My research for my next book, The Age of Content, has been in full swing for at least a year now. That book is going to be a short one (Polity wants me to keep it to 30K words). In order to show my work, I am creating a regular series on this blog, "_____: The Year of the Content Creator," where I discuss key texts.

Why "content creators"? Well, studying "content" is wicked hard. There's too many items to cover (setting aside the various meanings of "content"). In addition, a lot of that ground was covered directly by Kate Eichhorn's 2020 book Content (a book I will no doubt review on this blog) and indirectly by several others.

Studying "content creators," by contrast, is a bit more manageable. I've collected ~5400 items where the term "content creator" or its variants appears. That's still a lot of ground to cover, but it's doable. (Yes, I'm putting my own human eyes on all 5400 items.)

Studying "content creator" gives insight into the ideas I'm interested in: the containerization of media and the contentification of life. These concerns come from what I've observed across my career and are intensified as generative AI has exploded into view.

I've arranged my content creator collection by year, and so I figured it would be good to do a year-by-year series on key texts. But, for this first entry, I am going to cover more than one year. The term "content creator" only appeared sporadically until the mid-1990s. So, for your reading pleasure: here is a short essay and annotated bibliography of "content creators" from 1957 until 1993.

1957-1993 in "Content Creators"

The earliest mention of “content creator” I can find is in a 1957 dissertation from Kennedy (1957), “The Genesis and Development of the Christian Faith and Life Series.” The exact line is:

Miss Meeker introduced the content-creators of the curriculum in an article entitled "Meet the Authors and Artists" (488).

As should be clear, this was a dissertation about the production of a particular Christian educational curriculum. What’s important about this is not just that the phrase appears, but already “content creator” is made into a container for more specific creative practices -- in this case, authoring and making art. This is a fundamental point for my book.

The containment of creative acts within “content creator” would appear again and again in the corpus. In this early period, it appeared in several key texts. Plude 1990, for example, contains media production within “content creator” in a design stage. Those designs and content get stored in things like film or CD-ROM, and then there’s distribution.

Another example is Hamm 1993, which is about multimedia -- from television to CD-ROMs. The article discusses “a host of artistic types -- cartoonists, script writers, special-effects experts, and film producers.” These all get the label “content creator”:

Dealing with content creators isn't entirely uncharted territory. A handful of multimedia publishers, such as Compton's NewMedia and Software Toolworks, have been plying these waters since the late 1980s. Now computer game publishers such as Electronic Arts and Broderbund are pitching bit-rich CD titles. Apple, Microsoft, and Media Vision have entered the fray.

The article is about the relationship between “content creators” and “content publishers.” What’s really interesting to me is that both individuals and organizations can be classified as “content creators,” which is a bit ahead of its time (most of the early content creator discourse is about huge companies). It might have something to do with the fact that many new entrants into digital media (particularly CD-ROM) were appearing, and these entrants could be small companies or even individuals.

In both Plude 1990 and Hamm 1993, there’s a distinction between “content creators” and other entities, particularly content “distributors” or “publishers.” This is in addition to the division between content creators and audiences (as in Gans 1972), a group that would eventually become “content consumers.” There’s also mention of the “users” of content in Feeley 1981 (a precursor to the idea of “user-generated content”?). These sorts of divisions are also going to be important for my analysis.

Particularly when those divisions blur. “What you are seeing,” says a source in McCullaugh 1993, “is the merger of the computer, music, and motion picture businesses into one new business.” Smith 1993 is specifically about such a merger:

In communications, service providers such as telephone and cable-TV companies are not only teaming up together, as they did in Wednesday's Bell Atlantic-TCI megamerger, but they also are pursuing content creators such as Paramount Communications Inc. The movie and publishing giant is the prize in a $9.5 billion battle between two other cable companies, Viacom Inc. and QVC Network Inc.

Such mergers would be a huge deal later in the 1990s, most infamously with the AOL-Time Warner deal. Indeed, such mergers of what would be called “content creators” with “content distributors” is still happening to this day. (It also reveals the fact that “content creators” has largely been in reference to huge, multinational, for-profit companies that exploit intellectual property and creative labor for profit.)

Now, on to one of my favorite key texts, “Leading the Double Life” 1985. This article is cited in the Oxford English Dictionary’s entry for “content creators.” The line in the article is wonderful:

“I’m a form freak, not a content creator,” Winkler said, adding that his partner, John Sanborn, is more interested in the concepts being conveyed, not just novel ways of conveying them.

This is an article about computer graphics and the people who make them. The graphics are things like TV broadcast graphics (sports scores, clocks, that sort of thing). The “form freak” aspect of it is (I believe) in reference to the structural aspects of computer graphics, not the actual content. I love this way of characterizing the form/content distinction.

What’s striking across all these early texts is the variety of containers: magazines, curriculum, videotex (Feeley 1981), television (Smith 1987), CD-ROMs, broadcasting systems, set-top boxes (Silverthorne 1993), academic journals (Okerson 1991), books, vinyl records… a heterogeneous mix of media formats that would be called, for a time, “multimedia” or a bit later “convergence” (Silverthorne 1993). This is going to be another key aspect of my research for the book. (As will be the linkage between media convergence and the mergers of content distributors and creators, as mentioned above).

As is the key question in McCullaugh 1993: how all this content is going to be licensed. Intellectual property concerns, particularly after the WIPO 1996 Copyright Treaty, will be very important.

Oh! and a big reason why McCulllaugh 1993 is a key text for me is the observation that the new container technologies (such as CD-ROM) will provide a way to sell the media “garbage” (the author’s term) of the past, like outtakes. More containers, more ways to sling content.

Key Texts

Hamm, Steve. 1993. “A Little Moxy.” Sec. A1. PC Week, November 22. Gale OneFile: CPI.Q.

This is about multimedia art. The central example is computer-animated cartoons, like Moxy. The issue is how to engage in business with multimedia artists. The story goes through several business models/relationships. So this article is about the artists who make content and their relationship to publishers. The creative position is elevated (there are mentions of art and music), while the contents are of course generically called “content.” What’s at the center, then, is “multimedia” or digitization.

KENNEDY, WILLIAM BEAN. 1957. “The Genesis and Development of the Christian Faith and Life Series.” Ph.D., Yale University. https://www.proquest.com/docview/301926916/abstract/1475AF06060042EBPQ/2.

This is a dissertation done at Yale Divinity. It’s a study of the Presbyterian Church of the USA, which launched a curriculum in 1948 titled “Christian Faith and Life: a program for church and home.” So it’s about Christian educational practices. The “content creators” bit above refers to materials developed for the curriculum.

McCULLAUGH, J. I. M. 1993. “Contract, License Questions Follow Interactive Advances.” Billboard (Archive: 1963-2000) (New York, United States), October 23.

McCullaugh 1993 focuses on the complexity of licensing when there is convergence/digitization. QTD: “What you are seeing is the merger of the computer, music, and motion picture businesses into one new business.” Different standards emerging: CD-I, Sega CD, CD-ROM, 3DO. Getting clearances (intellectual property) for these formats is hard. In terms of music, an idea is to take what was once “garbage” -- studio outtakes -- and repurpose them on CD-ROMs et al.

Plude, Frances F. 1990. “Technological Change: A Challenge for Universities, Students, and Communication Professionals.” Technological Change 10.

In Plude 1990, “content creators” appears in a figure as part of the Design aspect of Information Technologies. The context is university education in a “globe recycling itself into an information society” (1). The figure is her model of Information Technologies, which include Design, Storage, Distribution. Design includes the action of development of content and the actors (technology professionals, content creators). “Content” is used in relation to “entertainment” and “other types of information.” Content is contained in storage media (e.g., CD-ROMs) and then is distributed.

Post Leader (Regina). 1985. “Leading the Double Life of Computer Graphics.” B. August 17.

Calling this a key text because it is someone who is about the container (the “form” he’s a “freak” for) versus the content. I gather this refers to the structural aspects of computer graphics, not the actual content. This is an article about computer graphics and the people who make them. The graphics are things like TV broadcast graphics (sports scores, clocks, that sort of thing). But the ‘double life’ is about what the artists actually want to do. Dean Winkler, a computer graphics artist, showed off their work at Digicon 85.

Smith, Randall. 1993. “The Interactive Age: The Acquisition of TCI --- Rising Tide: Higher Stocks Are Feeding Revival of Merger Activity.” The Wall Street Journal (Asia Edition), October 15.

This is about mergers between cable companies (conduits?) and media companies (content creators?). Content creators here refers to larger organizations, like Paramount.

Other Texts

NB: I am not normally going to include all the citations in a given year, but since there's so few between 1957-1993, I will share them all in this post.

Feeley, James. 1981. “VIDEOTEX: THE CHALLENGE TO PUBLIC ACCESS TO INFORMATION/VIDEOTEX: UN DEFI A L’ACCESSIBILITE A L’INFORMATION.” Proceedings of the Annual Conference of CAIS/Actes Du Congrès Annuel de l’ACSI. https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/ojs.cais-acsi.ca/index.php/cais-asci/article/download/1681/1453.

Puts content creators of Videotex in relation to users.

Gans, Herbert J. 1972. “The Famine in American Mass-Communications Research: Comments on Hirsch, Tuchman, and Gecas.” American Journal of Sociology 77 (4): 697–705. https://doi.org/10.1086/225195.

This is in reference to non-news media (non-information media?), so it’s about a variety of entertaining media “content.” That content is in relation to an audience.

Gassee, Jean-Louis. 1992. “QUICKTIME ENGAGED IN BATTLE FOR USERS’ SCREENS. (APPLE COMPUTER INC. AND MICROSOFT CORP. SQUARE OFF IN MULTIMEDIA STANDARDS COMPETITION) (COMMENTARY).” MacWEEK, November 23.

This is about content creators working within a technical standard. Gassee 1992 is a news article discussing the development of Quicktime as a possible standard for digital video. Quicktime is from Apple, and Microsoft began to compete.

Gillen, Marilyn A. 1993. “Warner Offers Package Deal To 3DO Licensees.” Billboard (Archive: 1963-2000) (New York, United States), October 9.

Digital media, content licensing. This seems to be about licensing content for CD-ROMS.

Irwin, Joan. 1985. “Only Enlightened Self-Interest Will Lighten up U.S. Overload.” ENTERTAINMENT. Toronto Star (Toronto, Ont., Canada), December 7.

“Content creators” is used in quotes, and appears to be quoting a source (I believe this is “Regulatory implications of a direct broadcasting system”). Context is discussion of CRTC regulations about Canadian content(! of course!) and what private companies ought to be able to do. [Note that the Spiller report referenced does not seem to use the term ‘content creators’]

Levy, Mark R., and Edward L. Fink. 1984. “Home Video Recorders and the Transience of Television Broadcasts.” Journal of Communication 34 (2): 56–71.

The context is an article about the transience of mass media “content” (their word), which shapes how audiences perceive the messages, as well as (see above) how content creators produce them. The home video tape record shifts this, they will argue.

Multimedia & Videodisc Monitor Future Systems, Inc. 1992. “BUSINESS LINE: Electric Book Company and Systems Research Join Forces.” June 1. http://global.factiva.com/redir/default.aspx?P=sa&an=muvm000020011107do61000be&cat=a&ep=ASE.

Context: this is a press release. “Other content creators” is covering extra ground.

Okerson, Ann. 1991. “The Electronic Journal: What, Whence, and When?” The Public-Access Computer Systems Review 2 (1): 5–24.

Electronic publishing calls out to both “content creators” and publishers. This is about scholarly journals. Discussion of the slow speed of journal article publishing. Electronic publishing seen as a way to speed up the process -- pace of content creation.

QUICK, GREGORY. 1993. “Sony Widens Video Line -- Product to Ship This Fall for $1,099.” EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES. Computer Reseller News, July 26.

video hardware

Silverthorne, Sean. 1993. “The Magic Box.” Sec. A1. PC Week, September 20. Gale OneFile: CPI.Q.

This is about the digital set-top box, a device to receive information for televisions. “The set-top box is the place where the digital convergence converges. It could well be a profit-hungry industry's spigot to a river of revenues. Here's how to turn it on.”

Smith, Judith E. 1987. “Toward a Social Study of the Mass Media: The Case of ‘Magnum, P.I.’” Ph.D., The University of Iowa. https://www.proquest.com/docview/303574555/abstract/1475AF06060042EBPQ/1.

The context is a dissertation that merges political economy and cultural studies to consider how various factors “determine the content of the [mass] media” (2). The case study is of the show Magnum, PI. The term “content” is used extensively -- perhaps in a generic sense, since this is about mass media (which include many formats)?