Creating digital value: the role of independent creators as multi-platform users

Abstract

This chapter discusses the role of online platformplatforms in the production and consumption of cultural products. We explore contemporary forms of cultural creation through digital means where production, distribution, and consumption intertwine. We contribute to the literature on platformization in the cultural and creative sectors by exploring value generation via online intermediaries with different roles (e.g., patronage, funding, co-creation, streaming, and broadcasting) whereby creators produce, share, interact with audiences, and monetize content. With a presence on various platforms, creators generate economic and non-economic value from amateur or professional work by building a wide digital presence for community engagement and monetization. We argue that digitalization changes the careers of independent artists in that they become multi-platform-users adapting their presence to multi-purpose intermediaries which allows the rewarding of creation via both pecuniary and non-pecuniary means