Congratulations to DMRC PhD student, Godwin Simon on been awarded the Top Student Paper Award from the International Communication Association.
Paper Title: Digital distribution and shifting power relations in the Nigerian Film Industry
Abstract
This paper examines how the advent of digital distribution is catalyzing disruptions in established power relations in the Nigerian Film Industry (Nollywood). The advent of streaming services in film industries globally has generated scholarly attention on what it holds for incumbent power holders in distribution. While scholars have investigated this in the context of Euro-American film industries, the same cannot be said of less-studied contexts such as Nollywood. Consequently, drawing from 31 semi-structured interviews with Nollywood creative professionals, streaming executives, and traditional video distributors, I argue that digital distribution as a disruptive innovation is orchestrating creative destruction of legacy distribution norms, thereby engineering a shift in power from incumbent video distributors to streaming executives. This paper contributes to existing research about the disruptive effects of digital distribution in media industries, focusing on Nollywood’s distinctive context.