How does the Finnish media landscape change in the age of platforms?

What is the impact of social video influencers in the media ecosystem?

My research looks at how the Finnish media landscape changes in the age of platforms. What is the impact of social video influencers in the media ecosystem, and what are the consequences of platformization of media culture to the nation’s democratic, social and cultural conditions?

While the power of platforms over legacy media companies has been studied (see for example the recent Road to Freedom research project), less attention has been given to the affordances of platforms to create new economic and cultural value in terms of enabling the emergence of new media businesses.

Growth year-over-year

Influencer marketing has grown into a 40-million euro industry in Finland (IAB, in Finnish). The emergent industry consists of social video content creators managing their own businesses, and intermediary companies such as influencer agencies, or talent agencies, serving both advertisers as well as influencers. My work is arguably the first attempt to systematically analyze an ecosystem of social video platform intermediary companies as well as creators as entrepreneurs in Finland.

This emerging industry has implications not only for the media economy but also for media diversity, and ultimately democracy.

Theoretical aspects

Research fields relevant to my dissertation are infrastructure studies, platform studies and the emerging field of creator studies. I will use the holistic framework for analysis of platformization of cultural production by Poell et al (2021), covering institutional aspects (markets, infrastructure and governance), and cultural practices (labour, creative, and democratic practices).

I am just taking the very first steps - you are welcome to follow my research journey from the very beginning.