By Stuart Cunningham
Over the past 10 years or so, in the midst of all the cacophony of change we are well familiar with, a new creative industry was born. With my collaborator David Craig, a veteran Hollywood executive now teaching at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, I have been examining the birth and early childhood of what we call social media entertainment. It is peopled by cultural leaders, entertainers and activists most of whom you may be very unfamiliar with... Here are some of them – Hank Green, Casey Neistat, PewDiePie, Tyler Oakley.
We understand social media entertainment to be an emerging industry based on previously amateur creators professionalising and monetising their content across multiple social media platforms to build global fan communities and incubate their own media brands.
Social media entertainment – the kind that has seen huge growth on YouTube and other platforms – needs understanding if there is to be any measured policy response, writes STUART CUNNINGHAM from an Australian perspective.
- Intermedia Issue:
- Volume 46, Issue 04
- Issue Date:
- December 2018
Stuart Cunningham
Distinguished Professor of Media and Communications, Queensland University of Technology 
