Project description
How online content creators organise as entrepreneurs
On digital platforms, people interact with each other and conduct commercial transactions, creating new forms of value. The ERC-funded PAY4PLAY project aims to study how content creators and their communities organise social and economic life. The project compares gamers, VTubers and adult content creators working in English, Japanese and Spanish to investigate the role of culture, stigma and technology in creator communities. Using ethnography, digital methods and policy analysis, PAY4PLAY will map the conditions of monetised content creation and the forms of value generated by creator communities. Its findings aim to inform new theories of platform power and guide future policies for the creator economy.
Objective
Digital platforms increasingly integrate financial transactions into social interactions, facilitating new ways of coming together and creating value. PAY4PLAY sets out to develop a new theory of organizing that grapples with the intersection of sociotechnical systems and socioeconomic relations that characterizes public life in the platform society. I focus on creator communities, defined as primarily platform-based associations formed around media personas with (1) hierarchal structures, (2) monetized interactions, and (3) asymmetrical relationships. I approach the project’s overarching question—How do people form communities around media personas and with what consequences?—from three perspectives: culture, infrastructure, and policy. Across each perspective, I compare three types of creators (gamers, VTubers, and adult content creators) working in three languages (English, Spanish, and Japanese) to understand how factors such as occupational stigma, gender, technology, and geography shape opportunities for organizing. PAY4PLAY employs distinct methodological approaches and disciplinary toolkits drawn from media and communication, information science, and economic sociology best suited to engage with each perspective, investigating culture with multi-sited ethnography, infrastructure with digital methods, and policy with controversy mapping and stakeholder interviews. Through an integrative analysis of these methods, this project will conceptualize creator communities on their own terms, mapping the value they provide to those involved and their broader influence. PAY4PLAY will thus offer the first large-scale comparison of the industry conditions of monetized content creation, develop a new theory of organizing and platform power, create methodological tools for future comparative research within the creator economy, and offer new policy recommendations for integrating creators into platform governance at the state and corporate levels.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2025-STG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
8000 Aarhus C
Denmark
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.