Organizing the Creators' Economy – An Actor-Based Perspective

Recent changes in social media capabilities have given a boost to online content creation and user engagements. As a result, more actors participate in the content economy, contributing to creation, distribution, monetization, or enabling these activities. Further, institutions also participate actively in it. There are substantial outcomes for each of the stakeholders participating in the process. The entire ecosystem continues to flourish on the technical backbone provided by social media and other niche platforms. This paper identifies the primary and secondary actors and their roles in furthering the content economy. It also creates a classification schema of critical activities and outcomes for each primary and secondary actor. The outcome is a conceptual framework that organizes the recent scholarly and practice developments.