Streaming Production Cultures: A Research Roadmap

This article responds to recent scholarly debates about the problems of generating empirical data on streaming production cultures. Our proposed roadmap offers strategies to navigate the industry secrecy, barriers to access, and unequal power dynamics that often impede production research. Drawing on combined insights from fifty interviews, we share best practices and dispel myths around accessing screen workers and other industry professionals. The article especially focuses on our experiences from conducting interviews, but we also provide ideas for collecting and synthesizing other forms of empirical data. The resulting roadmap offers an innovative approach to conducting research in a complex and opaque streaming environment.