Social Media Entertainment Research Articles

From local to global: Village YouTubers and rural creator cultures in South India

This article examines emerging rural creator cultures in South India. Specifically, it focuses on the uptake and production of YouTube videos by village creators, a relatively understudied but increasingly important phenomenon given the rapid spread of social media entertainment in rural India. Through a case study on My Village Show, a YouTube media collective, this article shows how rural cultural producers transformed into ‘media workers’, ‘creators’, and ‘influencers’. The South Indian YouTubing landscape, with a multitude of village-centric social media entertainment channels, reveals a new dynamic of cultural production in the Global South, distinguished by collective, collaborative, and formalizing creator labor practices. Drawing upon ethnographic observation and in-depth interviews with rural cultural producers, this article analyzes and conceptualizes rural creator cultures within particular socio-cultural, vernacular, and regional dynamics in India.

Multilayer intermediation: Exploring the organization of cultural intermediaries in social media entertainment

This article investigates the phenomenon of the platformization of cultural production within social media entertainment, describing the peculiar interaction between creators and publishing groups. It relies on the case of the Italian video-making company The Jackal and their distinctive economic, organizational, and creative connection with the publishing group CiaoPeople. Starting from Bourdieu’s definition of cultural intermediaries, the article interrogates the role of social media creators as new cultural intermediaries occupying spaces between creativity and economy, acting as co-producers, tastemakers, selectors, and managers of cultural goods and services. Through a longitudinal study, the article argues that social media entertainment enacts a “multilayer intermediation” between brands, creators, consumers, and digital platforms, where legacy media companies may provide creators with tools to resist the entrance of platforms into creative production.

Sexual diversity and streaming television: Toward a platform studies approach to analyzing LGBTQ+ TV

This essay argues for the utility of a platform-studies approach alongside textual analysis when studying the politics of sexual representation in contemporary television programming. Using a corpus of four LGBTQ+-themed programs that represent queer and trans sexualities and HIV/AIDS, the paper argues that funding mechanisms play a constitutive role in determining the kinds of sexual diversity that can circulate via streaming technologies. Comparing and contrasting content created for SVODs, BVODs, and video-sharing platforms, the essay considers the impact that the economic diversity of television’s multiplatform ecology has on the sexual diversity of content that circulates there. Purposefully combining an analysis of online TV with social media entertainment, the essay casts ‘streaming television’ as a wide, varied category whose relationship to questions of representational diversity is more complex than existing scholarship on these issues sometimes suggests. Situating its analysis in the literatures of platform studies, media industry studies, and television’s politics of LGBTQ + representation, the essay shifts the purview of ‘diversity’ away from representations of identity and toward diversities of funding mechanisms and diversities of sexual acts and practices. The essay argues for the necessity of textual analysis to properly articulate the relationship between platforms and the politics of sexual representation in the content that they circulate.

Localised precarity in social media entertainment: YouTubing in Turkey

This article examines precarious working conditions for YouTube content creation in Turkey. Creator studies have extensively examined creator precarity within the context of platform architectures and the broader social media entertainment industries. Instead of applying this lens to YouTubing in Turkey to highlight shared precarity experiences of Turkish creators with other YouTube production cultures, I focus on localised precarity to examine how creator labour is made less stable by geographical context. Drawing on in-depth interviews with creators, the research findings demonstrate that there are multiple sources of precarity associated with localised YouTube revenues in an unstable national economy, restrictive internet governance at nation-state level, and culturally situated creator–audience relations.

Social Media Marketing Initiatives and Brand Loyalty

Background: Social media advertising strategies have radically changed how brands interact with consumers and cultivate brand loyalty. The study's principal objective was to identify the influence of social media marketing activities on consumer brand loyalty toward shopping goods. Methods: The study used primary data from a structured survey questionnaire with the six-point Likert scale sent to Nepalese customers. The study's sampling was convenient, and the Kathmandu-based location was chosen as the sample site. The study's population was the consumers of consumer shopping goods. People who purchase consumer shopping items were given 600 surveys, but only 395 usable questionnaires were collected. Results: Through the path analysis, the influence of the credibility of social media significantly and positively influenced brand loyalty (β = 0.165, p < 0.05). It was also found that the informativeness of social media significantly impacted brand loyalty toward consumer shopping goods (β = 0.130, p < 0.05). Likewise, it was also investigated whether social media entertainment significantly impacts brand loyalty (β = 0.426, p < 0.05) toward consumer shopping goods in the Nepalese market. Conclusion: By leveraging the power of social media venues to engage with customers, deliver pertinent content, and create personalized experiences, businesses may cultivate a strong emotional connection with their target audience, increasing brand loyalty and trust. Novelty: The study results show how future researchers and business people can look at the new conditions for market growth.

Scrutinizing the Myth of Kumunity: The Semiotics of the Philippines’ Pinoy Big Brother Season 10

In applying Roland Barthes' semiotic theory to the analysis of Pinoy Big Brother Season 10 (Dyogi, Katigbak, Vidanes & Andrada, 2021-2022), this study delves into the intricate layers of meaning embedded in the show's 'Kumunity' concept, a term created by the fusion of 'Kumu,' a social media entertainment app, and "community." The primary focus is on unraveling the myth that the 'kumunity' symbolizes within the broader context of the reality television landscape in the Philippines. The investigation meticulously scrutinized selected components of the show—images, music, and dialogues—to elucidate the orders of signification, exposing the nuanced and multifaceted meanings conveyed. The 'kumunity' is portrayed as mirroring a tangible community with shared goals among housemates, showcasing a cohesive objective reminiscent of a localized collective. However, beneath this surface portrayal, this study uncover a rich tapestry of implicit meanings. These include subtle assertions of authority and power dynamics, the reinforcement of cultural nuances, the elevation and glorification of resilience as a virtue, and instances of disunity within the overarching support system. The study, through extensive analysis, goes beyond the apparent and reveals the intricate web of hidden ideologies within the signs presented in Pinoy Big Brother Season 10. It sheds light on the subtle yet impactful societal messages that permeate the realm of reality television, contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of the show's influence on cultural perceptions and dynamics. Keywords: Kumu, kumunity, Pinoy Big Brother, Roland Barthes, semiotics.

BLEEDING PURPLE, SEEING PINK: DOMESTIC VISIBILITY, GENDER & SOCIAL REPRODUCTION IN THE HOME STUDIOS OF TWITCH.TV

From greenscreens in the bedroom to webcams on refrigerators, household surfaces underlie the broadcast of personality on Twitch.tv, Amazon’s $15 billion platform for live video entertainment. This paper examines how homemaking and visibility are co-conceptualized in the labour of gendered and racialized game live streamers. Drawing from a virtual ethnography of Twitch creators’ domestic spaces in North America (n=12), I document the staging of household visibility in relation to Twitch’s affordances of on-demand broadcast and play. Extending feminist and social reproduction theorizations of housework, I discuss how this convergence of house- and sight-making reifies the gaming industry’s historic reliance upon unremunerated spousal support. How such marginalised Twitch streamers calibrate opacity between their broadcasts and their homes reveals the affinities between platform aggregation and domestic privatisation on local and global scales. The converging geographies of labour, leisure, and living demanded by Twitch represent more than ancillary sites where gameplay(ers) are visually recomposed as “web-ready” for live platform(ization). Rather, the management of a domestic timespace on Twitch represents a struggle for autonomy over the means of cultural production by workers across social media entertainment. This paper reframes “Bleed Purple” as more than Twitch’s company slogan, branded by emojis. Rather, it proffers Twitch as a vital case study on why social reproduction and feminist theories are integral to deepening our understanding of platform work, in and beyond the home.

“Don’t Make Me Ratio You Again”: How Political Influencers Encourage Platformed Political Participation

Ratioing describes when a reply earns more likes than an original post on social media. They also offer influencers opportunities to convert audience attention into political actions capable of temporarily shaping online discourse. Ratios are then one of many influencer-driven strategies that leverage platform features and affordances to direct audiences to specific actions that amplify the influencer’s content in the crowded social media entertainment market. Hasan Piker is one of the most popular political influencers on Twitch, which he uses as a base to organize and direct his audience into coordinated actions across multiple platforms. Piker reigns on Twitch, but has significantly less Twitter followers than all of his targets, meaning the ratio strategy prompts targeted actions that simultaneously increase his visibility. This article uses three case studies to highlight ratioing as a strategy for eliciting political participation, such as when Piker ratioed rivaling political influencers, a US Senator, and a famous rapper.

Political Influencers on Social Media: An Introduction

Influencers are omnipresent on social media platforms. They occupy important digital real estate across a range of topical domains including beauty, fashion, and gaming. While researchers have contributed important work on the respective role that authenticity plays for influencers’ success and have described a burgeoning industry within the larger domain of social media entertainment, comparably little is known about what happens when influencers get involved in politics, when they harness their digital clout to promote political causes and social issues, and thereby become political influencers. This introduction to the special issue on political influencers provides a definition of what makes someone a political influencer. It theoretically locates political influencers within the larger field of media and communication scholarship, and delineates the term from other, related concepts such as that of opinion leader. Building on eight contributions focused across more than six countries and nine platforms, the article showcases important strands of current and future research. It provides the foundation for a more systemic understanding of political influencers on social media, situating them within a media ecology complicated by a diverse array of traditional and nontraditional actors, tactics, and dynamics. The article concludes with recommendations for future research.

MAKING A MEDIA CAREER ON AND BEYOND YOUTUBE: DIVERSITY IN PROFESSIONAL IDENTITIES OF YOUTUBE CREATORS

YouTube as part of a growing social media entertainment (SME) industry has taken various steps to professionalise, formalise and regulate the field of user-generated content and successfully integrated self-professionalised YouTube creators into an emerging creative workforce of SME. The industrialisation and professionalisation of YouTubing have created the assumption of a formalisation of professional identity as a YouTuber or a content creator in the SME industry. Contrary to this assumption, I argue that there is a divergence from fixed categories as it is not possible to fix permanently or define conclusively the professional identity as a YouTuber because conditions of content creator labour are precarious. In this paper, drawing upon qualitative data collected for my doctoral research, I investigate how creators who engage in self-governance as risk-bearing creative agents form their professional identities inside or outside YouTube careers and illuminate the diversity and ambivalence in their professional identities due to the precarious nature of their work. Despite being at different career stages and having a wide range of backgrounds, motivations, skills, and experiences, YouTube creators who participated in this project had something in common: They needed to be flexible in shifting between different professional identities and types of employment relations in order to make a media career on and beyond YouTube. This is because it is hard to imagine or maintain a single career path towards being a professional creator due to existing or future uncertainties.

The Impact of Entertainment on Buyers’ Decisions via Facebook: Jordanian Youth Behavior of E-Fashion Stores Context

This study aims to determine the impact of social media entertainment on buying decisions via the Facebook platform. The research is quasi-experimental and is quantitative and descriptive. The sample size reached 500 active Facebook users from the Jordanian youth, and the snowball sample technique was employed. A questionnaire is the only tool used to collect the primary data and contains closed-ended questions. The Likert five-point scale measures the responses through the partial least squares (PLS) method. It was concluded that there is a positive statistical impact of social media-based entertainment on the buying decisions from e-fashion stores on the Facebook platform, and social media entertainment explains 28% of the variations in the buying decisions from e-fashion stores via Facebook. Social media is an effective and safe solution to cutting high unemployment rates in the Jordanian economy. The e-buying experience depends on entertainment, enjoyment, relaxation, and leisure. It is a radical solution for creating new jobs in the economy and decreasing the poverty rates among poor and unemployed people.

Branded Dreams, Boss Babes: Influencer Retreats and the Cultural Logics of the Influencer Para-Industry

This article critically examines influencer retreats as important sites of industrialization within the social media entertainment industry. Using Pangea Dreams as a case study and drawing on industrial discourses and textual artifacts, including interviews, popular press articles, and social media posts, I argue that influencer retreats constitute sites where assumptions about modes of production, labor, and content are produced and circulated, passing industry lore and knowledge onto those aspiring to break into the scene. Positioning influencer retreats as part of a growing influencer para-industry, I argue that these sites deserve consideration and critical examination as part of the extra-textual field and organizational structure surrounding the rapidly formalizing social media entertainment industry. This research provides insights into processes of industrialization in the social media entertainment industry and its growing para-industry, as well as a critical examination of the ways in which influencer retreats both reflect and reproduce social inequalities and hierarchies within the industry.

Wanghong as Social Media Entertainment in China. DavidCraig, JianLin, and StuartCunningham. Palgrave Macmillan, 2021. 197 pp. $109.99 hardcover.

The Journal of Popular CultureVolume 55, Issue 3 p. 718-721 Book Review Wanghong as Social Media Entertainment in China. David Craig, Jian Lin, and Stuart Cunningham. Palgrave Macmillan, 2021. 197 pp. $109.99 hardcover. Bojia He, Bojia HeSearch for more papers by this author Bojia He, Bojia HeSearch for more papers by this author First published: 26 July 2022 https://doi.org/10.1111/jpcu.13126Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume55, Issue3June 2022Pages 718-721 RelatedInformation

Selfies and shelfies on #bookstagram and #booktok – social media and the mediation of Australian teen reading

ABSTRACT This article explores how selfies and shelfies on the digital platforms Instagram and TikTok contribute to the dynamics of intermediation for Australian teen readers by presenting two contrasting case studies. The first features Australian Bookstagrammer @BookBookOwl whose social media accounts feature aspirational content in which identity construction is attached to her expertise as a bookstagrammer and book lover. The second is the TikTok account of @hana.might.read who frequently posts using the #booktok hashtag and whose posts are personal and reader-identity focused. The article aims to explore selfie and shelfie practices as examples of social media posts that potentially mediate book and reading culture for Australian teenagers. The article investigates how the examples exist as social media entertainment [Cunningham and Craig 2019. Social Media Entertainment: The New Intersection of Hollywood and Silicon Valley. New York: New York University Press] which incorporate and rely on traits of micro-celebrity [Abidin 2018. Internet Celebrity: Understanding Fame Online. Bingley: Emerald Publishing], performativity [Butler 1990. Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge] and relational labour [Baym 2018. Playing to the Crowd: Musicians, Audiences, and the Intimate Work of Connection. New York: New York University Press] as a key ingredient of their success.

Book Review: Wanghong as Social Media Entertainment in China

Book Review: Wanghong as Social Media Entertainment in China

When is a Poet an Instapoet?

Abstract Through professional social media accounts, poets can become actors in the ecosystem of Social Media Entertainment (SME). In this article, using an ecological perspective, the accounts of five poets are treated as exhibits of processes they take part in, both platform-specific practices related to content creation in the SME, and practices showing the interlocking and overlapping of the SME with other ecosystems of cultural production. By doing this, the article aims to show how platformization as a socio-technological process is shaping the practice of being a poet. The article identifies the platform-specific practices the poets partake in that make it possible to say when they are being instapoets on Instagram. For the concept of “instapoet” to be fruitful when referring to poets, it is not enough for them to merely be on social media. A poet is an instapoet when they take on the platform-specific tasks of a social media creator, which is more than just producing content. Often, poets are not only instapoets. Rather, how much of an instapoet you are depends on how platform-dependent you are.

Social Media Entertainment: The New Intersection of Hollywood and Silicon ValleyStuartCunningham and DavidCraig. New York University Press, 2019

The Journal of American CultureVolume 45, Issue 1 p. 110-111 Book Review Social Media Entertainment: The New Intersection of Hollywood and Silicon Valley , Cunningham, Stuart and Craig, David. New York University Press, 2019 Bob Johnson, Corresponding Author Bob Johnson rjohnson@nu.edu National UniversitySearch for more papers by this author Bob Johnson, Corresponding Author Bob Johnson rjohnson@nu.edu National UniversitySearch for more papers by this author First published: 26 March 2022 https://doi.org/10.1111/jacc.13315Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume45, Issue1March 2022Pages 110-111 RelatedInformation

A Pedagogue's Progress, the Cunningham Turn, and the Birth of Creator Studies

As partners in an ongoing global research initiative over the past 6 years, Queensland University of Technology Distinguished Professor Stuart Cunningham and University of Southern California Clinical Professor David Craig mapped the rise of two competing communication and media industries, Social Media Entertainment and Wanghong. Alongside other vanguard scholars, Cunningham and Craig identified and framed the emergence of Creator Studies, an interdisciplinary field of studies focused on the dynamics of new forms of cultural production across social media platforms from diverse fields, methods, and epistemologies. These developments are described within a picaresque auto-ethnographic account of Cunningham's influence on the author's progression from Hollywood producer to scholar and pedagogue.

Pero Like and mitú

In 2016, Buzzfeed announced the creation of Pero Like, a Facebook page and YouTube channel that would “look at the myriad identities under the ‘Latinx umbrella,’” including “[B]laxicans in LA, Tejanos in Corpus Christi, Cubans in Miami (and their abuelitas), and everyone who’s been told they don’t ‘look Latina.’” Pero Like followed the footsteps of mitú, a new media multi-channel network created in 2012 to target younger, bicultural Latinx audiences who are avid internet users and overlooked by legacy media. This article analyzes how Latina millennial digital content creators negotiate, mediate, and contest Latinidad through social media entertainment. It focuses on four of the most popular Latina creators featured on mitú and Pero Like: Jenny Lorenzo, Kat Lazo, Julissa Calderon, and Maya Murillo. In doing so, the article explores how these creators articulate the politics of Latinx millenniality through a focus on cultural specificity, panethnicity, generational differences, language practices, race and racism, and beauty standards.

Social media information and student performance: the mediating role of hedonic value (entertainment)

PurposeThis study evaluates the mediating role of social media entertainment on social information (content) and social media performance, during the COVID-19 era.Design/methodology/approachPrimary data were randomly gathered from 373 students from two top universities (public and private) in Ghana, a sub-Saharan African economy. Data analysis was achieved utilizing the partial least square–structural equation model (PLS-SEM).FindingsSocial media (SM) entertainment partly mediates the link between social media content and social media performance of students, suggesting that social media entertainment is almost indispensable in creating social media content to achieve optimum performance among tertiary students.Research limitations/implicationsThe use of cross-sectional data alone for this study does not give us the opportunity to observe the social media activities of respondents over a longer period. Future studies could, therefore, include longitudinal data.Practical implicationsThe findings in this study suggest that faculties can modify their pedagogical activities to include social media and reflect some entertainment content, since it has an influence on student performance within the social media space.Social implicationsSM has a great influence on students' performance socially and academically; therefore, educational stakeholders like university authorities, faculties, parents and guardians, and the government should consider social media as a tool for attaining educational goals.Originality/valueThe study extends the use of UTAUT2, in understanding students' learning and behavior processes, by linking antecedents of adoption to the post-adoption effect.