The Creation,Compromise And Revolt Of Short Video Producers As Digital Labor

In the era of digital economy,digital labor has become an important new form of labor,and the rise of digital platform has led to the emergence of a large number of digital labor,also included are short video platform creators.Based on the question of "Are short video creators who are digital workers controlled by platform rules?",this study discusses the specific ways of platform rules control and the impact on short video creators.Based on the theory of digital labor,this paper adopts the method of in-depth interview and participant observation,and chooses 24 representative creators of short video content of Douyin to conduct in-depth interview.At the same time,through entering the short video creation field,the author carries on the four-month field investigation,obtains the creation process related data,and analyzes how the short video creator,as the digital labor,is controlled by the platform rule,as well as the creator in this process of compromise and resistance,a more comprehensive presentation of the short video creators of the labor process.It is found that the short video creators are controlled by the platform rules,mainly in the control of traffic rules,and the creators create content,compromise and resist under the guidance of traffic.First,while the platform seems to offer a flexible and autonomous way for creators to monetize,the threshold for participating in the event is actually very high for creators,and the rules for monetizing the event are vague.Under the influence of the flow rule,the creator is faced with the predicament of unstable income and the cost is greater than the income.Therefore,creators have to follow the rules of traffic to guide their own creation,began to flow-oriented content production,mainly reflected in the need to keep up-to-date,the pursuit of traffic to ride on the hot spots,in order to flow regardless,set up people "Born for the show",by the label solidified content creation.Secondly,the irregular working hours lead to the extension and overwork of the working hours,which leads to the internal friction of the short video creators at the spiritual level,and finally leads to the Rat Race of video creation.Thirdly,the video creator has completed the internalization and compromise of the platform rules in practice,which promotes the creator to continue to create independently,and forms the intrinsic motive force of the creator.Finally,the rule-controlled short video creators resist and fight in flexible ways,make use of the mechanism and rules of the platform to carry on the second creation,carry on the routine production,purchase the false flow,transfer the creation position to maintain own creation autonomy.Although the creator evades the rules of the platform or strengthens the creative autonomy in various ways,the result is still unable to escape the control of the entire digital economy platform,the Creator’s response strategy is still indirectly driving the platform’s further development,becoming a cheap labor force in the digital economy.By analyzing the digital labor of short video creators,this study describes the practice process of short video creators in the platform labor field.Under the situation that the platform digital labor gradually becomes the future employment trend,this research takes the short video platform creator as the research cut-in point,probes into the platform economy under the digital labor question,it enriches the connotation and form of digital labor theory and expands the pedigree of current research on digital labor.