An autoethnographical study on how creative sound work is affected by commercialisation and the professional media industry

This project sought to investigate how creative sound design is mediated by its place within a professional, commercial context using socioculturally framed qualitative inquiry from an autoethnographical perspective. As a freelance sound designer I wanted to find out how a commercial setting influenced the creation of my work.
Multi-modal autoethnographical case studies and qualitative data collection have been used to better understand if there are factors influencing the outcome of the work. This thesis places an emphasis on the study of creativity in professional practice and its implications.
Data was collected in the form of screen capture, verbal protocol and email correspondence for each project. I have also provided a chapter for personal autoethnographical reflection that provides a phenomenological as well as an analytical retrospective approach.
It was found that there were five main factors that mediated my creative process. These were:
1. Time
2. Correspondence
3. Physical environment
4. Technology
5. Budget
The various ways in which time influenced process constituted a major factor in the mediation of creative process, shown through a multimodal approach using rich data capture across two game sound design projects.