Our lives are highly surrounded by social media and influencer culture, so much so that when we ask any teenager what they want to be when they grow up, it isn’t surprising if being an “influencer” makes the list.Scrolling through Instagram reels or YouTube has become second nature for a generation that’s grown up watching creators build entire careers out of a smartphone camera. What used to sound like a hobby, or even a joke, is now being treated as a legitimate career, and in fact, a major university has decided to start out a course for it.Arizona State University recently rolled out a bachelor’s degree in content creation through its Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, according to an AP report.
This is an ongoing trend with many other universities joining in
ASU’s new major overlaps with its already existing mass communication and media studies degree, but adds specialisation electives in podcasting, studio production, and building an on-camera presence.But it is not the first. Syracuse University, Quinnipiac University, and Colorado State University already run minors in the field, and St. Bonaventure University introduced its own content creation major last winter.According to Brooke Erin Duffy, a communication professor at Cornell University who said to AP, this wave of programs marks a real change, that institutions are finally acknowledging content creation as a viable career, even though the word “influencer” still makes some people uneasy.She pushed back on the popular image of an influencer as someone who just posts selfies and cashes in effortlessly. In reality, she said, “it’s a time-consuming, labour-intensive job that often doesn’t pay well.” A lot of that grind, she added, gets hidden behind the assumption that it’s a dream job.
The money is not going to the influencer as people assume
According to Max Willens, a principal analyst at Emarketer who tracks the creator economy, social media creator revenue in the US is expected to top $20 billion this year, but most of that isn’t landing in creators’ bank accounts. As he said, “The overwhelming majority of that money is not going into creators’ pockets.” Sponsored content remains the biggest earner for most influencers, and Willens expects brands will eventually spend more distributing creator content than creators earn, making it in the first place. He also talked about some limits of the diploma, saying that no degree is going to turn someone into a viral sensation overnight.
The course will treat everyone equally
Phoenix-based creator Aiesha Beasley, who’s been full-time in the space for three years, believes programs like ASU’s have value even for students who never go viral. According to her, “Having a digital presence and a personal brand is very important nowadays,” and the skills involved, like networking, marketing, and communications, carry over well beyond social media itself.Sammy Cristerna, a content creator and actor who graduated from ASU this spring with a degree in sociology and political science, said he’d have jumped at the chance to take these classes if they’d existed sooner. As he said, “It’s nice to have that formal education.”
How much does the degree cost
It is an expensive gamble that depends on what a student wants out of it. Cost is a real factor too, as the Arizona resident tuition at ASU runs about $12,000 or ₹1,147,378 a year, with total cost of attendance topping $37,000 or 35,37,749, while out-of-state students can pay upward of $60,000 or 57,36,891 before scholarships. For some, the payoff might be viral fame. For others, it may simply be a sharper set of communication and marketing skills that are useful no matter where their career goes.
