I teach and research in the areas of media industries and participatory cultures. My AHRC funded PhD (Lancaster University) examined working in the creative and cultural industries, and workers’ relationships with digital technologies.
I am with Catriona Noonan the co-editor of Cultural Work and Higher Education (Palgrave Macmillan), and I have published work in a range of academic journals, including: Convergence; Journal of Education and Work; Journal of Cultural Economy; Games & Culture; Fibreculture; and Television & New Media.
From 2008 to 2015 I taught on the Media Communications and the Creative Media Practice degree programmes at Bath Spa University (UK). I joined Winchester School of Art/the University of Southampton as the MA Pathway Leader for Global Media Management in April 2015.
Cultural Work and Higher Education aims to explore the intersections between, on the one hand, hi... more Cultural Work and Higher Education aims to explore the intersections between, on the one hand, higher education (HE) policy and practice and, on the other, cultural and creative work. To do this successfully it brings together perspectives from a range of disciplines (including media, psychology, sociology and labour studies) with contributions engaging with student, staff, graduate and practitioner experiences of cultural work. Across the volume, empirical contributions include statistical analysis of creative education and employment experiences and qualitative exchanges with: students at undergraduate and post-graduate levels; HE lecturers with responsibility for work placements; HE lecturers who develop their practice across industry and HE; and industry professionals at various stages of their career. Attending directly to an overlooked area of scholarship on cultural work, this volume explores the kinds of intersections, overlaps and relationships that are now firmly establish...
This chapter discusses vlogging as an increasingly visible and normalised form of cultural work. ... more This chapter discusses vlogging as an increasingly visible and normalised form of cultural work. The authors criticise the all-too-common assumption that the new careers vlogging offers are open to anyone, arguing that how-to guidance and journalistic coverage understate the barriers to entry and obscure the various forms of expertise required, including the underlying strategies vloggers use to engage their audiences by interacting with fans and collaborators, and the skills they require to stage a relatable authenticity. The chapter analyses the social media presence of four prominent vloggers.
This article addresses the hidden professions of television production through examining the role... more This article addresses the hidden professions of television production through examining the role of the First Assistant Director (1st AD). Drawing on ‘industry talk’, this article examines the ways in which the role of the 1st AD is understood as central to the film and television production process but regarded as overlooked or lacking in status and visibility. Examining how 1st ADs position themselves and are positioned as both invisible and visible is an opportunity to examine how the 1st AD understand and challenge their status as hidden professionals.
This article examines reflections on work placement experiences generated for the Creative Contex... more This article examines reflections on work placement experiences generated for the Creative Contexts website by higher education students. The article outlines the aims of Creative Contexts to generate and share placement experiences and stories. The article analyses the reflections films available on the website, and reveals a continuum of agency in which students’ contributions generally foreground the individual at the expense of the structural. The analysis reveals that whilst Creative Contexts can help foreground the subjective dimensions of employability, the students’ focus on individual dispositions and attributes does little to question industry and placement norms and structural challenges.
Over the last few decades, policy-makers have been busy in the fields of cultural industries and ... more Over the last few decades, policy-makers have been busy in the fields of cultural industries and higher education (HE), as both undergo significant changes in an era of globalization, economic instability and austerity agendas. However, there has been a marked difference in the ways in which both these spheres have responded to the opportunities and challenges that they currently face. Despite ambiguities in their definition (Galloway and Dunlop, 2007), the cultural industries, or more accurately their partial political successor, the creative industries, have emerged as one of the most celebrated sectors of the UK economy (Confederation of British Industry, 2010). With strong, albeit controversial (Garnham, 2005; Tremblay, 2011), growth figures reported, these industries have been reframed and endorsed as part of a new knowledge economy for a digital society.1 As a result, the sector is often framed as a panacea to numerous and often disparate financial and social ills, including economic development, urban regeneration and remedying social inequalities. At this moment, HE in the UK seems to lie on the other end of the spectrum of political taste.
Jade Goody was publicly diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2008, and prior to her death in 2009 sh... more Jade Goody was publicly diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2008, and prior to her death in 2009 she remained a permanent presence in the celebrity and tabloid press. And although popular commentary refers to the ‘Jade Effect’ whereby young women, who otherwise would not have gone for testing, are seeking out cervical screening programs after the death of Jade Goody, it is important that we understand the ways in which tabloid readers engage with celebrity news stories. With this in mind this article draws on focus group discussions with young female OK! readers to explore the ways in which they make use of, find comfort in, or take umbrage at the news coverage of celebrity illness, concluding that readers were at best frustrated and at worst angered by a lack of authenticity and candid imagery, which is surprising given the ‘airbrushed’ and ‘orchestrated’ nature of their chosen publication.
Abstract Drawing on empirical research conducted with games design tutors and students within hig... more Abstract Drawing on empirical research conducted with games design tutors and students within higher education, this article addresses the 'imaginaries' that students draw to develop ideas and design games as they negotiate a transition from being players to designers. The ...
Cultural Work and Higher Education aims to explore the intersections between, on the one hand, hi... more Cultural Work and Higher Education aims to explore the intersections between, on the one hand, higher education (HE) policy and practice and, on the other, cultural and creative work. To do this successfully it brings together perspectives from a range of disciplines (including media, psychology, sociology and labour studies) with contributions engaging with student, staff, graduate and practitioner experiences of cultural work. Across the volume, empirical contributions include statistical analysis of creative education and employment experiences and qualitative exchanges with: students at undergraduate and post-graduate levels; HE lecturers with responsibility for work placements; HE lecturers who develop their practice across industry and HE; and industry professionals at various stages of their career. Attending directly to an overlooked area of scholarship on cultural work, this volume explores the kinds of intersections, overlaps and relationships that are now firmly establish...
This chapter discusses vlogging as an increasingly visible and normalised form of cultural work. ... more This chapter discusses vlogging as an increasingly visible and normalised form of cultural work. The authors criticise the all-too-common assumption that the new careers vlogging offers are open to anyone, arguing that how-to guidance and journalistic coverage understate the barriers to entry and obscure the various forms of expertise required, including the underlying strategies vloggers use to engage their audiences by interacting with fans and collaborators, and the skills they require to stage a relatable authenticity. The chapter analyses the social media presence of four prominent vloggers.
This article addresses the hidden professions of television production through examining the role... more This article addresses the hidden professions of television production through examining the role of the First Assistant Director (1st AD). Drawing on ‘industry talk’, this article examines the ways in which the role of the 1st AD is understood as central to the film and television production process but regarded as overlooked or lacking in status and visibility. Examining how 1st ADs position themselves and are positioned as both invisible and visible is an opportunity to examine how the 1st AD understand and challenge their status as hidden professionals.
This article examines reflections on work placement experiences generated for the Creative Contex... more This article examines reflections on work placement experiences generated for the Creative Contexts website by higher education students. The article outlines the aims of Creative Contexts to generate and share placement experiences and stories. The article analyses the reflections films available on the website, and reveals a continuum of agency in which students’ contributions generally foreground the individual at the expense of the structural. The analysis reveals that whilst Creative Contexts can help foreground the subjective dimensions of employability, the students’ focus on individual dispositions and attributes does little to question industry and placement norms and structural challenges.
Over the last few decades, policy-makers have been busy in the fields of cultural industries and ... more Over the last few decades, policy-makers have been busy in the fields of cultural industries and higher education (HE), as both undergo significant changes in an era of globalization, economic instability and austerity agendas. However, there has been a marked difference in the ways in which both these spheres have responded to the opportunities and challenges that they currently face. Despite ambiguities in their definition (Galloway and Dunlop, 2007), the cultural industries, or more accurately their partial political successor, the creative industries, have emerged as one of the most celebrated sectors of the UK economy (Confederation of British Industry, 2010). With strong, albeit controversial (Garnham, 2005; Tremblay, 2011), growth figures reported, these industries have been reframed and endorsed as part of a new knowledge economy for a digital society.1 As a result, the sector is often framed as a panacea to numerous and often disparate financial and social ills, including economic development, urban regeneration and remedying social inequalities. At this moment, HE in the UK seems to lie on the other end of the spectrum of political taste.
Jade Goody was publicly diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2008, and prior to her death in 2009 sh... more Jade Goody was publicly diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2008, and prior to her death in 2009 she remained a permanent presence in the celebrity and tabloid press. And although popular commentary refers to the ‘Jade Effect’ whereby young women, who otherwise would not have gone for testing, are seeking out cervical screening programs after the death of Jade Goody, it is important that we understand the ways in which tabloid readers engage with celebrity news stories. With this in mind this article draws on focus group discussions with young female OK! readers to explore the ways in which they make use of, find comfort in, or take umbrage at the news coverage of celebrity illness, concluding that readers were at best frustrated and at worst angered by a lack of authenticity and candid imagery, which is surprising given the ‘airbrushed’ and ‘orchestrated’ nature of their chosen publication.
Abstract Drawing on empirical research conducted with games design tutors and students within hig... more Abstract Drawing on empirical research conducted with games design tutors and students within higher education, this article addresses the 'imaginaries' that students draw to develop ideas and design games as they negotiate a transition from being players to designers. The ...
The phenomenon of ‘entrepreneurial vlogging’ continues to grow in visibility and economic relevance, with national newspapers publishing articles on the vloggers who ‘own the world of YouTube’ (Huffington Post, 2014), and are ‘changing the face of youth culture’ (Guardian, 2015). This article examines the normalization of vlogging and asks, is this a form of creative labour?
Focusing on a number of high profile YouTube vloggers, this article evaluates the significant public visibility afforded to the potential for becoming bedroom millionaires. These celebrated vloggers present an opportunity to identify some of the most successful approaches to cultivating ‘microcelebrity’ (Marwick, 2013; Senft, 2013). This paper will examine how social media platforms are crucial for vlogging entrepreneurs to create their work, distribute it, manage relationships with their audience, and make money.
Firstly, we examine the integration of social media practices into creative production and the associated practices of performing expertise and maintaining an online presence. Secondly, we engage with Baym’s (2015) account of ‘relational labour’ to examine the connections that vloggers manage with their audiences and followers. It is important to conceptualise these vlogging practices in terms of creative labour to, firstly, identify how expertise can be performed through social media activity and everyday creativity, and secondly, to assess the continuities with existing accounts of creative labour in terms of the ‘always-on’ culture exacerbated by social media (Gregg, 2011).
This article analyses how the impacts of AI technologies on creative work have been identified an... more This article analyses how the impacts of AI technologies on creative work have been identified and constructed. The concept of imaginaries is used as a methodological and analytical approach to analyse a variety of grey literature sources published in the UK. The analysis highlights three interconnecting risk imaginaries in which creative occupations are differentiated from other occupations – they are safe and/or are being complemented, but are not being replaced by automation. The construction and implications of these imaginaries are questioned in two ways. Firstly, the concept of assemblages highlights the everyday role of AI technologies in creative production. Secondly, analysis of portfolio working and multiple job holding problematises the notion of safe creative occupations. This article argues that the relationship between AI technologies and creative work can be partly understood as enhancing creative production and the opportunities for creative work, and partly understood in terms of uncreative production and non-creative work.
Jade Goody was publicly diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2008, and prior to her death in 2009 sh... more Jade Goody was publicly diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2008, and prior to her death in 2009 she remained a permanent presence in the celebrity and tabloid press. And although popular commentary refers to the ‘Jade Effect’ whereby young women, who otherwise would not have gone for testing, are seeking out cervical screening programs after the death of Jade Goody, it is important that we understand the ways in which tabloid readers engage with celebrity news stories. With this in mind this article draws on focus group discussions with young female OK! readers to explore the ways in which they make use of, find comfort in, or take umbrage at the news coverage of celebrity illness, concluding that readers were at best frustrated and at worst angered by a lack of authenticity and candid imagery, which is surprising given the ‘airbrushed’ and ‘orchestrated’ nature of their chosen publication.
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Papers by Daniel Ashton
The phenomenon of ‘entrepreneurial vlogging’ continues to grow in visibility and economic relevance, with national newspapers publishing articles on the vloggers who ‘own the world of YouTube’ (Huffington Post, 2014), and are ‘changing the face of youth culture’ (Guardian, 2015). This article examines the normalization of vlogging and asks, is this a form of creative labour?
Focusing on a number of high profile YouTube vloggers, this article evaluates the significant public visibility afforded to the potential for becoming bedroom millionaires. These celebrated vloggers present an opportunity to identify some of the most successful approaches to cultivating ‘microcelebrity’ (Marwick, 2013; Senft, 2013). This paper will examine how social media platforms are crucial for vlogging entrepreneurs to create their work, distribute it, manage relationships with their audience, and make money.
Firstly, we examine the integration of social media practices into creative production and the associated practices of performing expertise and maintaining an online presence. Secondly, we engage with Baym’s (2015) account of ‘relational labour’ to examine the connections that vloggers manage with their audiences and followers. It is important to conceptualise these vlogging practices in terms of creative labour to, firstly, identify how expertise can be performed through social media activity and everyday creativity, and secondly, to assess the continuities with existing accounts of creative labour in terms of the ‘always-on’ culture exacerbated by social media (Gregg, 2011).