Subscription Crowdfunding Artists Interviews, 2022-2023

The purpose of the project was twofold: First, to provide empirical evidence on the employment opportunities that subscription crowdfunding provides and on creators’ perceptions about the process of generation and distribution of funds. Second, to explore the perceptions of key players - creators, platform representatives and patrons – on work quality, employment relations and autonomy on the platform. Between September 2022 and March 2023, we conducted 30 online, semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 30 creators on Patreon. Our sampling strategy was purposive, the main aims being to ensure that creators had been active on Patreon and that they were creators from two categories: art and music. We collected creators’ email addresses from their Patreon pages, social media profiles, or personal websites and reached out to them via email, inviting them to participate in our research project. Beyond this, a snowballing approach (Platman, 2004) in which participants suggested others who would be interested in the issues discussed was employed. The key topics discussed during the interviews can be divided into three sections. The first section was based around a topic guide, which included questions about creators’ background, their education; their past and current employment; their creative interests; and how they initiated their Patreon campaign. Our second section focused on creators’ experience within the platform, including financial and non-financial benefits they enjoy thanks to Patreon; the ways in which Patreon has impacted their professional life with a special emphasis on autonomy, security, payment fairness and social feedback; their relationship with the platform, other creators and patrons. Lastly, our interviews revolved around everyday practices (Blackler et al., 2000) including questions on the activities our interviewees undertake on a weekly basis; how physical space and technologies and other resources are used; their strategies to grow their patrons’ base; their future plans and so on. The Digital Futures at Work Research Centre (Dig.IT) will establish itself as an essential resource for those wanting to understand how new digital technologies are profoundly reshaping the world of work. Digitalisation is a topical feature of contemporary debate. For evangelists, technology offers new opportunities for those seeking work and increased flexibility and autonomy for those in work. More pessimistic visions, in contrast, see a future where jobs are either destroyed by robots or degraded through increasingly precarious contracts and computerised monitoring. Take Uber as an example: the company claims it is creating opportunities for self-employed entrepreneurs; while workers' groups increasingly challenge such claims through legal means to improve their rights at work. While such positive and pessimistic scenarios abound of an increasingly fragmented, digitalised and flexible transformation of work across the globe, theoretical understanding of contemporary developments remains underdeveloped and systematic empirical analyses are lacking. We know, for example, that employers and governments are struggling to cope with and understand the pace and consequences of digital change, while individuals face new uncertainties over how to become and stay 'connected' in turbulent labour markets. Yet, we have no real understanding of what it means to be a 'connected worker' in an increasing 'connected' economy. Drawing resources from different academic fields of study, Dig.IT will provide an empirically innovative and international broad body of knowledge that will offer authoritative insights into the impact of digitalisation on the future of work. The Dig.IT centre will be jointly led by the Universities of Sussex and Leeds, supported by leading experts from Aberdeen, Cambridge, Manchester and Monash Universities. Its core research programme will cover four broad-ranging research themes. Theme one will set the conceptual and quantitative base for the centre's activities. Theme two involves a large-scale survey of Employers' Digital Practices at Work. Theme three involves qualitative research on employers' and employees' experiences of digitalisation at work across 4 sectors (Creative industries, Business Services, Consumer Services, Public Services). Theme 4 examines how the disconnected attempt to reconnect, through Public Employment Services, the growth of new types of self-employment, platform work and workers' responses to building new forms of voice and representation in an international context. Specific projects include: 1. The Impact of Digitalisation on Work and Employment -Conceptualising digital futures, historically, regionally and internationally -Comparative regulation of digital employment - Mapping regional and international trends of digital technology and work 2. Employers' Digital Practices at Work Survey 3. Employers' and employees' experiences of digital work across sectors -Changing management processes and practices -Workers' experiences of digital transformation 4. Reconnecting the disconnected: new channels of voice and representation - displaced workers, job search and the public employment service - self-employment, interest representation and voice Dig.IT will establish a Data Observatory on digital futures at work to promote our findings through an interactive website, report on a series of methodological seminars and new experimental methods and deliver extensive outreach activities. It will act as a one-platform library of resources at the forefront of research on digital work and will establish itself as a focal point for decision-makers across the policy spectrum, connecting with industrial strategy, employment and welfare policy. It will also manage an Innovation Fund designed to fund novel research ideas, from across the academic community as they emerge over the life course of the centre.