Social Media Entertainment

Winner, 2020 Outstanding Book Award, given by the International Communication Association

Honorable Mention, 2020 Nancy Baym Book Award, given by the Association of Internet Researchers


How the transformation of social media platforms and user-experience have redefined the entertainment industry

In a little over a decade, competing social media platforms, including YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, have given rise to a new creative industry: social media entertainment. Operating at the intersection of the entertainment and interactivity, communication and content industries, social media entertainment creators have harnessed these platforms to generate new kinds of content separate from the century-long model of intellectual property control in the traditional entertainment industry.

Social media entertainment has expanded rapidly and the traditional entertainment industry has been forced to cede significant power and influence to content creators, their fans, and subscribers. Digital platforms have created a natural market for embedded advertising, changing the worlds of marketing and communication in their wake. Combined, these factors have produced new, radically shifting demands on the entertainment industry, posing new challenges for screen regimes, media scholars, industry professionals, content creators, and audiences alike.

Stuart Cunningham and David Craig chronicle the rise of social media entertainment and its impact on media consumption and production. A massive, industry-defining study with insight from over 100 industry insiders, Social Media Entertainment explores the latest transformations in the entertainment industry in this time of digital disruption.

Stuart Cunningham is Distinguished Professor of Media and Communication, Queensland University of Technology. His most recent books include Media Economics (with Terry Flew and Adam Swift, 2015), Screen Distribution and the New King Kongs of the Online World (with Jon Silver, 2013), and Hidden Innovation: Policy, Industry and the Creative Sector (2013).Craig David :

David Craig is Clinical Associate Professor at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and a visiting scholar at Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s Institute of Cultural and Creative Industries. Craig is also an Emmy-nominated Hollywood producer and TV executive who has supervised or produced over thirty critically acclaimed films, series, documentaries, books, web series, and stage productions.Stuart Cunningham (Author)
Stuart Cunningham is Distinguished Professor of Media and Communication, Queensland University of Technology. His most recent books include Media Economics (with Terry Flew and Adam Swift, 2015), Screen Distribution and the New King Kongs of the Online World (with Jon Silver, 2013), and Hidden Innovation: Policy, Industry and the Creative Sector (2013).

David Craig (Author)
David Craig is Clinical Associate Professor at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and a visiting scholar at Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s Institute of Cultural and Creative Industries. Craig is also an Emmy-nominated Hollywood producer and TV executive who has supervised or produced over thirty critically acclaimed films, series, documentaries, books, web series, and stage productions.

Cunningham and Craig examine how social media has changed Hollywood and Silicon Valley ... a good read for students who want to go into broad-casting or online media.

Stuart Cunningham and David Craig have developed a deeply informed, theoretically contextualized set of arguments that come to this: SME is shaking up the media landscape.

Ellen Seiter, author of The Creative Artist's Legal Guide:
This is a bold, important book full of thoughtfully researched arguments about how to move the field of media studies forward to address the forms and delivery systems of today.

Nancy Baym, author of Playing to the Crowd:
Provides a remarkably broad, detailed, and necessary guide to these new organizations, economies, and personalities that rival the mass media. This book will guide the future of Media Studies.

Tarleton Gillespie, author of Custodians of the Internet:
Its easy to say & everythings changed. But its monumental to actually develop a map of the changing economic and cultural dynamics of entertainment production in the age of social media. Cunningham and Craigs masterful book will be foundational for scholars and students for years to come.

José van Dijck, author of The Culture of Connectivity and The Platform Society:
If you really want to understand the convergence between Silicon Valley and Hollywood, read this book. Stuart Cunningham and David Craig have written a superb book on the global transition towards online screen culture.

Jordan Levin, Former CEO of Awesomeness and The WB television network:
A seminal book that captures and contextualizes the rapid emergence of an evolutionary media form by connecting the past with the present, while successfully arguing for the legitimacy of Social Media Entertainment as a foundation of our future.