Meshup #11 – Terje Colbjørnsen
Terje Colbjørnsen will give a short talk titled Generative AI and streaming in the creative industries: Toward hyper-abundance.
Abstract
The impact of digital technologies on creative industries has been a throughline in my academic career. Today, and in the context of my MishMash participation, these areas of interest converge around generative AI and its impact on media and culture. The emergence of generative AI has completely shifted the discussion around cultural production as LLMs and diffusion models make the manufacturing of human-like creative output a straightforward task. AI-enabled content production at scale has repercussions for the streaming model of media distribution, particularly because it ties in perfectly with the promise of abundance from streaming services. On the one hand, low-cost and low-effort content production presents a possibility to harness for platforms that require an influx of fresh content in large quantities, enabling both experimental and more institutionalized efforts at AI co-creation. On the other hand, are challenges such as the emergence of “AI slop”, and illegitimate creators and publishers (e.g., so-called ghost artists and ghost labels). The scale and speed of AI-fueled content production pose a challenge to content moderation practices and other regulatory measures. In this talk, I will outline research on streaming services in the context of what I term hyper-abundance, using examples from the industries for music, books, film, television and social media entertainment.
Bio
Terje Colbjørnsen is associate professor in creative industries management at BI Norwegian Business School, Norway (since 2024). He holds a PhD in media and communication from the University of Oslo and has worked as an associate professor in library and information science at Oslo Metropolitan University. Colbjørnsen’s research interests revolve around issues of media industries, media digitalization, media economics, media policy and cultural policy. A long-standing interest has been the emergence of streaming services and their cross-industry impact in the creative sector. He is currently working on a monograph on this topic, titled Streaming across media: How access and abundance changed our relationship to culture (forthcoming on Intellect).
Access
MishMash MeetUps are short, informal meetings in the consortium where both early career and established researchers present ongoing projects. The events are open for everyone, but, for security reasons, Zoom links are only provided to people that are affiliated with a MishMash Work Package. If not, please ask for access.