Mapping creator labor in the digital society: Potential and challenges

The view that the contemporary media environment is ecology is not novel to any media scholars. There were various attempts to gain a comprehensive understanding of the dynamics by which digital media affect our political, cultural, and economic life from an ecological view. Daniela Jaramillo-Dent and Michael Latzer (2026, in this issue), however, chose to center content creators’ belief systems within the social media ecology with the aim to capture the full complexity of creator labor, building on the legacy of cognitive mapping. In this commentary, I will first elaborate on the value and challenges of cognitive mapping as an analytical and political project for our contemporary digital societies. Subsequently, I will highlight some of the article's findings regarding cognitive mapping and formulate critical responses to further develop this approach in the field.