Reports: Cultural trends

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Cover image for Cultural movements

Cultural movements
A new take on mainstream for the fragmentation era

Mark Mulligan and Tatiana Cirisano

10 Apr 2025

Entertainment mainstream Cultural trends

Entertainment has become nichified, mainstream has become smaller, and audiences have fragmented. While this has been crucial to the rise of the long tail and the creator economy, there is a need for a new, fragmentation-era successor to mainstream. Building upon MIDiA’s work on scenes, in this report we make the case for cultural movements, the ...

Cover image for Creators and the creator economy

Creators and the creator economy
Defining the undefinable

Karol Severin, Hanna Kahlert and Ben Woods

24 Jan 2025

Creators Cultural trends Creator economy

20 years since the launch of YouTube, the creator economy is not new – but it lacks a single clear definition. Different interest groups who interact with it all have their perspectives, but this lack of consistency can result in misunderstandings at best and strategic missteps at worst.

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Analogue revival
A cultural pendulum swing

Hanna Kahlert

16 Sep 2024

Cultural trends

From the dumb phone trend to a vinyl revival, analogue has been back on the rise in the cultural zeitgeist. This could shake up the digital ecosystem and unlock potential opportunities for entertainment –– but the 'why’ behind the trend needs to be better understood to action the opportunity to its full potential.

Cover image for Death of the town square

Death of the town square
Social fragmentation and a decentralised digital future

Hanna Kahlert

13 Jun 2024

Cultural trends

Social platforms have long ‘civilised’ the online world by providing common gathering grounds, but internal disruption and proliferating competition threaten this status quo. While the dominant players are unlikely to change substantially, competition, on-platform feature fragmentation, and algorithmic ‘filter bubbles’ will dilute social pl...

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The AI entertainment revolution
How artificial intelligence will reshape media consumption

Hanna Kahlert, Ashleigh Millar, Tatiana Cirisano and Annie Langston

20 Mar 2023

Innovation Creators YouTube

2023 has been jump-started by rapid progression in the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI). From the launch of ChatGPT to AI-powered DJs, this technology is revolutionising common practices, impacting consumers, creators, and industry leaders alike.

Cover image for Reintroducing scarcity

Reintroducing scarcity
How entertainment can find value amid the growing digital clutter

Hanna Kahlert

1 Feb 2023

Apple TV Disney Instagram

Games, sports, music, video, audio, and social content all compete not only for consumers’ attention (and money), but also their fandom. However, the oversaturation of content is devaluing entertainment itself, by overly commodifying it. Entertainment businesses and content providers will need to rethink how to generate better value for audiences...

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Social 2.0
Social media’s survival of the fittest, and how marketers fit in

Ashleigh Millar

21 Dec 2022

YouTube Netflix Facebook

The history of social media has long been defined by continual evolution and iteration, but now shifts across the value chain are becoming more substantive, heralding a new era. Social platforms themselves are changing, and so too are the attitudes, expectations, and behaviours of their users, with audiences’ appetites for carefully curated, heav...

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After digital
The search for a cheaper cultural moment

Hanna Kahlert

28 Oct 2022

Spotify Pandora SoundCloud

Audiences are becoming ever-more creative and this proclivity will come into its own over the coming period of economic, social, and political turbulence. To reconnect with each other while conserving their financial resources, these audiences will increasingly employ their digital-savvy pandemic learnings in the way that they consume entertainment...

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The shift indoors
Entertainment audiences’ search for the affordable and the meaningful

Hanna Kahlert

30 Sep 2022

Apple TV Netflix Disney

The Covid-19 entertainment boom is over; we are now in a highly competitive attention recession characterised largely by the attention inflation driven from accelerating rates of multitasking. This is compounded by serious global events and a cost-of-living crisis which will reduce the money audiences have available to spend on digital entertainmen...

Cover image for State of the music creator economy

State of the music creator economy
Post-lockdown growth

Mark Mulligan, Kriss Thakrar and Tatiana Cirisano

30 Sep 2022

Apple Spotify live

The Covid pandemic created a unique catalyst for the music creator economy. More time on hands and more cash in pockets gave novices and veterans alike the opportunity to spend both more time and money making music. Though the pandemic was a peak, it also marked the start of a new era for the music creator economy across every one of its aspects, f...

Cover image for Games’ cultural role in the 2020s

Games’ cultural role in the 2020s

Karol Severin

29 Sep 2022

Epic Games Cultural trends

Over time, games have carved out their role from the cultural fringes, through tobecoming a firmly established part of digital-consumer culture. Now, they have the opportunity to become theepicentreof digital culture. To do so, gaming needs (and has already started) to evolve from a standalone pastime towards a destination for all other forms of en...

Cover image for Re-creating the creator economy

Re-creating the creator economy

Mark Mulligan, Tim Mulligan, Karol Severin, Hanna Kahlert, Srishti Das, Kriss Thakrar, Ashleigh Millar, Tatiana Cirisano, Annie Langston and Richard Broadhurst

18 Aug 2022

Apple Spotify YouTube

Streaming first democratised the means of consumption, then distribution, and now production. Though the promise of the long tail may not have materialised quite as expected, long-tail and mid-tail creators are now a central component of the digital-entertainment economy.

Cover image for Consumers as creators

Consumers as creators
The artist / audience line is blurring

Hanna Kahlert

30 Apr 2022

Consumer behaviour Apple Netflix

The growing independent artists sector, the rise of user-generated content (UGC), and the proliferation of basic creator tools on social platforms are all interlinked parts of the same cultural trend: creativity as a product. Enabled by intuitive creative tools, platforms to share on, and direct, easy ways to engage with creators, the barrier betwe...

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Hybrid futures
MIDiA 2022 predictions

Mark Mulligan, Tim Mulligan, Karol Severin, Hanna Kahlert, Srishti Das, Kriss Thakrar and Tatiana Cirisano

13 Jan 2022

Free Report

Social media Business Strategy MIDiA Research Predictions

MIDiA analysts dive into our 2022 predictions, and why we believe it will be ' the year of the creator '. Watch the webinar here ....

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Fandom drivers
From fan psychology to NFT demand

Mark Mulligan, Karol Severin, Srishti Das and Tatiana Cirisano

9 Jan 2022

superfan Spotify merchandise

Fandom is entertainment’s growth currency, yet it remains both under-valued and poorly understood. While other entertainment currencies can be accurately measured (number of streams, number of sales, number of views, etc.) it is only the effects of fandom that can be quantified (number of likes / shares, merchandise sales, etc.

Cover image for Fandom and lean-in culture are reshaping video

Fandom and lean-in culture are reshaping video

Hanna Kahlert

20 Dec 2021

Apple Spotify YouTube

To compete in the new hyper-saturated attention economy, entertainment propositions must tap into audience sentiment to generate fandom and understand where they fit in the lives and habits of audiences. Companies and brands mentioned in this report:...

Cover image for From social media to creator tools

From social media to creator tools
The evolution of UGC

Hanna Kahlert

30 Sep 2021

Apple Spotify YouTube

Entertainment is suffering intense competition as audience attention time, already saturated before the pandemic, is hit by the gradual return of ‘in real life’ activities. A flurry of new propositions over the last year and a half, namely in streaming and social media, are competing on largely similar grounds – making differentiation ever mo...

Cover image for Music creator tools forecast

Music creator tools forecast
Moving towards a hybrid future

Mark Mulligan

24 Sep 2021

Creators Apple Spotify

Once upon a time, music software and hardware were distinct market segments, but now they are increasingly fusing into a network of hybrid creator tools ecosystems. Standalone hardware still has a vibrant future, but the real momentum lies with software, sounds, services and the hardware that supports them.

Cover image for The four key cultural trends transforming digital entertainment in 2021 and beyond

The four key cultural trends transforming digital entertainment in 2021 and beyond

Hanna Kahlert

31 Aug 2021

Marketing live Amazon

The effect of streaming on entertainment is not new, but as we move into the era of mainstream vaccinations, the shifts in streaming-driven consumer behaviour over the last year and a half will drive fundamental changes. From the rise of virtual events to the fall of the box office opening weekend, underpinned by the swift commodification of conten...

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Monetising Fandom
Unlocking growth beyond games

Karol Severin

23 Apr 2021

Free Report

digital content Games cross-entertainment strategy

Beyond gaming to cross-entertainment partnerships webinar slides - 22-04-2021

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