Platformed Creation:
The World of Influencers, Content Creators, and Micro-Celebrities
Friday, October 16, 2020
Virtual Symposium
Stanford University | Stanford Ethnography Lab
From popular science to beauty tips, vintage car repairs to drill videos, “Renegade” dance moves to travel photography, the world of online creation takes many different shapes depending on the platform, language, location, and sociodemographic characteristics of content creators. This symposium brings together scholars studying online creation on social media platforms such as (but not limited to) YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. We seek to identify what is common across subfields, as well as examine variation in the careers, discourses, and constraints faced by content creators as they navigate the technological and economic structures of platforms. Together, the presentations will map the extraordinary diversity and ecosystem of online creation in the age of social media.
Introduction (6am-6:10am PST)
Forrest Stuart & Angèle Christin (Stanford University)
Panel 1 (6:10am-7:10am PST)
Stuart Cunningham (Queensland University of Technology). COVID and the creators: Social Media Entertainment Revisited in the Pandemic-Recession and in China
Crystal Abidin (Curtin University, Jönköping University). Influencers in the Age of Call Out and Cancel Cultures
Ruixi Mao (University of Chicago). Empirical Studies on the Professionalized China Live-Streaming Labor
Panel 2 (7:20am-8:20am PST)
Meredith Clark (University of Virginia). Toward a Theory of #BlackGirlMagic
Zoë Glatt (London School of Economics). The Failed Promise of Diversity and Meritocracy: An Intersectional Analysis of the Influencer Community Industry
Kaiping Chen (University of Wisconsin-Madison). A Critical Appraisal of Diversity in Digital Knowledge Production: A Segregated Inclusion of Knowledge Producers Community on YouTube
-- 15mn break --
Panel 3 (8:35am-9:35am PST)
Matt Rafalow (University of California-Berkeley). Do it Live: How YouTubers Tell a Good Story
Victoria O’Meara (Western University). Seeking Visibility or Calculative Agency?: Content Creators, Metric Manipulation, and the Struggle over Measure
Katrin Tiidenberg (Tallinn University). �❤️�: What is Social Media Influence?
Panel 4 (9:45-10:45am PST)
Ashley Mears (Boston University). Algorithmic Capital and the Uneven Pursuit of Profit.
Alison Hearn (University of Western Ontario). House Hype: Unraveling the Promotional Value Chain Behind ‘Collab Houses’
Stefanie Duguay and Anne-Marie Trépanier (Concordia University). Re/creation through Zoom: Exploring the Platformed Production of Club Quarantine’s Queer Dance Parties during the COVID-19 Pandemic
-- 15mn break --
Panel 5 (11am-noon PST)
Brooke Erin Duffy (Cornell University). “Very Unpredictable Platforms”: The Nested Precarity of Social Media Labor
Jabari Evans (Northwestern University). The Anatomy of Digital Clout: Examining Social Media Self-Branding, Visibility and Relational Labor Strategies of Black Youth in Chicago’s DIY Hip-Hop Scene.
Becca Lewis and Angèle Christin (Stanford University). Rumors, Conspiracies, and the Anxieties of Authenticity: The Drama Community on YouTube
Panel 6 (12:10-1:10pm PST)
Forrest Stuart (Stanford University). Ballad of the Bullet: The Offline Effects of Online Infamy
Sophie Bishop (King’s College London). Influencer Management Tools: Algorithmic Cultures, Brand Safety and Bias
Robyn Caplan (Data & Society, Rutgers University). Platform or Podium: Expanding on the Notion of “Tiered Governance” in Content Moderation
Concluding remarks (1:10-1:20 PST)
