Photos courtesy of Godwin Simon

Daphne: In a nutshell, who are you as a researcher?

Godwin: Well, thank you for that question. I am a media industries researcher. I’m interested in the Nigerian media industry, specifically looking at how the industry is being transformed by the advent of digital technologies. And to do this, I have two broad perspectives. The first one is the disruption orchestrated by the emergence of digital technologies. And the second perspective is the emergence. The emergence of new media industry sectors, you know, born-digital industry sectors, enabled by the advent of digital technologies.

So, over the years, my research has evolved around these two perspectives of disruption and emergence. Before now, my PhD focused on the Nigerian film industry, known as Nollywood. The industry has been going on for over 30 years and has gone through a lot of industrial shifts and phases and my PhD research at the Digital Media Research Centre, Queensland University of Technology looked at the implications of streaming services and platforms on the transformation of the industry. My work is specifically grounded in critical media industries scholarship, creative labor studies, and platform studies. You know, it’s more about how the advent of global streaming services like Netflix and domestic services like iROKOTV and IbakaTV as well as the YouTube platform are interfacing with the industry’s distribution landscape.

Before now the industry was created on the logic of direct-to-video distribution where there were no cinemas, there was no streaming. Just direct to video cassettes, CDs and DVDs. But over the years, streaming has become a very important part of the current distribution landscape of the industry, and my research illuminates the changes to production cultures, changes to distribution norms, changes to how the industry perceives its audiences. And of course, changes to storylines. You know textual norms in the industry, and the changes to labor relations and the overall historical informal dynamics of the industry.

So yeah, this has been part of my research and recently I just started as a postdoc at the University of Toronto and I’m expanding my empirical focus on the media industry sectors by looking at the creator industry in Nigeria, which I like to call the social media video industry. In recent times, this industry is also making very big progress. We have more creators, more Nigerians who are consuming content from this industry on a daily basis. So my research looks at the conditions of labour in the industry, how the creators navigate the platform cultures, platform rules and regulations, and of course looking at what all of this means. You know, for creative ambitions and the entrepreneurial interest of Nigerian creatives.

So, my research practices have been much of studying the Nigerian media landscape. For example, looking at how the industry has been transformed by platforms, and of course the generative AI. I have to add also that even in the screen industries- film and creator industries- I’m also looking at AI. You know, how it’s transforming cultural production in these industries. So, in a nutshell, I’m a media industry researcher who is interested in the transformation of existing media industry sectors as well as the emergence of new media industry sectors, based on the advent of digital technologies.

 

M.E.: What are three things that everyone needs to know about the media content creator industry in Nigeria today?

Godwin: This is a very fantastic question. Three things to know. The first one is that the Nigerian content creator industry is championing innovation and entrepreneurial rejuvenation in Nigeria, especially among the youths. Of course, we have the legacy media industries like I said, the film industry, the TV industry. And over the years, many ambitious creatives in Nigeria have not been able to penetrate the existing media industries, because of the politics of penetration. But what the creator industry is doing in the country, especially with the incoming and monetization of platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and others is that we have more opportunities for innovation and entrepreneurship. So the creator industry has allowed many Nigerian creatives to put their creativity to work. Many of them are also injecting their inherent entrepreneurial spirit into what they do, trying to navigate all of these platforms to achieve productive economic returns in the industry. So the creator industry has been a very great one. And of course there are some contentions, there are some issues that they face with the platforms, especially in terms of platform regulations and the precariousness or uncertainty of revenue.

And that leads me to the second thing that people need to know about the creator industry in Nigeria. That is how the creators adopt local cultural capital to navigate production and by this, I mean, that the sustainability of the content creator industry in Nigeria so far has been significantly impacted or enabled or supported by the integration of indigenous knowledge and indigenous cultural norms into production cultures. And this is what I call the Ubuntu economy: Production practices are based on the African philosophy of Ubuntu which speaks of togetherness, of oneness, of support for one another, whereby you see your neighbor as your brother, and everybody is expected to be their brother’s keeper. So, what I call the Ubuntu economy has been a very important part of the sustainability of the industry because, as we speak, the revenue that creators get in the industry has not been very much compared to that of their counterpart from the Western context. It is quite expensive to produce content compared to what they earn on platforms and to navigate this complexity, many of them leverage reciprocal labour where people support people. On production, creators appear in each others’ work for free. And they lend production equipment to one another. Many provide editing services for their colleagues, for free. So through this, a lot of what they could have paid for is being done free of charge or at discounted rates. And that was because the creators have forged a kind of collaboration among themselves. Again, this comes from the Ubuntu economy whereby everything is not about money. There are instances where you have to support one another and allow things to work so that the economy could work within the industry. Operating in the Ubuntu economy, creators tend to take relationships as a form of currency. You know, the way we spend national currency the same way they also spend relationships.

And the third one is about the future of the industry. Of course, the industry is still young. That’s what people need to know. It is still a young industry with a very bright future. It is currently the third entertainment sector in Nigeria and is worth about US$40 million. We have a lot of empirical postulations that the industry will be worth many more millions of dollars in the next few years. Yeah, quite exciting about what the future holds for the industry, especially with the incoming of new technologies like AI, you know? AI is part of the things that everyone needs to look forward to as far as the creator industry is concerned, so the future looks bright, and the industry is optimistic about further opportunities for them.

 

Rafael: What intrigues you most about AI?

Godwin: I think that connects with my earlier point. AI is a very big technology, you know, let me just put it like that. I’m intrigued because I think we are yet to fully know the magnitude of the implications for cultural production including the general components of our lives. As a media industry scholar, of course I’m much concerned about how AI affects cultural production, but beyond this, even in our daily lives, you know, I’m intrigued by the great prospects of AI, and of course we have started to see these things. For example in the media industries, we are seeing workers going on strike already and creative workers are expressing concern about what it means for these industries. So yeah, I’m intrigued, fascinated by the prospect it has in changing our lives, changing what media industries mean, you know, in diverse contexts. What labour relations hold for the future? The regulatory reconfigurations that It would bring, new ethical concerns, and of course the bright side about the avenue for more creative partnership with humans. I think we have a lot of prospects that we don’t even know yet. And that mystery fascinates me- what AI means for the media industries and our lives at large.

 

Daphne: What’s your star sign?

Godwin: My star sign is Scorpios. Scorpios are known for their intense passion, determination and curiosity. You know, we are curious and a lot of these things are very evident in my life as a person. Whatever I do, I do it with utmost passion. If I’m in the team, I’d like to make my contribution obvious and very helpful. If I’m involved in a project like the CLCF project, I’m determined to contribute my quota to the overall success of the project and ensure we meet all our deliverables. And again, it’s very essential to know that Scorpios also have the very uncanny ability to probe into complex situations. We are able to read between the lines. We have intuition, we have great insights, we have discerning minds.

So, all of these things are also central to my research. When I’m doing my research, I apply these intuitive, insightful tendencies into how I probe the industry, how I probe labour relations, how I probe how the industry works in this era. And of course, trying to understand how things work at this stage. I see a lot of connections between my star sign and my daily life as well as my research practices.

All right, I think that’s all from me. Thank you so much for this interview.

Follow Godwin’s work with CLCF here.

Check out Godwin’s publications here.