Creator Futures: Reorganizing Media and Journalism Work

Dear Colleagues,

The low barriers to entry in platform-based media have expanded opportunities for participation and workforce diversity among independent creators and workers across digital media and journalism industries (Poell et al., 2022). By 2022, an estimated 303 million people worldwide identified as creators (Salamon, 2025). Content creation on platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitch, and X has reshaped creative and informational economies, transforming how entertainment and news content is produced, distributed, monetized, and consumed. As creators build careers using social media and generate revenue across platforms, they extend and transform established forms of labour, contributing to a wider reorganization of media and journalism work.

Despite low barriers to entry, creators continue to face structural obstacles to career advancement—even amid growing intersections between Hollywood and Silicon Valley (Cunningham & Craig, 2019) and between traditional newsrooms and home production studios (Harlow, 2024). At the same time, traditional media and journalism organizations struggle to adapt to new technological innovations, business models, and revenue streams (Salamon et al. Forthcoming). While research on creators and platform labour has expanded globally (e.g., Cunningham & Craig, 2021; Harlow, 2024; Salamon, 2025), more research is needed on how creator labour is reshaping media and journalism work across distinct structural, institutional, professional, and geographical contexts. This Special Issue responds to these gaps by studying creator-driven futures of media and journalism work.

We invite submissions from the perspective of journalism, media and communication research or related disciplines that examine, but are not limited to, the following themes:

• Industry Structures: How are creators reshaping the structural foundations of media and journalism industries, including business models, revenue streams, production workflows, and audience development strategies?
• Institutions, Organizations, and Governance Actors: How are creators, platforms, film and television companies, broadcasters, policymakers, intermediary organizations (e.g., talent managers, multichannel networks, professional associations, unions, etc.), or activists shaping or responding to industry transformation? What new forms of platform governance, labour governance, collective representation, advocacy, or activism are emerging around creator, digital media, or journalism work?
• Professionalism: What new skills and training are essential to support sustainable careers in content creation and media or journalism occupations? How are creators, media workers, or journalists reshaping professional norms, ethical standards, or hybrid occupational identities in digital media and journalism work?
• Geographies: How do local, regional, and peripheral contexts shape creator careers, precarious work, and access to industry networks or intermediaries? What new pathways—or barriers—exist for creators, media workers, and journalists based in small cities, rural areas, or regions outside metropolitan cultural hubs?
• Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion: How do industry stakeholders harness the creative potential of creators while ensuring greater diversity, equality, inclusion in media or journalism work? What top–down industry-led or bottom–up creator-led interventions support equitable creator, media, or journalism work practices?

References

Cunningham, S., & Craig, D. (2019). Social media entertainment: The new intersection of Hollywood and Silicon Valley. NYU Press.

Cunningham, S., & Craig, D. (Eds.). (2021). Creator culture: An introduction to global social media entertainment. NYU Press.

Harlow, S. (Ed.). (2024) Content creators and journalists. Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas.

Poell, T., Nieborg, D. B., & Duffy, B. E. (2022). Platforms and cultural production. Polity.

Salamon, E., Belair-Gagnon, V., & Crawford, M. (Forthcoming). Journalism and social media in creator economies: Evolving structures and labor. New Media & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448251407336

Salamon, E. (2025). Peripheral creator labor: Navigating regional marginalization and resistance in social media entertainment. New Media & Society. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241308520

Dr. Errol Salamon
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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• creators
• influencers
• social media
• media industries
• digital journalism
• inequality
• labour
• platforms
• political economy
• work