needs to be discovered and nurtured to access his/her own full potential. These tests work with operationalization which is a process to define a phenomenon that is otherwise hard to measure (such as creativity). The

From the literature review, the most relevant concepts for my thesis are concepts of

connectivity and connectedness, boundaries and regions, transformation between ritual states, reasons to disconnect from media and influences on creativity, which are all further

4. Theoretical context

This section presents the theoretical context of the study. The theoretical framework will be useful when analysing and understanding the results of the research. A list of theoretical concepts is included in the Appendix 3 for a better overview.

The first theoretical framework discusses the Connectivity versus connectedness which is relevant in times where most private and professional communication happens in the digital world. Thus, it sparks questions on what personal aspects are missed or are better in the digital environment. The boundaries and regions are important to study in an environment where different ritual states (and regions) happen in a condensed space, sparking questions like: How do people cope with this transition? What problems and advantages are sprouting from it? Furthermore, transformation between ritual states is concerned with a similar

question, but it also encompasses the tools used for achieving it. Disconnection from media is interesting to look at in order to understand why people chose to disconnect and whether similar reasons are still relevant. Lastly the influences on creativity are relevant to understand as the environment for the creatives changed greatly, but has their creativity been influenced as well?

These theoretical concepts are further explored in the following chapters.

4.1 Connectivity versus connectedness

Contemporary times have their own specifics in comparison to the older literature. Among implications and possibilities of the modern era we could count the multifunctionality of media, which can encompass work, leisure and social life within one medium.

Moreover, as most activities are condensed at home and larger social events are in many countries discouraged, many social activities are happening in the online space including meetups with friends/family, cultural happenings or sport activities.

connections that are engineered and manipulated while connectedness is what humans aspire for in interacting with social media (p. 12), According to van Dijck (2015), some social media can encompass both connectedness and connectivity which will be the main point taken from van Dijck's work in connection to this thesis.

4.1.1 Isolation

Moreover, this thesis wonders whether mediated connections suppress or support the feeling of isolation. With regard to RQ1, I am interested in comparing the current and earlier work environment, and the overall impact in terms of both private feelings of isolation as well as feelings of isolation from the employer due to the remote style of work. Here, I will use a notion of isolation developed by Bob Blauner (1964), drawing mostly on the work of Karl Marx (1867) and his concepts of alienation of workers. In his work, Alienation and Freedom (1964, p.16) Blauner presents four types of alienation: powerlessness, isolation,

meaninglessness and self-estrangement. With regard to my work, I am interested in the isolation part which he defines as “[...] the worker feels no sense of belonging in the work situation or is unable to identify or uninterested in identifying with the organization and its goals.” (1964, p.24). Thus it will be interesting whether people who are socially isolated, but are connected through digital technologies feel this kind of isolation with their work.

4.2 Front region and back region

As the Research question one deals with the handling of the change into a WFH environment which became socially isolated but digitally connected, it makes the theory on the division between work and leisure an important one. Division between different aspects of life has been of interest for sociologists for a long time, however the contemporary time has its own unique implications and possibilities.

appropriate according to the situation in the given ritual states like work, leisure or play (p.24), and which is contained in a certain 'region'.

The definition of region according to Goffman (1959) is:

[...] any place that is bounded to some degree by barriers to perception. Regions vary, of course, in the degree to which they are bounded and according to the media of communication in which the barriers to perception occur. Thus thick glass panels, such as are found in broadcasting control rooms, can isolate a region aurally but not visually, while an office bounded by beaver-board partitions is closed off in the opposite way. (p.106)

The most relevant theory in connection to my work lies in his division between two 'stages' or 'regions', where actors (people) perform differently. On one hand, there is the 'front region' (Goffman, 1956, p.69) which refers to the public performance where people act in accordance to how they want to be seen in front of a certain audience.

On the other hand, there is the 'back region' which refers to more private, relaxing time, where the performance is not meant to be seen by an audience and where the “performer can relax, he can drop his front, forgo speaking his lines, and step out of character” (Goffman, 1959, p. 115).

Furthermore, Goffman (1956) writes about 'backstage control' which describes the difficulties of clashing both regions (e.g. toilet break at work) or entering from one to another, as he puts it “putting on and taking off of character” (p. 74).

Moreover, keying (Goffman, 1974, p. 40-83) is a change in the ritual state (activity) which can be very subtle but bears a large meaning to the context. At home, in an often condensed amount of space, people need to shift between work, leisure, social and private environments. He argues that in most houses, there is an exterior distinction between different regions. However, that was written in different socio-economic and technical times as we can see from his note on communication through telephones as a “‘marginal’ way to interact socially” (Goffman, 1971, p. 70).

the same environment. Moreover, back region was formerly understood as a place where the individual could rest, away from work. But due to the omnipresence of media, back region can be penetrated by work, disrupting its leisure nature. Goffman's work then provides a great framework when using relevant aspects from his work which can be updated in today's

environment.

Stina Bengtsson (2006), building on the work of Erving Goffman was interested in the role of media in relation to WFH and how people separated their work and leisure thanks to the use of media. She is drawing on the post-industrial change of work dynamics where people can work from home.

Since work from home, as studied by Bengtsson, was often blurring the private and the public, and the back and the front regions, Bengtsson (2006) asked in her article “What kinds of frames do we construct for ourselves? And how do we organize space when no one can see us?” (p.123). I would like to build on that with the given situation of a changed environment of most people in connection to COVID-19 from workplace to home. The main difference from Bengtsson's work (2006) is in an exploration of a state where the setting of the back and front region is constantly the same and only subtle changes to the environment can be made. Right now WFH is quite well established, however, with COVID-19, practically everyone (not only) within the creative industry is having the experience of working from home for a certain period of time.

4.3 Boundary theory

This theory also speaks about different roles of the people depending on in which socially constructed spheres they are at (e.g. work, home, school). The possibility of divergence between different roles can be explained in segmentation and integration of the boundaries (Nippert-Eng 1996, 567-568). The integration is having more flexible and thinner separation (e.g. reading work emails while having a family dinner) while the segmentation is setting the boundaries firmly apart and devotes different activities to certain settings (e.g. work only during working hours).

There are three different types of boundaries, namely physical, temporal and psychological (Ashforth et al. 2000, p. 478- 79; Clark 2000, p. 753). Physical boundary is concerning the actual, physical space (e.g. the office building as the symbol for work). Temporal boundary has to do with time frame (e.g. work from 9-5) while the psychological (or mental)

boundary is concerning the fact that the individual chooses to be mentally concentrating on desired task. The last form of boundary can be thought of as mentally avoiding non-work related tasks during office hours and vice versa.

Similarly to the backstage control, permeability in the boundary theory describes the clashing problems of intertwining different boundaries (Clark 2000, p. 756).

4.4 Transformations between regions

This thesis builds on the following theoretical framework suggested by Bengtsson (2006). According to her, the mental aspect is core to the frames and symbolic rooms they create. There are three dimensions to the transformation of spaces (2006, p. 126-128):

The first is the geographic dimension (e.g. interiors, similar to the 'physical boundary' in the boundary theory), the second is the intermedia dimension (changing of media as symbolic signs) and the third is the intramedia dimension (changing channels within the same medium).

Furthermore, in her article, Bengtsson introduced an interesting notion by Stockfelt (1988) describing that music can create different kinds of exclusivity (e.g. certain music targeted to people in order to communicate who is welcome and who isn't). I wonder then whether people use music as a tool for 'keying' from one ritual state to another or even changing the regions.

4.5 Disconnection from media

To see why practices of digital disconnection, media resistance or digital detox camps are relevant, it is important to see what were the reasons for participants to disconnect from media or join a digital retreat, and what might still be appealing to people in this new situation.

Among reasons for 'media resistance', Woodstock (2014) found reasons such as 'regaining control', 'establishing boundaries', 'resisting information overload', and 'establishing greater personal life balance'. According to Woodstock (2014) media resisters have several reasons for their action including “(a) asserting boundaries between public and private life, (b) acting on concerns that technologies designed to facilitate human connection often undermine it, and (c) focusing on immediate experiences and thereby cultivating presence.” (p.1983).

Touching on the interest seen also in Research question two, Sherry Turkle (2008) writes that down time is a time for people's mind to drift off (waiting in line, walking to the metro etc.) and is psychologically important to calibrate and refocus (Herzog et al. 1995, Kaplan 1997 in Turkle, 2008, p. 129). This was visible on some of her respondents who complained about struggling to have time to think.

When Turkle discussed conclusions from her interviews she wrote that for people to regain time, they need to unplug (2008, p.132), which she argues is not easy as the technologies to unplug from became extensions of our minds and bodies and being online is often part of some “social contract” which requires availability and responsibility.

The interviews I conducted 12 years after Turkle's work will show whether these participants share those standpoints towards unplugging and relaxing from work when the situation changed and when in order for many to be socially connected they need to also connect digitally.

4.6 Creativity

Writing about creativity and trying to have people to reflect on it is a very tricky task. Even though there is a standardized concept of what creativity is, people, including the

interviewees, have different concepts of what creativity and being creative means. Or as McIntyre puts it “Creativity is not what most people think it is.” (2012, p. 3). Creativity is a matter of interest in Research question three, thus having a theoretical concept of it will be useful for understanding the nature of creativity and the influences on it.

4.6.1 Definition of creativity

“historical creativity” which is the act of coming up with an idea for the first time in history. The second, “H” type often leads to innovation, which is putting creative ideas from a concept into a product.

This notion is developed by Velikovsky (2012) where he describes creativity as a larger spectrum. For a better illustration, a fictional character, architect Karel, will be used in the brackets. The spectrum ranges from an Everyday creativity which many people are/create on an everyday basis (e.g. Karel makes a new recipe), to Transformative creativity (e.g. Karel solves a problem with his creativity), to Professional creativity (e.g. Karel solves a problem within his architectural firm and gets appraisal), to Genius creativity (e.g. Karel helps to transform modern architecture thanks to his creativity), to Highly-Eminent Genius

Creativity which refers to a very rare type of geniuses (that unfortunately Karel isn't but the representatives in his field are for example Le Corbusier, Zaha Hadid or Frank Gehry). In this thesis I will focus on the everyday and transformative creativity among the participants, as they are achievable, perhaps not reforming the world, but still important.

According to Mel Rhodes (1961) creativity can be studied in "the four Ps" — process, product, person, and place. Other scholars were building on these categories and adding a few, resulting in “the 7 Ps” which are according to Velikovsky (2012) the following: Person(ality), Process, Product, Place, Potential, Persuasion (belief of the field that the product/idea is creative) and Press (“various influences on the creative person’s behaviour”). As the aim is not to judge a final product and how creative it is, but rather to understand the self-perceived ease of creativity of the participants namely in the processes for coming

up with creative ideas/products, I will focus on the levels of creativity affected by social isolation and digital connectivity in participants (referring to “person” in the four/seven Ps).

creative industries, we can see that not everyone who works in a creative industry is actually doing creative work. However, for the choice of participants I tried to select those individuals whose work is based on the individual's creativity which is in alignment with the definition in the New Labour document and thus assumes that the individuals do creative work of a certain spectrum (as described by Velikovsky, 2012) at some point in their work.

4.6.2 Influences on creativity

Grant and Berry (2011) note that the level of motivation is influencing the level of creativity as well. In addition, Amabile (2012, p 10) wrote that creativity is influenced, besides 'social environment' which is an external factor, mostly by internal factors such as 'domain-relevant skills', 'creativity-relevant processes' and 'intrinsic task motivation' which gives the work internal meaning in contrast to “pleasing others”. Drawing on these arguments, we can debate that having people working separately might influence some individuals more than others depending on their personality and skills.

5. Material and methods

This chapter focuses on the material and methods needed in order to extract valuable information for this thesis. The research design was mostly influenced by books by Klaus Bruhn Jensen (2002) and Michael Pickering (2008).

The research design was inspired by three features of preparation for research design that were first introduced by Raymond L. Gorden in 1969 and described in Jensen's book (2002, p.237):

a) Strategy, a general plan for entering the social circle of interest.

b) Tactics, definition of who are the respondents and what is the interaction with them. c) Techniques, concrete means of interaction and documentation with the participants. All of the above are further described in the following chapter on interviews and were used as a framework to prepare for the interviews.

Furthermore, Jensen (2002) introduced six levels of empirical research “associated with different stages of planning, conducting, documenting, and interpreting an empirical project.” (p. 257- 258). These levels of empirical research were helpful in mapping out the process and gaining an overview which acted as a 'checklist' for this thesis.

The six levels of empirical research in my case are: 1. Empirical object of analysis: The creatives. 2. Data collection method: Interviews.

3. Data analysis method: Thematic coding, categorizing, segmenting, interpreting and comparing.

4. Methodology: Qualitative research.

5. Theoretical framework: Connectivity versus connectedness, Front region & back region, Boundary theory, Transformations between regions, Reasons to disconnect from media, Influences on creativity

5.1 Interviews

The decision to choose a qualitative method stems from the aim of this thesis. The aim of qualitative research according to Jensen (2002, p.236) is to extract meaning in a naturalistic context and interpret it. The meaning in my case is the creatives' view on the impact of the situation and the naturalistic environment is their homes, which I would visit under normal circumstances (and given the participants would not have a problem with it).

Furthermore, qualitative methods, such as interviews, are a great tool for gaining first-hand insights into participants’ worldviews, opinions and perspectives (Brinkmann and Kvale 2015, p. 33). The goal of interviews is to grasp knowledge “‘from within,’ in ‘emic’ terms” (Jensen, 2012, p. 264).

For the style of data collection, I chose a semi-structured interview, even though I am aware of the downsides of interviewing people, which Jensen (2002) acknowledged as “The difficulty, of course, [...] that people do not always say what they think, or mean what they say” (p.240). Yet it is still the most available mean of gaining a first-hand insight from people, or as Bower (1973 in Jensen, 2002, p.240) wrote “the best way to find out what the people think about something is to ask them”.

Furthermore, to have a conversation with people and tap into possibly more fruitful topics, the semi-structured interview offers this kind of flexibility (Ayres, 2008). Semi-structured interviews are a qualitative research method asking open-ended questions which are based on the research questions (Ayers, 2008) where the research participants are seen as active

meaning makers (Pickering, 2008, p.70). Pickering (2008, p. 80) notes that semi-structured interviews have a list of topics to be covered with some more suggested topics. I prepared completely defined questions in case I would be nervous but I was aware of the flexibility the semi-structured interview offers and that the wording is extremely important in order to avoid leading questions (2008, p.81).

something about a group of professionals from the industry (Pickering, 2008, p.62), I was aiming for around ten to twelve interviews and conducted eleven of them. The interviews lasted for approximately 40 minutes. Five respondents were working in the Czech Republic and six in Sweden.

Furthermore, I gave each participant a distinctive code and colour (the codes and real names were kept on a separate, analogue paper for securing privacy). The codes and especially colours were very helpful for putting all the answers together while maintaining in mind which participant was which. This distinction helped with the analysis of the answers.

5.1.1 Interview style and setting (Strategy)

At first, a few pilot interviews were conducted as suggested by Pickering (2008, p.65) to see what is working and what is not. It is also good to test the flow of the questions, their

understanding and the data taken out of them, whether they are relevant to the research questions and theories. As Jensen (2002, p. 257) puts it, pilot studies “[...] pre-test codes and, to a degree, develop theory.”. The pilot study respondents were two friends working within the creative industry who then referred more of their acquaintances for further interviews. These two respondents tested the flow and the overall understanding of the questions together with testing the technological equipment, recording and ability to make notes. Based on these two pilot interviews, a few adjustments to the formulation, and position of the questions were made as well as adding and cutting some questions out. Thus preparing and completing a few pilot interviews proved to be very effective.

The plan was to review the answers after each interview, assess them and search for possible interesting pathways that were unnoticed before (Pickering, 2008, p.67). However, since some interviews were scheduled right after each other due to the participants’ time

availabilities, it was not done after each interview. The questions directed to the participants differ a lot from the research questions. For example, the Research question two is: What role

does the presence and absence of media have in reconstructing the creatives' work and leisure environment at home? And the question asked in order to extract some valuable

the participants reflected on their media usage in a better way than when I used something more direct like “What media do you use only for work?”.

The purpose of interview questions being to extract knowledge and make interviewees feel comfortable, the interview questions should be rather easy to understand and short, in order to gain valuable information (Pickering, 2008, p. 67). The complete interview guide can be found in the Appendix 1.

5.1.2 Choice of participants (Tactics)

To borrow the terminology of Jensen (2002), my participants are so called 'respondents' who should be representing the social category of 'creative workers'. These 'creative workers' corresponded to the definition of creative industries used in the DCMS document (2001, p.12). That is why 'purposive sampling' (Jensen, 2002, p.216) is used in order to ensure the respondent are fulfilling a certain set of criteria. Even though this term was used for

quantitative research, it is relevant for interviews as well.

The respondents participating were people working within: architecture, art direction, communication design, copywriting, creative developing, film production, graphic design, illustration, innovation design, UX design, and visual design.

Geographically, I decided to include respondents both from Sweden and the Czech Republic. The reason is Sweden's special approach to dealing with the spread of COVID-19 which differs from other European countries (Henley, 2020). Moreover, I aimed to include both people working in Sweden and in the Czech Republic due to my professional and personal connections and the understanding of both cultures. This mix is thus logical and could be translated into mixing the 'purposive sampling' with 'convenience sampling', both falling under 'non probability sampling' whose participants are as Jensen describes “[...] selected for study on the grounds that they are available, convenient to access and prepared to

participate.” (Jensen, 2002, p. 216).

possible, which in this case was especially age and household situation (living alone, with a partner, family with kids). However, due to the overruling 'convenience sampling' and my abilities to get people to participate, the majority of the respondents were people either living alone or with a partner and without kids. The average age of the participants was in their 30s. In case the number of participants from Sweden and from the Czech Republic had not offered a sufficient amount of data, I would then have focused on internet based research with a broader international spectrum. However, this situation did not occur and participants from Sweden and the Czech Republic provided enough valuable data.

The presented table of participants shows the given code and certain data about the participants. The list shows their gender, household situation and the country of work. I decided not to include the profession in this list as with the other information it might be too revealing of the participants' identities.

Table 1: List of participants Interviewee's code Gender Household situation Country of work A male alone/partner CR

B female with partner SE

C female with partner CR

D female alone SE

E male with partner SE

F male with partner CR

G male with partner SE

H female alone SE

J male with partner CR

K female with partner SE

5.1.3 Practicalities (Technique)

As a primary source of information, in the given circumstances of avoiding as much physical contact as possible, I relied exclusively on video/audio interviews. Although computer-assisted interviews are not ideal, or as Brinkmann and Kvale (2015, 174-175) put it, “a problem with computer-assisted interviews is the difficulty to understand the body language and spoken language, some details of the conversation will be missed out.”. They also offer certain advantages, “On the other hand, it is shown that computer-assisted interviews make the participant keener to openly talk about intimate topics.” (Brinkmann and Kvale 2015, p. 175). Similarly, the computer assisted interviews I collected offered certain benefits and disadvantages. Among the benefits we can count non-existent need for travelling and less restraint on the geographical locations of the interviewees. On the other hand, one

disadvantage is that computer interviews are usually shorter than face to face interviews (Robson, 2011, p. 290).

Personally, I didn't have a problem with the fact that the interviews were being held online. If anything, it added to my feelings of comfort and less stress which perhaps helped to navigate through the interviews in a better way than if they would have been held in person.

Furthermore, I am assuming that participants who were willing to participate in an online interview wouldn't be as willing to invite me over and have a physical interview, but this notion is purely speculative.

An important note to add is that the participants A and B were pilot interviews which were not recorded due to a technical problem but descriptive notes were taken during the

I left the choice of the platform up to the interviewees' preferences, but most often we conducted them through Zoom or Google Hangouts.

5.1.4 Informed Consent

To follow the ethical guidelines of Södertörn University, the participants were asked to fill out a consent form after reading the Information letter to make them fully aware of the aim of the research project and their rights as the participants. Both, the informed consent form and the Information letter are included in the Appendix 2. The contact details for the student and the supervisor, which were included in the original forms, were removed from this copy which is designed for filing.

5.1.5 Qualitative analysis

I approached the analysis of the interview responses by thematic coding (Robson, 2011, p. 467), where themes are naturally occurring from the interview respondents, but also grouped the responses in alignment with the theoretical framework, as the majority of the questions were crafted with the theoretical framework in mind.

The analysis of the data started when the process of thematic coding was finished. The information was divided into categories and subcategories and then related to the theoretical framework and previous research. This data was then categorized, segmented, interpreted and compared (Jensen, 2002, p. 258) with other responses.

5.1.6 Evaluation of the Interview Process

It was hard to reach out to participants without any personal connection and no financial reward in exchange. Open calls for participants (with certain criteria) did not seem to be working and only direct messages to individuals proved effective.

quotations. However, some of the text was adjusted for grammatical reasons including filling in of some words. When more words than a grammatical correction was filled in, they were put in square brackets for a smooth transition from spoken to written language. Where some additional information was needed, I filled it in with a text in regular brackets.

5.1.7 Limitations

6. Result and analysis

This chapter presents the interview answers from the participants, together with an analysis based on the theoretical framework. The interview answers are divided into six main categories: Human connectedness and Digital connectivity, Front region and back region,

Boundary theory, Transformations between ritual states, Reasons to disconnect from media,

and Creativity. Within these categories, there are themes focusing on different aspects of the creatives' experiences and opinions on the situation of working from home imposed by the COVID-19.

From notes and recorded files, I proceeded with identifying patterns to see whether or not there are similarities among the respondents. I did not fully transcribe the whole

conversations as a lot of it was irrelevant to the topic of the thesis. However, I was doing descriptive notes and then listening to the recorded conversations again and fully transcribing the relevant parts. This combination of notes was then put into one document, differentiating each participant with one colour.

The findings revealed certain shared opinions but I tried not to essentialize them or claim them widely applicable. As Jensen (2002) suggests, there is a need to be aware of the interpretation of the outcomes from the interviews. There was a need for reframing the interview questions or as Pickering (2008) puts it “The researcher must ask what themes are emerging? What questions are working and what are not? How are the findings supporting or contradicting the hypothesis?” (p.65)

This is in alignment with what Strauss and Corbin (2008) suggest, to work in a ‘close

relationship’ between data collection, analysis and the theory. As suggested by Jensen (2012, p. 258), I analysed the empirical data, which is a part of the six levels of analysis, with: thematic coding, categorizing, segmenting, interpreting and comparing.

overwhelming homogeneity. Some of the responses were then categorized into different groups according to the emerging themes.

It is also important to note that many of the negative aspects noted in the interviews were intertwined with the social isolation situation and thus it can't be viewed purely as “work from home” related problems. It is rather the combination of the unique situation which perhaps makes it difficult for people to set boundaries as their homes are largely the only places they inhabit.

The first section, the Human connectedness and Digital connectivity, refers mostly to Research question one and two. Similarly, the following four sections, namely Front region

and back region, Boundary theory, Transformations between ritual states, and Reasons to disconnect from media, refer both to Research question one and two, as the usage of media is

in some way having influence on private and work life, thus intertwining these two research questions. The last section called Creativity analyses the findings in relation to Research question three. All of these topics have subtopics which are further tapping into the theoretical framework and thematic findings.

6.1 Human connectedness

This chapter analyses the human connectedness (Van Dijck, 2013) as something cherished in the real life. The examples encompass both the hard to replicate in the digital world

connectedness, and also the positive, social feelings being successfully reproduced in the digital world.

An example of the later can be seen in this quote by Participant H:

Furthermore, some people feel now paradoxically more connected to their employers than before. The reasons seem to be a feeling of togetherness, more frequent updates and seeing private spaces of their colleagues' lives:

A: “I feel connected now more than ever. A lot of updates and emails from the company. So many emails [actually], it is easy to get lost.”

B: “I do [feel more connected], because I think cross hierarchical communication is easier, [with] more one to one time.”

J: “We used to work remotely as well, so not much changed but our company is doing a great job in keeping us updated and the community is quite active.”

E: “I feel like I know some people even more now because I see into their private homes. Everyone likes sharing. I feel more engaged and connected, motivated and [feel as] working as a team. I [also] feel now more invested in the company because of these tough economic times which also play a role.”

Participant G expressed happiness with spending so much more time with his wife which would otherwise not be possible and he described a similar connectedness (Van Dijck, 2013) with his extended family who lives abroad and due to digital technologies they are also more connected now:

G: “It is really nice to see my wife so much more, it is something really nice. And family in general because now they have more time to talk digitally, so we even speak more because they are not so busy with their lives.”

In addition to the rise of time spend with their partners, this situation proved to be a test for Participant J's own relationship: