Book Review: Creator Culture: An Introduction to Social Global Media Entertainment

Abstract

Social media entertainment (SME) is turning out to be an industry of its own, and native content creators on different digital platforms play an instrumental role in it. This volume conceptualizes the commercializing and professionalizing aspect of content creators in contrast to most scholarship on ‘user-generated content’ which has not given due attention to the entrepreneurialism of social media users. The rationale behind considering social media entertainment an industry is explained at the outset of the book – and three factors are emphasized: the growing economic value of the social media entertainment, the distinctive features that set it apart from established media forms and institutions, and the gradual transformation from an amateur content-production culture to a thriving formalized sector. Underlining the importance and challenges of studying SME creator culture, this volume organizes the major discussions under three sections: ‘Frameworks and Methods’, ‘Genres and Communities’, and ‘Industries and Governance’. Cross-referencing between and across these three domains is a central tenet of the book, and the debates and deliberations have been structured with reference to different platforms, modalities, and contexts. SME cuts across different sub-disciplines of communication and cultural studies among many other academic fields, and researchers require multidisciplinary approaches to studying SME creator culture. This volume explores a diverse range of approaches and theoretical frameworks that are of benefit to studying various dynamics and implications of the social media sphere. The efficacy of common approaches such as interviewing, document and discourse analysis as well as a few distinctive methods such as computational digital methods, app walkthrough, and autoethnography are explored in this book. Creator culture is shaped by the varied affordances of different social media platforms as well as various macro-political economic factors of different regions. Taking this into consideration, the authors have not limited their discussions to prominent genres and particular countries but dealt with different forms and regions. The analysis of genres such as Spanish book reviewing, Chinese livestreaming, an investigation of issues such as the cultural exchange between India and Pakistan on YouTube, and the rise of social media creators under the authoritarian regime of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region are all testament to the authors’ deliberate attempt to engage with understudied trends and contexts. The investigation of the powerplay among different stakeholders such as content creators, state, advertisers, and platforms is one of the key themes of the book – and various implications of these power dynamics have been explored in the chapters such as ‘Political Economy of Sponsored Content and Social Media Entertainment Production’, ‘Creator Rights and Governance’ and so forth. The authors of these chapters instantiate how the negotiations among different forces such as capitalist Media International Australia 2023, Vol. 189(1) 144–146 © The Author(s) 2023