ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

Anna Bisogno

Purchase here: https://www.carocci.it/prodotto/tv-espansa

Television has not disappeared; it has simply moved and now lives elsewhere: in feeds and in the connections of an audience that scrolls through smartphones and tablets and inhabits digital platforms, where algorithms decide what to watch and storytelling blends with consumption. In this new ecosystem, television hybridizes with the language of social media, fragments into clips, recomposes itself into memes, and expands into digital formats.

As the book highlights, this is an expanded television that interacts with artificial intelligence, builds endless archives, and personalizes tastes and viewing experiences. It forms an archipelago of practices, languages, and devices in which data participate in the creative process, shaping narratives, rhythms, and formats, and redefining the role of authors and the very meaning of writing.

In the Italian context, linear television enters into osmosis with platforms and social media, giving rise to a heterogeneous model in which forms of audience participation are reconfigured and viewing becomes a continuous and shared experience.

Anna Bisogno is an Associate Professor at Universitas Mercatorum, where she teaches Cinema, Radio and Television. Her research interests focus on Television Studies, the history of Italian television, and the narrative intersections between TV, digital platforms and social networks. She is also the author for RaiPlay of the program 30×70. Se dico donna….

Edited by: Ana Jorge and Sofia P. Caldeira

From parenting and pilgrimage to activism and mourning, this book explores how digital connection - and disconnection - shapes the emotional texture of our lives.

Using the concept of ‘affective atmospheres’, the authors examine the feelings that emerge in the interactions between people, platforms and places. Drawing on rich, real-world examples, it explores how digital media infuse our homes, beliefs, rituals and politics with emotion, tension and meaning.

Pre-order here: https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/atmospheres-and-digital-media

Or download Open access here: https://www.jstor.org/content/oa_book_edited/jj.32726851

TOC 

Introduction: Atmospheres and Digital Media Dis/connection - Ana Jorge, Sofia Caldeira

Chapter 1: Post-digital parenting: the relational-affective network of the family - Francisca Porfírio, Ana Jorge, Rita Grácio

Chapter 2: Platformised feminisms and social media ambiences - Sofia Caldeira, Ana Jorge, Ana Kubrusly

Chapter 3: Affective temporalities in pilgrimage: anticipation, presence and (pro)longing - Ana Jorge, Filipa Neto, Ana Kubrusly, Edna Santos

Chapter 4: Affective intensities of dis/connection in mourning - Ionara Silva, Ana Jorge, Filipa Neto

Afterword: Reflections on affective atmospheres and felt experience in the mediation of everyday social practices - Peter Lunt

October 7-10, 2026

Toronto, Canada

Deadline: April 30, 2026

Call for abstracts for an open panel at 4S 2026 (7-10 October in Toronto, Canada): Techno-Magical Futures & Histories (Panel #245). 

The panel explores: the historical, material, and socio-cultural dimensions of the relationship between magic and technology; efforts by Silicon Valley to position AI technologies as omniscient, god-like entities with supernatural capabilities; intersections between magic and computation; magic and technoscience; and discussions including techno-magical discourses, sociotechnical imaginaries, material practices, hegemonic order, policy and regulation.

Scholars across various fields and disciplines including communication and media studies are welcome to submit a 250-word abstract. The deadline is 30 April.

Communication and the Public (Special issue)

Deadline: March 20, 2026

Only one week left to submit abstracts for the Call for Papers for an upcoming Special Issue of Communication and the Public (https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ctp), entitled: Co-Producing Environmental Publics: Technology, Communication, and Ecological Transformation

In recent decades, environmental challenges—ranging from climate change and air pollution to biodiversity loss and resource scarcity—have increasingly shaped not only policy agendas but also the very texture of public life globally. Responding to these crises, digital technologies—including sensor networks, big data analytics, algorithmic systems, and artificial intelligence—have become constitutive elements in how environmental issues are rendered visible, knowable, and actionable.

These technologies do more than document ecological change. They actively intervene in the communicative infrastructures through which publics emerge, take shape, and act. Systems of sensing, modeling, and prediction increasingly define what counts as “environmental risk,” thereby shaping understandings of responsibility, urgency, and agency. At the same time, these infrastructures operate unevenly: algorithmic filtering, platform governance, and unequal access to data intensify existing inequalities in visibility, participation, and recognition—particularly in contexts of rapid or uneven environmental degradation.

As a result, environmental publics are increasingly co-produced through the interaction of ecological conditions, technological systems, and communicative practices. Yet many existing theories of publicness and communication—largely premised on stable media environments and human-centered deliberation—struggle to account for publics constituted through algorithms, sensors, platforms, and predictive ecologies.

This special issue seeks to advance scholarly understanding of how technological systems reshape environmental communication and how ecological crises, in turn, reconfigure the communicative, institutional, and imaginative infrastructures of public life. By foregrounding the mutually constitutive relationship between technology, publics, and ecological transformation, the issue aims to deepen theoretical debates on public formation, algorithmic governance, mediated knowledge production, and collective action in an era of planetary uncertainty.

Scope and Themes

We welcome conceptual, methodological, and empirical contributions that examine how digital technologies mediate environmental governance, identity formation, activism, and the circulation of ecological knowledge. Contributions may engage with one or more of the following (non-exhaustive) themes:

• Algorithmic infrastructures and the formation of environmental publics
  
• Datafication, environmental knowledge, and public authority
  
• Public communication of climate models, predictive ecologies, and digital simulations
  
• Networked environmental activism and hybrid public mobilization
  
• Communicative agency among scientists, Indigenous communities, and climate advocates
  
• Surveillance ecologies, risk governance, and public trust
  
• Digital platforms, environmental legitimacy, and contestations of power
  
• Environmental media propaganda, misinformation, and AI-generated narratives
  

We especially encourage submissions from underrepresented regions (Asia, Africa, Latin America, Indigenous contexts) and interdisciplinary perspectives across communication studies, STS, environmental governance, and political ecology.

Submission Process and Key Dates

Abstract submission deadline: March 20, 2026

Notification of invitations to submit full papers: March 30, 2026

(Please note that an invitation does not guarantee publication; all full manuscripts will undergo the journal’s standard peer-review process.)

Full paper submission deadline: July 31, 2026

Planned publication: 2027

Abstract Submission Guidelines: Please submit an abstract of up to 500 words, in English, to all guest editors with the subject line: “CAP Special Issue Submission”

Guest Editors:

Dr. Dechun Zhang, University of Copenhagen (dezh@hum.ku.dk)

Dr. Weiai Xu, University of Massachusetts Amherst (weiaixu@umass.edu)

Dr. Han Lin, Soochow University (linhan741@gmail.com)

Full call for paper: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zAr6qNL5YtkC9YKQtj9VexGcPmZxelaq/view?usp=sharing

We would greatly appreciate it if you could circulate this Call for Papers within your professional networks and among colleagues who may be interested. We look forward to your submissions.

Siren! Magazine (Inaugural Issue, May 2026)  

Deadline: March 30, 2026

Siren! Magazine is a transnational student-led feminist magazine dedicated to amplifying voices, knowledges, and practices that are often submerged within dominant media and cultural ecosystems.  

Our inaugural issue, “Resurfacing feminist voices,” will be launched as an intervention into the noise of contemporary media culture, resisting silencing, challenging hegemonic narratives, and reclaiming communication as a key site for care, solidarity, and transformation. 

To accompany our first issue, alongside scholarly submissions, Siren! Magazine invites news, announcements, and short reports about events, initiatives, and cultural interventions related to submerged knowledges, practices, and forms of collective resistance. We aim to remain open to any and all spaces. Our intention is to share updates and collaboration opportunities transnationally and to foster dialogue across contexts we might not otherwise be able to access.  

We invite short submissions (200-400 words) that clearly document and contextualize specific initiatives, events, or projects. Submissions should include key details such as the name of the event or initiative, dates, location (if applicable), organizing bodies

 or collaborators, and a brief reflection on its aims, methods, and impact. When relevant, contributors are encouraged to include links, images, or contact information to support further connection and collaboration. 

We welcome submissions that share information about: 

• Activist gatherings, workshops, and assemblies, including their themes, participants, and outcomes 
  
• Exhibitions, performances, and film screenings, with attention to curatorial or artistic interventions 
  
• Community-based media projects and collaborative platforms 
  
• Indigenous, queer, feminist, or diasporic cultural events and organizing spaces 
  
• Archival initiatives, memory work, and counter-archives in practice 
  
• Transnational solidarity networks and grassroots organizing efforts 
  

We are especially interested in submissions that critically engage how these initiatives challenge dominant media narratives, center historically silenced voices, and experiment with alternative forms of communication and collective knowledge production. 

How to submit 

Please send your submission by email to asc-sirenmagazine@asc.upenn.edu with the subject line: “Siren! News & Events Submission – Inaugural Issue” 

Deadline: March 30th, 2026

Submissions may be written or multimedia, and can document past, ongoing, or upcoming events. Selected contributions will be featured in the inaugural issue of

Siren!, scheduled for publication in May 2026. 

Estudios sobre el Mensaje Periodístico

Deadline: June 30, 2026

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to invite submissions for the upcoming special issue in the journal Estudios sobre el Mensaje Periodístico (EMP), a Q1 journal in Scopus: "Algorithmic Images and Information Urgencies: Challenges and Transformations of Contemporary Graphic Journalism."

As generative AI and digital shifts redefine our visual culture, photojournalism faces unprecedented aesthetic, ethical, and industrial hurdles. This monograph seeks to explore the complexities of documentary photography in an era marked by rapid technological change and global crises, from climate change and migration to the rise of polarized political narratives.

Languages for Submission:

Please note that the journal accepts original articles in Spanish, English, French, and Portuguese.

Key Information:

• Submission Deadline: June 30, 2026
  
• Expected Publication: October 2026
  
• More Details and Submission Platform: https://revistas.ucm.es/index.php/ESMP/monograficos/periodismografico

Topics include (not limited):

• AI & Image Mutation: Deontological limits, deepfakes, and algorithmic bias.
  
• Representing Reality: Visual activism, hybrid narratives, and documenting humanitarian crises or climate change.
  
• Structural Challenges: Gender equality in the profession and the economic sustainability of the photojournalistic industry.
  

Editors: Nieves Limón-Serrano (UCLM), Marta Martín-Núñez (UJI), and Mathias-Felipe-de-Lima-Santos (UNSW/UNIFESP/UPF).

Dear colleagues,

The lists of workshops and tutorials at ACM UMAP'26 are now available on the webpage of the conference, including links to each event's webpage.

Workshops: https://www.um.org/umap2026/workshops/

Tutorials: https://www.um.org/umap2026/tutorials/

We look forward to your participation!

The UMAP'26 organizers

March 12, 2026

London, England

As part of the Italian Symposium in London, we are delighted to invite you to an evening of interdisciplinary dialogue exploring the evolving relationship between artificial intelligence, ethics, and society with Professor Luciana Parisi (Duke University), Professor Francesca Toni (Imperial College London) and Bianca de Teffé Erb (Deloitte). 

What do we mean when we call a machine “intelligent”? And what happens to ethics, accountability and power when decision-making is increasingly shared with, or delegated to, algorithms?

This panel opens a critical interdisciplinary conversation across five key dimensions: how we define intelligence itself; how ethics must evolve after and with the machine; how bias and systems of social reproduction are encoded into data and predictive models; how explainability shapes trust between humans and AI; and how technological transformation demands new forms of governance that move beyond hype and fear towards an alternative understanding of human-AI operations.

Thursday, March 12

6:15 PM – 8:00 PM GMT

King's College London, Strand Building (Room S-2.08)

London, England

The event is free and will be held in English. Booking is required at the link here.

About the Speakers

Luciana Parisi is Professor in Literature and core faculty for the Graduate Program in Computational Media Art and Culture at Duke University, USA. She was a member of the CCRU (Cybernetic Culture Research Unit) and currently a co-founding member of CCB (Critical Computation Bureau). Her research is a philosophical investigation of technology in culture, aesthetics and politics. She is the author of Abstract Sex: Philosophy, Biotechnology and the Mutations of Desire (2004, Continuum Press) and Contagious Architecture. Computation, Aesthetics and Space (2013, MIT Press). She is completing a monograph on automation and philosophy (MIT Press, forthcoming) and co-editing the collection Colonial Fractals: The Racial Politics of Planetary Computation (Duke University Press, forthcoming).

Francesca Toni is Professor in Computational Logic in the Department of Computing, at Imperial College London, UK. She is the founder and leader of the CLArg (Computational Logic and Argumentation) research group and of the XAI Research Centre at Imperial. Her research interests lie within the broad area of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning in AI and Explainable AI, and in particular include Argumentation, Argument Mining, Logic-Based Multi-Agent Systems, Non-monotonic/Default/Defeasible Reasoning, Machine Learning. She is corner editor on argumentation for the Journal of Logic and Computation, in the editorial board of the Argument and Computation journal and associate editor for Theory and Practice of Logic Programming. She is also in the Board of Directors for KR Inc. and IJCAI trustee.

Bianca de Teffé Erb is Partner and Data & AI Ethics Lead at Deloitte. With over a decade of experience in consulting, she specialises in AI Governance, Ethics, Risk and Compliance. She supports multinational organisations such as NATO and ESA, public institutions and large industrial groups such as Confindustria in developing ethical and compliant AI adoption strategies, with a particular focus on the European AI Act. She is the author of the report “Towards an Ethics by Design Approach for AI,” presented at the European Parliament in 2024. Bianca was included in the “Top 20 Under 30” list by Forbes Italy in 2018. She was among the first professionals in Italy to obtain the ISO 42001 Lead Auditor certification.

The discussion will be moderated by Aglaia Freccero (Imperial College London), Dr Edoardo Occhipinti (UCL), Simone Pellegrino (Goldsmiths, University of London), and Emma Prévot (University of Oxford), four PhD and early-career researchers who will bring their diverse academic perspectives to this timely conversation on AI.

Under the broader Symposium theme, “Innovare Audere: A Future-Ready Italy,” this event reflects on the need for a critical approach to innovation and risk in shaping the future. In London, we explore how this spirit translates into Italy’s role in a rapidly changing world, through complementary perspectives on geopolitics and international relations, economic and financial competitiveness, and technology and innovation.

Over five days and across four universities, the Symposium convenes leading voices to discuss how Italy can strengthen its global influence and remain competitive in the decades ahead. The initiative is organised by United Italian Societies (UIS), a non-profit founded and led by Italian students abroad, connecting over 60 universities in more than 10 countries and representing a vibrant community of over 11,000 Italian students worldwide.

This panel is co-organised with UIS Research Centre, a student-led think tank rooted in academic excellence, committed to producing rigorous policy proposals and forward-thinking research on some of Italy's most compelling issues.

We look forward to welcoming you all to a stimulating discussion!

Reset ( special issue)

Deadline: May 4, 2026

Edited by Quentin Gilliotte (Carism, Université Panthéon-Assas), Marion Michel (Carism, Université Panthéon-Assas) and Phoebé Pigenet (Carism, Université Panthéon-Assas)

While research on content creation has existed since the 1990s, the recent development of platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, Twitch, and TikTok has marked a turning point by enabling the expansion of commercial activities and the professionalization of the sector. The marketing institute Reech estimates the number of “influencers” in France around 150,000 (Reech, 2025; Vie Publique, 2025). However, this estimate leaves behind a multitude of actors who engage in this activity more or less regularly, with uneven income streams, and enjoy varying degrees of visibility. These actors operate and circulate across spaces with diverse thematic orientations (ecology, sports, politics, well-being, etc.) and develop their activities both at the core of platforms (through audience success and monetization revenues) and at their margins (niche spaces, sites of reputation-building, or off-platform activities). These dynamics give rise to numerous economic or thematic subspaces that often function in opposition to dominant platform spaces.

This diversity is reflected in the ways of identifying and labeling these activities. Depending on whether the emphasis is placed on their actual or supposed influence over audiences (influencers, opinion leaders, media figures), on a specific type of production (videographers, podcasters, streamers), on claims to expertise or professional status in a given field or topic (nutritionists, journalists, engineers, sports coaches), or on anchoring within a particular digital ecosystem (YouTubers, TikTokers, Instagrammers), these labels vary according to contexts, publics, and settings. This proliferation of terminologies is also found in the academic literature and reflects divergent perspectives on these activities. Some studies refer to “Internet celebrities” or “micro-celebrities” (Abidin, 2018; Vizcaíno-Verdú & Abidin, 2023) to capture the articulation between visibility in these spaces and relationships with audiences. Other approaches foreground labor and subordination to digital infrastructures, analyzing these actors as “platform workers” within broader processes of platformization (Poell et al., 2019). Others examine content creators through the lens of leisure commodification and the continuum between amateurs and professionals, highlighting the specific forms of aspirational labor involved (Duffy, 2016). Finally, some studies explicitly label a subset of these actors as “influencers,” particularly concerning commercial or ideological forms of prescription (Bishop, 2025; Duverné et al., 2022; Godefroy, 2021; Michel, 2023), sometimes extending to attempts to measure the presumed effects of such prescriptions on audiences. Online content production for multiple and heterogeneous audiences is thus associated with a variety of labels, reflecting multiple disciplinary anchoring points (digital sociology, sociology of work, economic sociology, STS, communication and media studies, cultural studies, etc.).

In this issue, we approach these individuals and their practices through the notion of “content creators” referring to individuals who, via an account on a platform, publish digital productions to a community of followers. This term has gained significant traction in media and professional discourses—particularly among talent agencies, production companies, and communication firms—to describe segments of content production most closely aligned with commercial logic, while distancing itself from the more controversial notion of “influencer.” Nevertheless, the term has the advantage of designating these actors based on what they actually do, without presuming their degree of professionalization, economic model, focus, platform affiliation, or capacity to influence, prescribe, or orient audiences.

Research Strands

This issue aims precisely to focus on content creation and to examine the social, material, and economic conditions under which it is carried out on digital platforms. The issue welcomes a plurality of theoretical frameworks (digital and media sociology, sociology of work, economic sociology, gender studies, cultural studies, political economy of platforms, etc.) and empirical fields (France and other national or transnational contexts). Particular attention will be paid to the contributions empirical robustness, as well as to the ways in which they articulate in-depth analysis of a case or segment with a more general reflection on the structuring of the content creation space, its niches, markets, and hierarchies. The study of content creators also raises numerous methodological and epistemological challenges. Without constituting a standalone axis, submitted proposals are expected to take into account the issues involved in online data collection and to clearly explicate the chosen methodology, its relevance to the object of study, and its limitations. We also encourage submissions to detail how the production of scientific results is articulated with compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

1. Social and Professional Trajectories of Content Creators

While a substantial body of research has examined the formats, contents, and even the economic models of this activity, the individual trajectories of content creators remain largely under-explored. This axis seeks to fill this gap by examining how social, professional, and biographical trajectories articulate with the ways in which these online activities are carried out, in light of promises to lower barriers to entry.

On the side of professional trajectories, the question of the pro–am continuum (Flichy, 2010) has already been the object of a very large number of studies on online activities, which could be revisited in the light of recent developments in platform operations. Since this activity can expose individuals to many risks and criticisms from large audiences, one might ask what drives some amateurs to invest in these platforms if professionalization is not their career horizon.

When one seeks to qualify the occupations, professions, or activities involved, the extreme diversity of profiles and practices often makes analysis difficult: creators frequently combine several activities, oscillating between different professions—journalists, nutritionists, researchers, retailers, psychologists, reality TV stars. Thus, many individuals do not necessarily consider themselves content creators, while in practice being invested in these socio-digital platforms. This is, for example, the case for the artists studied by Sophie Bishop (2025), who clearly shows how the logic of commercial influence on platforms extends to many other sectors of activity, including highly amateur ones. At which point do individuals engaged in an activity outside platforms come to qualify themselves as content creators?

Although some studies have explored individual pathways through case studies (Assilaméhou-Kunz & Rebillard, 2022; Celik, 2014), it remains necessary to adopt a more systematic approach in order to analyze the dynamics of entry, staying, and career change within this activity, facilitated by the possibility of carrying out these activities remotely. How does membership in certain professional groups shape content creation? What are the bridges and the breaks between this activity and other professional sectors? While this may constitute a form of involuntary career change, as in the case of YouTube cartomancers (Gilliotte & Guittet, 2025), or a way to align professional activity with passion (Duffy, 2016), the sector’s strong commodification can also lead individuals to engage directly in it after their initial training. Which social and trajectory-related factors account for these differences?

When focusing on issues of trajectories and social stratification, several studies emphasize the belonging of some of content creators to upper social classes, such as YouTube science popularizers (Blanchard et al., 2018), eco-responsible content creators (Michel, 2023), or fitness influencers (Godefroy, 2021). Conversely, other spaces of online creation appear to be invested by members of the working and middle classes (Brasseur & Finez, 2019; Gilliotte & Guittet, 2023, 2025), which significantly shapes how they carry out their activity and how they position themselves professionally. These gaps bring to light dynamics of social stratification that deserve further investigation: what is the weight of social inequalities in creators’ access to and success within this activity? To what extent do these online spaces reproduce or transform traditional career logic and professional trajectories? Finally, to what extent do these diverse patterns of social recruitment lead to the valorization of certain segments of content-creation work? Conversely, do we observe that certain tasks tend to be delegated, following the model of “dirty work” (Hughes, 1962), and if so, which tasks and according to what criteria? Is it moderation work, accounting, video editing? These considerations invite us to rethink content creation within a collective framework: who takes charge of this “dirty work” (family, paid professionals), and how do creators’ economic, social, and cultural resources enable—or fail to enable—access to such forms of delegation?

These social effects should also be analyzed through the lens of gender. Many studies indeed highlight the continuity between feminine norms, digital expression, and the management of an online community (Duffy & Hund, 2015; Rocamora, 2017). Others show how digital entrepreneurship, because it can take place at home, is massively chosen by women seeking a better articulation between professional and family time, with the consequence of increasing their domestic workload (Landour, 2019). However, the growing commodification of content creation, alongside a symbolic revalorization of the activity, leads men to invest certain sectors such as political commentary or science popularization (Blanchard et al., 2018; Louis, 2016), while relegating women to sectors that are less socially valued, such as “lifestyle” (Gauthier, 2025). How does gender thus influence practices and representations of content creation? In the case of science popularization, for instance, women creators are more often victims of sexist attacks in comment sections than their male counterparts (Douyère & Ricaud, 2019); how can we describe the activity of these “men in women’s jobs” (Couppié & Epiphane, 2016) and, conversely, the reverse situation? How should we conceptualize the boundary between content creation “for men” and content creation “for women”? Similarly, many authors, including Angèle Christin and Yingdan Lu (Christin & Lu, 2024), have underscored the effects of race within platform capitalism, showing significant pay gaps depending on whether creators are racialized or not. Overall, intersectional approaches are strongly encouraged.

Finally, proposals may also examine these trajectories through the angle of creators’ insertion into professional organizations within the content-creation activity. This may already involve shedding light on the internal organization of channels. Thus, despite a strong embodiment around a particular figure, many channels nonetheless rely on highly collective production, as exemplified by the HugoDécrypte channel, which has more than 30 employees. How is this organization structured? How do the different actors divide up the work and manage the tension between visible and invisible labor? One may also question the professional organization of the sector more broadly. The sociology of markets observes that, in markets insufficiently regulated by public authorities, actors cooperate to collectively produce norms of exchange (Castel et al., 2016; Mallard, 2011). Since a Union of Influence Professions and Content Creators was established in 2023, what role do collective organizations take on and play in these markets? What positioning do content creators adopt vis-à-vis them?

2. Make a Living in the Content Creation Market

Various studies have highlighted the economic precariousness of the majority of these creators (Alexandre et al., 2024; Alexandre & Benbouzid, 2024). One of the first challenges for them is the organizational and economic viability of their activity, particularly in terms of shifting from amateur to professional production, given that many of them often fall within the pro-am continuum (Flichy, 2010, 2017). How do these creators manage to make a living from their activity? When creative activity pays little, what economic strategies are put in place to remain visible in the hope of one day being able to make a living from their passion (Duffy, 2016)? How do these creators professionalize themselves, while juggling different sources of income within a multifaceted market?

In terms of commercial partner relationships, a special focus will be placed on how creators negotiate relationships with various commercial partners. Creators must present themselves as trustworthy to businesses while creating a brand image that will attract specific audiences (Van Driel & Dumitrica, 2021). Marion Michel (2022) shows that eco-responsible content creators must learn to filter and choose their partners carefully so that they do not arouse suspicion among their audiences. How is the value of this relationship to audiences determined? More broadly, how do creators learn to “sell themselves,” set their rates, refuse or renegotiate certain partnerships? On the other hand, certain economic actors do not necessarily have an interest in these creators becoming more professional. This is highlighted in particular by the work of Joseph Godefroy (2021), which clearly shows how creators’ proximity to their audience leads to “friendly, contract-free work”, with creators being paid in goods or vouchers. What is preventing or slowing down the professionalization of some of these creators?

When it comes to analyzing the relationship with audiences, many studies focus on the ways in which certain forms of authenticity and closeness to audiences are performed (Bishop, 2025; Coavoux & Roques, 2020; Duverné et al., 2022). However, these performances of authenticity vary in different contexts—they depend on multiple factors such as the creators’ area of expertise, their gender, the platform, and their level of professionalization. Brasseur & Finez (2019) show how cam girls must “perform” amateurism in order to appeal to their audiences. How are these tensions expressed in other sectors? How does this proximity to audiences translate economically? In fact, certain content creation sectors place significant emphasis on donation and subscription mechanisms (Ferret, 2024), which can make the activity economically viable despite a limited presence in the public sphere. Others resort to a service market (coaching, training, consulting, crafts, care, etc.) or sell derivative products (Gilliotte & Guittet, 2025), using audiovisual platforms as a showcase for loss leaders. This diversity of models raises the issue of strategies adopted to ensure financial stability. How can content creation for large audiences be combined with smaller-scale service provision?

Finally, several studies show that monetization remains, for the most part, an uncertain source of income in the economic relationship forged with platforms, heavily influenced by the opacity of the algorithm and the volatility of visibility and remuneration criteria (Bishop, 2019; Gilliotte & Pasquier, 2024). The official rules for accessing monetization programs coexist with more discretionary changes in recommendation systems, which are never publicly announced, fueling a climate of uncertainty (Bishop, 2019, 2021) in which creators struggle to anticipate the effects of their editorial and economic choices. Contributions could therefore examine how creators interpret these changes: how do they learn to read, to comment, to anticipate or to circumvent the metrics and revenue dashboards made available to them? What strategies for maximization, diversification or, conversely, disengagement from these mechanisms do they develop (multiplication of platforms, arbitrage between monetisable and non-monetisable content, segmentation of channels according to editorial or economic functions, etc.)? How do these rules circulate in the professional field?

Beyond content creators themselves, the way the content creation market is organized can be called into question, particularly with the emergence and development of a variety of intermediaries, such as talent agencies and multichannel networks. The latter play a key part in negotiating content with advertisers, treating creators’ productions as actual advertising spaces (Desmoulins et al., 2018). What role do these commercial actors play in the professionalization of content creators and in revenue negotiations? To what extent do these new intermediaries participate in forms of delegation of “dirty work” (Hughes, 1962) or, on the contrary, reinforce the constraints on content production?

3. Creative Production and Formatting Under Constraints

Finally, the last axis focuses on content creation as an activity of its own, the practices and forms of knowledge it requires and the various trade-offs made in context. Beyond the economic issues discussed in Axis 1, content creators must operate within constrained frameworks, develop not only commercial but also artistic, bodily, and communication skills, while adapting and resisting to regulatory, technical, or algorithmic constraints (Bigot et al., 2021; Gomez-Mejia, 2016).

A growing body of research has highlighted the ways in which platforms prescribe and standardize content formats, as illustrated by the systems framing production on YouTube (Mattelart, 2021), TikTok (Guinaudeau et al., 2022), and Facebook (Alloing et al., 2021). This standardization relies on creators’ adaptation to platforms whose modes of operation are often described as opaque and highly specific. Many studies emphasize the importance of exchanging practical knowledge, through both experimentation and informal discussions among creators (Bishop, 2019), leading over time to a degree of convergence in practices. How does the learning of these norms take place in practice? What resources are mobilized? This learning process is all the more crucial given that content moderation policies are known to contribute to the visibility or invisibility of certain social groups, as illustrated by LGBT collectives affected by “over-moderation” (Grison et al., 2023). Various strategies are regularly implemented, such as creating backup accounts, self-censoring terms or images, resorting to alternative platforms, or collectively denouncing moderation measures perceived as abusive (Badouard, 2021). These constraints may even encourage voluntary exits from platforms, as illustrated by the HelloQuitX movement calling for users to leave X (formerly Twitter). Alongside strategies of resistance to censorship mechanisms are those aimed at instrumentalizing them, for instance for community-based purposes: organizing coordinated reporting campaigns or creating block lists (Pigenet, 2024). How is resistance to platform-imposed constraints organized? How are the closure or reopening of profiles across different platforms negotiated over time?

These difficulties are further compounded for creators who invest in multiple digital platforms and services simultaneously (Millette, 2013), which entails specific forms of trade-offs. Creators must therefore contend with more or less constraining formats, which may involve, for example, adapting long, horizontal content into short, vertical formats. This process constrains choices of staging and potentially complicates multi-platform creation. How does the adaptation from one format to another take place in practice? Which trade-offs lead to the choice of specific formats on particular platforms? Beyond their varying affordances, platforms also differ in terms of history, culture, and audiences. While some are experiencing rapid growth, others are in decline; some are particularly popular among younger publics, while others are more widely used by older users (Pacouret et al., 2024). How do creators adapt to real or imagined audiences?

Finally, this axis also invites reflection on adaptations to emerging legislative constraints. The rapid expansion of commercial collaboration practices targeting young audiences, combined with the media coverage of scandals involving content creators, has led in France to the adoption of a law on commercial influence on 9 June 2023. This law aims both to protect the work of creators—particularly minors—to prohibit certain practices, and to regulate advertising. Belgium has also strengthened its regulatory framework for creators, as part of a broader European movement toward the regulation and oversight of commercial influence practices, exemplified by the Digital Services Act adopted by the European Union in 2022. In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission issues guidelines for creators but adopts a more flexible approach. As a result, the sector is characterized by an evolving and uneven regulatory landscape across territories, despite the international nature of creators’ visibility and content. Yet few studies have examined how legislative regulation shapes practices. How do creators take legislative developments into account? Moreover, many creators enjoy international visibility: how does this affect their commercial practices, and how do they navigate between different regulatory frameworks? Submissions grounded in legislative contexts other than France are encouraged whether or not they adopt a comparative approach.

Practical Information

The abstracts (4000 signs maximum, plus references) are due on May 4, 2026. They should be sent to the following address: journal.reset@gmail.com

And to the coordinators of the issue:

• Quentin Gilliotte : quentin.gilliotte@gmail.com
  
• Phoebé Pigenet : ppigenet@gmail.com
  
• Marion Michel : marion.michel@sciencespo.fr
  

The proposal, written in either English or French, should state the research question, the methodology, and the theoretical framework used. It will focus on the scientific relevance of the proposed article in light of the existing literature and the call for papers, and may be accompanied by a short bibliography. We would like to draw the authors’ attention to a special section called Revisiting the Classics, devoted to new readings of classical authors and theories in light of the Internet.

The abstracts will be reviewed anonymously by the issue coordinators and the members of the editorial board. Authors of submissions selected at this stage will be asked to e-mail their full papers on January 15, 2013.

The journal Reset also accepts submissions to its “Varia” section, open to scholarly work in the Humanities and Social Sciences dealing with an Internet-related object or method of research.

Important dates

Deadline for abstract submission (4000 signs maximum, plus references): May 4, 2026.

Responses to authors: Before the end of June 2026.

Deadline for full papers (6,000 to 9,000 words, plus references): November 23, 2026.

Contact

Editorial board: journal.reset@gmail.com

Coordinators:

• Quentin Gilliotte : quentin.gilliotte@gmail.com
  
• Phoebé Pigenet : ppigenet@gmail.com
  
• Marion Michel : marion.michel@sciencespo.fr
  

Bibliographie

Des DOI sont automatiquement ajoutés aux références par Bilbo, l'outil d'annotation bibliographique d'OpenEdition.

Les utilisateurs des institutions qui sont abonnées à un des programmes freemium d'OpenEdition peuvent télécharger les références bibliographiques pour lequelles Bilbo a trouvé un DOI.

References

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Dear Colleagues,

I have begun work on a forthcoming book project. The development of the manuscript is scheduled to commence in June 2026. 

The title is Rewriting Reality: The Role of Algorithmic Media in Shaping Thought, Society, and Digital Belonging

I would be grateful if you could let me know whether you would be interested in contributing a chapter to this volume. On this occasion, chapters will be authored by a single contributor, and participation will be strictly by invitation.

If you believe that this topic may also be of interest to other colleagues, please feel free to let me know so that their potential participation may be considered. Write to me at raquelbenitezrojas@gmail.com.