4. Creative skills (synonyms are e.g. reproduction literacy): refer to the skills needed to create something new (out of something existing) in the context of social media.
Creative skills are the skills that allow to create a new, authentic, significant, expressive and creative media content (Eshet-Alkalai, 2004; Gilster, 1997). This can be the creation of a website, a self-made YouTube movie or a self-written text on a blog to name only a few examples.
These creations can bring about problems of plagiarism or copyright. So, this problem is not only relevant in the field of art, science or journalism, but also in the online world. What about a text on a blog that only slightly differs from the original text of existing book? Or a music clip of a starting music group for example on YouTube that looks like an existing music clip of a popular band? When is something an original work? When is it a complete copy? When is it legitimate? The developments in the capabilities of ‘new’ media make it even more difficult to make something really new and original. It is easy to copy things or rip things from Internet such as pictures, music or a text. Making a new and original work in a digital environment requires skills that are part of the creative skills. Besides avoiding plagiarism it is also important to have the ability to “attract attention and arouse interest” and to “assess public taste” or with other words knowing who the audience of your creation is and what they want (McQuail, 1985, p. 149). Not only the making of (media) content itself (the production), is a creative skill, but also taking into account the audience and the originality of the work is part of the creative skills. These (creative) skills are mainly important in a social media environment.