On hosted media, simple-professional cultural production, and micro media logics in anglophone video

The media sector has expanded in the 21st century to encompass a ‘hosted model’ of circulation and ‘simple-professional’ dynamic of cultural production that coexist alongside long dominant ‘complex-professional’ norms. This article begins developing a conceptual frame for understanding these new variations in cultural production that addresses continuities and differences in creative autonomy and relationships with organizations that circulate hosted media goods. A necessary component of this conceptualization is appreciating the ‘micro-media logics’ that largely replace the mass-media logics underpinning the video media sector in the 20th century to create a radically changed context of consumption. Although hosted cultural production is commonly regarded as more autonomous and freer from formal gatekeepers, the continued pursuit of commercial ends maintains constraints of capitalism. The unlicensed relationship with circulation services may introduce greater autonomy in circulation practices in some regards but leaves media makers without the recourse enjoyed under complex-professional dynamics formalized in licensed arrangements. The article focuses on the video sector as one particularly transformed by the capacity for creators across hosted video services such as YouTube, TikTok, and social media but with an eye to more broadly conceptualizing hosted circulation.