Global South Creator Cultures

Global South Creator Cultures situates creator labour within the geographic specificities of nation-states and examines the working conditions of social media creators and the geographical challenges of their work, offering a four-part conceptual framework for studying creator cultures. Rather than placing creator cultures in the Global South against those in the Global North to produce a series of binaries, it prioritises expanding our frames of reference for studying creator labour. It does so by examining creator cultures in India, Turkey, Brazil, Chile, Pakistan, Nigeria, Hong Kong, and China through approaches from media, communication, and cultural studies, as well as internet, platform, and creator studies.

Rich with grounded subjective experiences of Global South creators, this collection is essential reading for students and academics of media, communication, and cultural studies, and appeals to anyone interested in understanding the complex relationship between nation-states, social media platforms, and creators.

Tugce Bidav is Lecturer in Digital Labour and Marketing in the Department of Digital Humanities at King’s College London, UK. She holds a PhD in Media Studies from Maynooth University, Ireland (2023). Her research interests include platforms and cultural production, media and creative labour, and platform work. She has published on issues related to creator cultures in leading journals such as Social Media + Society and International Journal of Cultural Studies. She is on the founding editorial board of Sage’s new journal Platforms & Society.

Smith Mehta is Assistant Professor in the Center for Media and Journalism Studies at the University of Groningen, Netherlands. He holds a PhD in Creative Industries from Queensland University of Technology, Australia (2021). He is the author of the book The New Screen Ecology in India (2023) and has published on issues related to creative labour in leading international peer-reviewed journals. Smith has previously worked at Viacom18 Media Pvt. Ltd as a content development executive.