Professor Phillip McIntyre

Summary

Professor Phillip McIntyre is a Communication and Media scholar. He has been involved in external and internal grants valued at $1,363,594 of which the University of Newcastle is in receipt of $854,350. Dr McIntyre is a Detailed Assessor for the ARC having held 3 of their Tier 1 grants and did very well in the last national Impact and Engagement exercise. Based on research projects led by Prof McIntyre the University of Newcastle (UON) received a HHH (3) score, the highest rating, for FOR 19. Phillip McIntyre was also the Head of Discipline for Communication and Media at the University of Newcastle for nine years where he had the responsibility of overseeing teaching and research matters within the discipline of Communication. While he has been described as a founding voice in the new field of Songwriting Studies, his work has also been central to the development, application and publication of an innovative approach to teaching in HE called Systems Centered Learning (SCL). He was instrumental in forming the Communication and Media Research (CAMR) group, setting up the Creativity in Higher Education Network (CHEN) and, more recently, was the Group Leader of the Future Work Research Group. He has led the Creativity and Creative Industries research team for quite a number of years. His international collaborations, particularly those at Leeds Beckett University in the UK, have proved beneficial to this institution. He received an Excellence in Research Supervision Award from the VC and was also selected by the PVC FSIT for the Emerging Research Leaders program at the University of Newcastle (UoN) in 2011. He was awarded his PhD in Media and Communication in March 2004 from Macquarie University, and has since published 5 books, 31 Book chapters, 34 journals articles, 47 conference papers, 32 NTROs and 11 reports.

Research Expertise

Professor Philip McIntyre has made a number of contributions to his field of research. With his research centered on creativity and cultural production, he was the first to take up a systems based unification of psychological and sociological approaches to creativity and cultural production. He did this through his unique interdisciplinary amalgamation of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's and Pierre Bourdieu's work. This thinking was triggered by Dr McIntyre's early work on songwriting and creativity which located him as the first scholar to investigate this central artefact; one that drives the popular music industry. Now described as a 'founding voice' in the field of songwriting studies, Dr McIntyre was invited in 2019 to give the inaugural keynote address to the AHRC funded Songwriting Studies Research Network in the United Kingdom. Phillip McIntyre has also published a new systems model of communication which synthesizes the best aspects of the classic transmission model and the more contemporary cultural context model of communication. He was instrumental in the development of what has been called Post-Mixed Methods, an innovative methodological approach to research in the creative industries. In addition, his research was also a fundamental driver of Systems Centred Learning (SCL), a published and applied pedagogical approach to educating for creativity within the creative industries.

At heart Prof McIntyre researches the fundamentals of how novel and valued things are created by human beings. He seeks to answer a basic research question: what is the most rational and evidence-based way to explain how novel things are bought into being particularly within the creative industries? In addition to this basic research question, he also seeks to answer an applied question: How can these explanations help to increase humankind’s ability to generate unique and valued products, processes and ideas? In short he researches the phenomenon of creativity and innovation.

Phillip McIntyre led the ‘Hunter Creative Industries as an Entrepreneurial System’ project which was primarily funded by an Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Grant. Dr McIntyre was Lead CI on this grant formally entitled 'Creativity and Cultural Production: An Applied Ethnographic Study of New Entrepreneurial Systems in the Creative Industries.' This research project was the subject of a recent media piece written by economic geographer Prof Phillip O'Neill from UWS:

“Researchers at the University of Newcastle have set high standards in their report Creativity and Cultural Production in the Hunter. It's a journey-setting document. [This] encyclopaedic 546-page report is a baseline study of the make-up of the creative and cultural industries in the Hunter. The Creativity and Cultural Production report is refreshingly different from the cash-for-comment economic analyses you see for many sectors. The report carefully explains the rich and diverse composition of the 10,000 workers in the creativity and cultural production sector and the $1 billion contribution it makes annually to the regional economy. At its core are musicians, the media, publishers, advertisers, designers, artists, the theatre, filmmakers, electronic gamers and architects. And for each paid professional there is a thick moleskin pad of amateurs, interns and volunteers, together delivering cultural products and services to a surprisingly vast Hunter audience” (O’Neill 2019, online).

The 'Creativity and Cultural Production' report has been taken up by policymakers and those working in, and dealing with, these increasingly significant industries, either educationally, politically, economically or culturally. At a deeper level this ARC funded industry linked research has helped expose and explain the Hunter's regional creative system in action, what others have described as a dynamic innovation ecosystem. The research has had, as a result, a deep impact on the region so much so that Dr McIntyre and his research colleagues did very well in the recent national Impact and Engagement exercise. At the conclusion of this exercise, FoR 19, Creative Arts & Writing at the University of Newcastle (UON) received a HHH (3) score, the highest rating. Only four other institutions in the country achieved a rating like this for FoR 19. The UON Impact Case Study for FoR 19 was based on the ‘Hunter Creative Industries as an Entrepreneurial System’ project led by Prof McIntyre.

Buildng on the work, Prof McIntyre and his colleague A/Prof Susan Kerrigan, were recently awarded, along with a research team from QUT headed by Distinguished Prof Stuart Cunningham, another ARC Linkage Grant focused at identifying and explaining 'creative hotspots', like the Hunter region, but this time more broadly focused at the national level. The industry partners for this grant include Create NSW, Creative Victoria, Arts Qld, Arts SA and Arts WA. Dr McIntyre was also added as Lead CI to an ARC Discovery Grant looking at the history of popular music in WA.

Prof McIntyre has established international research links with colleagues at Leeds Beckett University, Birmingham City University and Goldsmiths College in the UK. Because of his "standing as a world authority on creativity research" he has been a keynote at a number of conferences and he has delivered other invited public lectures, for example, at Goldsmiths College, Edinburgh University, RMIT, the University of Copenhagen, Birmingham City University and the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. He recently launched the Routledge book The Economic Philosophy of the Internet of Things (2018) for his friend and colleague economist James Juniper. He was selected by the PVC to be part of the inaugural Emerging Research Leader's program in 2011 and also received an Excellence in Research Supervision Award.

Prof McIntyre was the President of the Australian and New Zealand Communication Association (ANZCA) from 2016 to 2017 and is a current member of the International Communication Association (ICA) and the Association for the Study of the Art of Record Production (ASARP). He sits on the Editorial Board of the Journal of the Art of Record Production (JARP) and is a Senior Editor for the Journal of Undergraduate Ethnography. He has guest-edited the Global Media Journal and the Communication Research and Practice journal. He was also the Co-Convenor of the Annual Australian and New Zealand Communication Conference, Creating Space in the Fifth Estate, in 2016.

Book Publications

Dr McIntyre's sole authored A1 book, Creativity and Cultural Production: Issues for Media Practice, was published by Palgrave MacMillan in 2012 and was reviewed positively in Media International Australia.

“Phillip McIntyre gives a thorough overview of the tensions present when thinking about and working within creative industries…McIntyre explores differing theories of creativity. Neatly divided into theoretical and practical sections, Part I investigates the creator as genius, biopsychological perspectives, and social and cultural views of creativity before McIntyre concludes that the best reconceptualization of creativity may lie ‘not in any one of these single positions, but in the confluence of a number of them’ (p. 69)…Part II follows this thread through issues in radio, journalism, television, film, photography and popular music before providing an up-to-date overview of copyright and intellectual property issues in his chapter on the digital revolution…McIntyre sustains a clear argument throughout the book, drawing together a wide range of both traditional and contemporary material to illustrate his claims…However, it is not the case studies that dominate, but the ideas – such as the ‘habitus’, or ‘feel for the game’ (p. 72) that all creative minds possess, or the idea that structural constraints placed upon creativity are in fact precisely what enables it to occur at all” (van der Nagel 2012, p. 178).

The Creative System in Action: Understanding Cultural Production and Practice, co-edited with Dr Janet Fulton and Dr Elizabeth Paton, was published by the same publisher in 2016. His co-edited book with Dr Janet Fulton, Creating Space in the Fifth Estate, was published by Cambridge Scholarly Publishers in 2017. He, along with his colleagues Dr Janet Fulton, Dr Elizabeth Paton, Dr Susan Kerrigan and Dr Michael Meany, delivered Educating for Creativity within Higher Education to Palgrave MacMillan and it was published in 2018. For the last A1 book the leading scholar in this field, Distinguished Professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, wrote that:

"The group of researchers at Newcastle who contributed to this book are at the forefront of scholarship dedicated to understanding how humankind has been using creativity in the past, and how the process can be supported in the future. To my knowledge, there has been no previous center anywhere on the planet where such a close-knit and dedicated group of scholars has existed quite like this one" (in McIntyre et.al. 2018, p. xi).

His latest book was co written with Paul Thompson, a Reader from Leeds Beckett University in the UK. The book, Paul McCartney and His Creative Practice: The Beatles and Beyond was published in 2021. The acknowledgements for the book were as follows: 

“Paul McCartney and his Creative Practice is a valuable case study for any researcher (in any field), who is interested in the creative process. For students, it illustrates how theoretical frameworks help us to understand and explain real world phenomena. For musical practitioners and McCartney fans, it offers new perspective on the artistry and contributions of a creative giant. It is one thing to assert that romantic explanations of creative process are baseless, and it is another thing to systematically pick apart the problems with such interpretations. Paul McCartney and his Creative Practice demonstrates how creativity actually works using in-depth explanations of its many ascertainable, testable mechanisms; a highly evolved theoretical framework; the work of a singular creative genius and comprehensive research on their subject.” A/Prof Nyssim Lefford – Dept of Social Sciences, Technology and Arts, Luleå University of Technology, Sweden.

“In this holistic exploration of the creative process of Paul McCartney, McIntyre and Thompson have not only illuminated the work of one of the world's greatest songwriters, but also made a significant intervention in the study of songwriting and creative practice. This richly contextualised study, which takes in everything from Greek mythology to contemporary psychology in its framing, builds upon the systems model of creativity in order to unpack the former Beatle's creative process. Going far beyond the scope of most scholarly work on the subject, this superb contribution allows the reader to appreciate McCartney's extraordinary creativity as a performer, songwriter and producer as a result of his immersion in a complex musical ecosystem, and without recourse to the usual myths that surround his talent. Dr Simon Barber - Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research, Birmingham School of Media, Birmingham University, United Kingdom.

Methodological Approach

Dr McIntyre's methodological approach to his research is primarily centered on ethnography which usually involves participant observation, significant numbers of in-depth interviews, triangulated with artefact analysis. There is a strong statistical element to his later ethnographic research. Apart from this ongoing ethnographic research focus, which he has extended to other creative fields apart from songwriting, he also has an interest in the use of innovative research methods to examine the creative process, such as Practitioner Based Enquiry (PBE). He is now working on what has been called post-mixed methods, combining qualitative, quantitative and practice-based approaches to give a comprehensive account of his objects of study. As a result of these interests, a wide-ranging knowledge of the research into creativity and innovation and over twenty-five years of relevant industrial and professional experience in all facets of the Australian music industry, Dr McIntyre has ample practical experience in project management bringing a valued set of skills to his research projects.

Industry Experience

Dr McIntyre continues his own creative practice. A recent radio documentary series he co-produced, made about the wine industry for ABC Radio, was funded by the ABC's Regional Production Fund. He continues to maintain his professional audio and digital skills by engineering and producing popular music recordings for Newcastle based musicians, drawing on professional projects like these to reinforce his teaching. Previously Phillip McIntyre was involved in the music industry as a songwriter, performing musician, producer, audio engineer and manager for various musical groups dealing with promoters, record companies and distribution labels. As well as playing hundreds of gigs as a performer he managed a section of a large music retailer and his work as a music journalist entailed interviewing and writing feature stories on a wide range of musicians including David Bowie, John Fogerty, Paul Kelly, Don Walker, Daniel Johns, Mandawuy Yunupingu, Tim Rogers and many others. For a short time he produced and presented a local music radio program on 2NUR FM. He also sat on the 2NUR Advisory Board for ten years. As well as running a production business for live performers a number of the music videos he produced, directed and edited have been broadcast on ABCTV and he continues to produce and engineer music recordings for local artists. He has taught in the Ausmusic Basic Music Industry Skills course at TAFE, which included Daniel Johns from Silverchair as a student in the songwriting course he taught, as well as teaching courses for the Music Industry Training Package at WEA. His latest album of songs was released in 2018 and an EP of AI inspired tunes was released in 2020. Both are available on iTunes, Spotfiy, Pandora and a host of other online streaming and subscriptions services. His band's website is here: http://www.texasradio.com.au/index.html

Teaching Expertise

As well as having a research focus on creativity and innovation, Prof McIntyre also teaches media production and media studies courses in the Bachelor of Communication program at UON melding his research approach into his teaching. He has, along with his colleagues, Dr Janet Fulton, A/Prof Susan Kerrigan and Dr Michael Meany, developed and published what has been called Systems Centered Learning (SCL). The SCL approach, which is grounded in the research literature on creativity, has been applied to the teaching of creative media practice in this and one other institution in Australia as well as in Singapore. It allows teachers to set the conditions for students to be creative in, while facilitating an ever increasing sense of the student's own growing abilities as they work inside an action-based creative system. Future Fellow, Anne Harris, from the School of Education at RMIT described Dr McIntyre et.al's book about SCL, Educating for Creativity within Higher Education (2018), as:

"that most useful of texts which gives the reader - even if you don't know it yet - everything you need to build your broad field knowledge about creativity in education, but also one model for improving its presence in higher education...such theoretically informed, practically oriented, and robustly tested models of creativity education will increasingly change the field for the better" (in McIntyre et.al 2018, pp. vii and ix).

Prof McIntyre's SFT and SFC scores have been consistently high and he has received commendations from the PVC for his contribution to teaching in the Faculty. He undertook and completed the Graduate Certificate in Tertiary Teaching in 2005. When Dr McIntyre commenced studying for his BA(CS) Honours degree as a mature age student at the University of Newcastle in 1994 he was asked to lecture at the same time into the Communication & Media Arts program at the University. Following this Honours year, he continued to lecture and tutor as a contracted and sessional academic in a variety of courses at the University for the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, the Department of Leisure and Tourism as well as continuing to teach into the Communication and Media program. At this time he also taught into the BMIS Music Industry Skills course at the Hunter Institute of Higher Education (TAFE). He has also taught courses in the Music Industry Training Package for WEA. After achieving a full time continuing position at the University he has taught into a significant number of courses in the Communication and Media program.

His teaching philosophy encompasses an observable congruence between theoretical understanding and professional practice. He believes practice and theory are intimately intertwined. It is hard to teach young professionals how to be pragmatically creative, something they will be required to on a daily basis within the creative industries, without understanding what creativity is. His emphasis on mentoring, a process Dr McIntyre has eagerly engaged in, is premised on the realization that learning can be facilitated through interactions built on concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization and active experimentation. This approach dovetails well with the overall WIL and Authentic Assessment approaches espoused by the University.

His teaching of CMNS3310 Communication, Creativity and Cultural Production, an innovative course completely unique to this University and set up, taught and coordinated by Dr McIntyre, has been described by students in the following ways: 

“So far I think it has been the most valuable course in equipping me for the real world. It's simultaneously depressing (in that creativity loses that element of romantic magic) but also completely inspiring in that creativity is now something honed, encouraged, developed, self determined (well, to a degree) and entirely achievable. The course has almost re-framed my outlook on what work is, what it means to create. I'm really grateful I did the course now too in my second year. It means being injected with a new motivation for completing sometimes mundane university projects (in that everything I do and learn is a building block to innovation) and also looking out to entering the workforce which I have already done with a healthier attitude”. 

“I also wish to add how refreshing it is to meet a lecturer and tutor of your kind. Over the course of my degree I have only been tutored by you twice but both classes were indeed an incredible experience. I think what I most appreciate is how you teach, your intricate methods and how you treat all of us with respect. I cannot imagine how hard it is to try and keep your students actively participating over the years but I just thought I would say that your efforts do not go unnoticed”.

“Thank you for a great semester. I find your subjects hard however feel I always learn so much, thanks for always being so helpful (your composure in class is admirable)!"

To highlight another aspect of his teaching practice Dr McIntyre recently took part in an Authentic Assessment Expo showcasing, among others, his teaching approach to the course CMNS1130 MP: Sound Production. This course, with assessment tasks that replicate real world media industry experiences, has received exceptional qualitative feedback from students: 

“I have never done a course that was so relevant to my goals. This helped me to want to learn and love what I was learning and doing. Nothing was a chore, it was all informative and fantastic for my learning” - “Definitely come a long way since the start of term - skills have increased tenfold” - “This course pretty much fulfilled all my expectations and was not only educational, but extremely fun at the same time” - “Assessments were very well set out and covered a wide variety of topics that have greatly increased my knowledge” - “The assessment items were challenging but in a good way. They helped me learn about production methods and also how to mix on my own with ProTools 10. The opportunity to create our own sound environments is also an interesting and new challenge” - “Great course, relevant topics, good teaching and I have learned a lot. The assessments were well set out to cover all areas. XXXX is very knowledgeable and I enjoyed the tutes for the latter end as it allowed us to keep going through mixing and ask questions” - “Everything was brilliant.” 

Feedback from the UON Teaching Learning Committee about this Authentic Assessment approach was also extremely positive with the DVCA Professor Darrell Evans citing the work on display at the Expo “as exemplary of what he wants to see going on in teaching and learning at UON both in terms of authentic assessment but also peer (staff) support and exchange of ideas and learning”. This work has been made available as learning resources for the broader university which allows other teachers like Dr McIntyre to “consolidate our reputation for best practice and innovation”. 

Another innovative course Dr McIntyre has been instrumental in developing and delivering is CMNS2800 Creative Industries Entrepreneurship. This course was built to be modularised and capable of being digitally delivered and was put together to impart the knowledge and skills students will need when they attempt to gain an income rather than gain employment in the creative industries. Given the various reports on the future of work this course has been a timely addition to the core courses of the BComn program. A pitch presentation done using mobile phone technology, along with a business plan built around an income generating venture within the creative industries, is required of the students as well as a detailed industry report of the area they wish to work in. The intellectual component of the course, built around an understanding of globalisation and digitisation and other fundamental drivers of disruptive change, is tested via an essay. All of these tasks can be delivered and assessed via the digital learning platforms the University has subscribed to.

It should also be noted here that Professor McIntyre's research into creativity has also driven much of the focus of teaching in the Communication undergraduate and postgraduate programs at UON, particularly in the media production stream. The incorporation of fundamental research based ideas on creativity at a pragmatic educational level is the subject of Dr McIntyre's co-written book, Educating for Creativity within Higher Education published by Palgrave MacMillan in 2018. This Systems Centred Learning (SCL) approach to andragogy allows educators to set the conditions for students to be creative in. This approach to teaching has been described as "theoretically informed, practically oriented, and robustly tested" (Harris in McIntyre et.al 2018, pp. ix). 

Administrative Expertise

As the Head of Discipline of Communication and Media for nine years Phillip McIntyre had broad oversight of the BComn program. He was responsible for monitoring its success, as well as taking a strategic approach to not only the planning of teaching and staffing matters but also the guidance and mentoring of staff into successful research programs. During 2017-2018 he was a member of the FEDUA Faculty Board representing the School of Creative Industries (SOCI). Dr McIntyre sat on both the Schools of DCIT and SOCI Executive Committees. He is a member of the SOCI Professoriate, an active group dealing with research strategies, and the the SOCI Research Training Committee. He was a member of the FSIT Faculty Research and Research Training Committee for a number of years. He was the Program Convenor for the Communication and Media Honours Program in FSIT and in this role he was the Chair, Bachelor of Communication (Honours) Program Review Committee for the Faculty of Science & IT in 2004. He has again taken up the Program Convenor role for the Communication and Media Honours Program in the School of Creative Industries. He also sat on the DCIT Research Committee and has been a member of the School of DCIT RHD Progress Committee as well as sitting on the School's CT&L Committee. He was also, for a short period, the Acting Head of Department in 2001. Until recently Dr McIntyre was the VC's Representative on the Advisory Board of the University radio station 2NURFM which he did for ten years. That board had the responsibility of overseeing the ongoing financial stability of the station. He was also Chair of the Peter Pickhover Trust Fund Committee that reports to that Board.

In his prior professional life Dr Phillip McIntyre's aptitude for administration and project management can be seen in his active involvement with the award winning band Supersonic. The most recent project Phillip was involved in for Supersonic ran from 2003 to 2004 and was primarily funded by a group of investors. Phillip was instrumental in negotiating this funding. The project involved the coordination and oversight of the recording, manufacture, release and promotion of a popular music single, an album of songs and a music video, as well as the business management of the musical group involved. Phillip undertook the planning, budgetary and oversight responsibilities during this project period (2003-2004). As well as the production and administrative elements the project required engaging a PR firm (AMB) and a manufacturing plant (MAD) as well as negotiating conditions and terms with a commercial distributor (MGM) for the product. The project also saw him acting as the producer of a promotional video clip using an eight person crew. The administration of this entire project by Phillip McIntyre eventually involved the organization of the work and transportation of five personnel touring across the east coast of Australia. Dr Phillip McIntyre's professional management, creative capability and administrative expertise was instrumental in the success of this project. 

Collaborations

Dr McIntyre has collaborated with industry partners TechnicaCPT and Newcastle Now on an ARC Linkage Project entitled 'Creativity and Cultural Production in the Hunter'. This project undertook an applied ethnographic study of key collaborative groups across all the major creative industries in the Hunter region in NSW. Mapping these industries’ approach to cultural production in the digital realm provided detailed insights into the dynamic entrepreneurial systems at the heart of creative industries and provided comprehensive baseline information on the creative industries in the region. This data did not exist prior to this study and has already had an impact on regional policy makers, industry and academia, moving their understanding of factors affecting creative output in an increasingly technological world to a fact based position.

The mapping of conditions favorable to creativity and innovation in the creative industries in the Hunter has been reported in the popular press, scholarly publications and conference presentations and led directly to further collaboration with Distinguished Prof Stuart Cunningham from QUT, an internationally recognized scholar in creative industries research. This latter collaboration resulted in a national level study accounting for creative hotspots, state by state, and has been funded by the ARC. The industry collaborators on this project include Create NSW, Arts Qld, Arts WA, Arts SA and Creative Victoria. 

As well as these Australian collaborations Professor McIntyre has researched and published with colleagues from Leeds Beckett University in the United Kingdom and has done so now for a number of years.