Creative Negotiation in Platform-Mediated Visual Production

Abstract

This paper develops a multidimensional framework for understanding creative negotiation as a defining feature of youth visual production within platform-mediated environments. While digital platforms shape cultural expression through algorithmic curation, engagement metrics, interface affordances, and moderation regimes, youth creators are not merely passive subjects of these systems. Instead, they actively interpret platform signals and adjust their creative practices through iterative, strategic, and relational processes. Drawing on platform studies, cultural labor research, and youth media theory, this study conceptualizes creative negotiation across four key dimensions: aesthetic compromise, narrative modulation, identity calibration, and community leverage. Through digital cultural observation and interpretive analysis, the paper demonstrates how these strategies allow creators to balance artistic intention with platform expectations, maintaining agency despite structural constraints. The findings challenge deterministic accounts of algorithmic governance by foregrounding creators’ adaptability, reflexivity, and collaborative practices. This framework contributes to broader debates on platform governance, digital labor, and contemporary visual culture by illustrating how human creativity co-evolves with sociotechnical infrastructures. It also offers a conceptual foundation for future empirical research on youth creativity, platformized cultural production, and the shifting dynamics of visual expression in digital societies.