This panel contribution aims to advance current research on content creators through a focus on the community term in platform environments. It draws on case studies of content creators in Denmark and Germany, who provide content on themes of social justice, such as gender and economic equality, sustainable living, and climate action. Through the critical concept of moral economy (Hesmondhalgh 2017), the paper theoretically advances the notion of community in the complicated dynamics between influencers, their followers, and their cultural production on platforms. Its aim is to articulate a theoretical approach able to challenge the meaning of community for the case of content creators. Miranda Joseph (2002) postulates that the constitution of community is not exclusively linked to identity, but to acts of production and consumption (Joseph 2002). However, communities, while collecting a social group behind a cause and collective effort, can be exclusionary gatherings re-enforcing structures of dominance. How does this understanding translate to the rise of content creators and their communities of followers? In what ways do common beliefs of morally good action shape economic transactions between content creators and their communities?Theoretically, the paper draws on the concept of moral economy to engage with the complex dynamics of social and moral community production. Moral economy refers to the connection between economies and belief systems of proper action and practice (Hesmondhalgh 2017; Sayer 1999). As David Hesmondhalgh points out, a moral economy approach provides a lens to analyze the economies of culture, in the sense of shared values and mutual understandings (Hesmondhalgh 2017), which are especially prevalent for content creators.In recent scholarship on platform economies, the notion of community is examined under a set of specific premises. A central strand of research has examined emergent social practices within the tension field of content creation communities and mechanisms of platform governance (Divon & Ebbrecht-Hartmann 2022; Duffy & Meisner 2022; Lewis & Christin 2022). Furthermore, interesting work has shed light on how platformed communities grapple with issues such as (in)visibility and demonetization (Caplan & Gillespie 2020), perform algorithmic gossip (Bishop 2019) and make sense of their own environments through the development of algorithmic folk theories (Ytre-Arne & Moe 2021). Moreover, relevant research surfaces the complex dynamics of platform communities with respect to forms of social and moral responsibility (Pham 2022; Raval & Lalvani 2022). The social practice of a shared belief system and social responsibility are essential aspects of community building and demarcation in content creator circles (Lewis & Christin 2022). This contribution thus aims to illuminate the morally charged transactions in the context of content creators’ economies to re-configure previous notions of community.

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