How Facebook benefits the creative industries
Digital platforms have transformed the ways in which people discover and experience content from the creative industries. At the same time, by connecting consumers with creative content from around the world, digital platforms can help creators to share their content more easily and more widely. As policymakers consider new interventions in the creative industries, it is important that they fully understand the role that digital platforms play to ensure that these benefits are not jeopardised.
To help inform the debate, Facebook asked Oxera to assess how digital platforms can benefit the creative industries in the EU. We began by setting out the economics of the creative industries, drawing on the academic literature to define a benefits framework around four key mechanisms: reach, engagement, conversion, and optimisation. We then tested and—where possible—quantified each part of that framework through a series of specially commissioned business and consumer surveys.
Our research findings are presented across two reports.
1. Our Consumer Report provides an overview of the creative industries and the economics of the media industry, and details the theoretical underpinnings of the reach, engagement and conversion mechanisms from a consumer perspective. This report also provides the results of our consumer survey, which demonstrate how Facebook and Instagram facilitate these processes.
2. Our Creator Report provides more information about the reach, engagement and conversion processes from the perspective of creators, as well as detailing how Facebook’s tools support optimisation. This report also includes the results of our creator surveys, which demonstrate how creators benefit from these processes.
We also provide a short Executive Summary that combines the key findings from across these two reports. The Executive Summary is also available in these languages: CZ, DE, ES, FR, GR, IT, PL, PT, RO.
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