Well-Being and Creative Careers

‘Well-Being and Creative Careers is a call to rethink the conditions that enable meaningful, sustainable and fulfilling participation in creative work. Many readers may arrive expecting a study of media and creative careers and leave recognising a broader diagnosis of how purpose, identity and labour have become increasingly intertwined within contemporary professional life. By positioning well-being as a structural rather than individual concern, Deuze makes an important contribution to ongoing debates about labour, identity, participation and sustainability within media cultures and beyond.

One of the most impressive aspects of Well-Being and Creative Careers is that it remains constructive despite the seriousness of the problems it documents. By framing well-being as a collective concern and structural issue shaped by organisational practices and wider cultural expectations, Deuze calls for healthier institutional cultures, stronger support structures and more sustainable approaches to creative labour.’

‘Well-Being and Creative Careers is a compelling read, propelled by a sense of mission on the author’s part. He makes clear his personal investment in the topic as a musician, journalist, and professor whose students represent the next generation of media workers and for whose future prospects he cares. […] Deuze’s book represents a timely intervention in those larger questions of what is in store for the fundamental concepts of “career”, “talent”, and “creativity” at this historical juncture. Well-being and Creative Careers opens up a range of interesting questions about the meaning of creative work in the age of “content”, and about the possible structural incentives for improved business practices across media and creative industries.’

‘Wellbeing and Creative Careers is a valuable book engagingly written for media scholars to consider more closely the problems that creative industries face, and also for educators preparing the next generation of workers to understand the problems and the paradoxes that exist in these workplaces.’

‘Mark Deuze reflects on the paradoxical nature of creative work in the field of media. The point argued throughout the book is that the components making creative careers appealing are also the ones that create risks for one’s mental health and well-being at work… I consider this book an essential read for anyone wanting to understand what it feels like to have a creative career in the field of media, but maybe even more so for those who have it, as the idea of suffering for one’s art is strongly internalized and even romanticized within the field. As Deuze points out, people with creative careers have their share in upholding their own exploitation by accepting the reality in the field for what it is.’

‘Deuze’s depth of research and understanding is rich and insightful… The occupational mental health framework discussed in chapter seven is one of the most important conceptual contributions in the work, and offers an important perspective in the conversation around mental health in the creative and media industries… The comparisons across similar industries and countries made in this work, alongside the in-depth discussions of the internal structures that uphold the negative working environments effectively highlights how widespread and pervasive these issues are.

Deuze’s book is an important, timely, richly researched and sophisticated contribution to this field of research… the book is instructive in offering a new perspective on how to understand the potential causes of poor occupational mental health, and highlights how widespread these issues are.’

‘Deuze provides a thoughtful and passionate perspective on mental health in creative work, warning us of the challenges of an industry that can rely on the creatively and goodwill of its workers.’

‘There is no doubt that Professor Mark Deuze’s new book is a thoughtful, well-researched and timely contribution to media and communication studies. But it is so much more than that. Well-Being and Creative Careers is also an urgent reminder of the human cost of our newfound ability to access news, information and entertainment whenever and however we like.’

‘In this important book, Deuze draws on new research supported by a wide range of empirical evidence, creative industries, and media professionals’ voices. In doing so, he creates compelling evidence as to why we should all
take the problems these passionate workers face seriously. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in understanding media work and the creative industries.’

‘Capturing both the damaging pressures and passionate commitments driving the mental life of creative careers, Deuze precisely analyses the emotional dichotomy at the core of media work.’

Mark Deuze is a professor of media studies at the University of Amsterdam’s Faculty of Humanities. Publications of his work include over 150 academic articles and 14 books, including Well-Being and Creative Careers (Intellect, 2025), Happiness in Journalism (Routledge, 2024) and Life in Media (The MIT Press, 2023).

Professor Deuze has held honorary appointments at the Faculty of Journalism at Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia, the School of Arts and Humanities at Edith Cowan University in Perth, the School of Communication of the University of Technology Sydney, Australia and the Department of Communication and Media Studies of Northumbria University, United Kingdom.

He is also band member of Skinflower, latest album ‘Kaduc’ (Record Union, 2024).

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