There was a time when the statement that, “we are all photographers now” raised the heckles of many a photographer. The usual response was that, “anyone can own a camera, but that doesn’t make everyone a photographer”. I get it! I agree with it, but things moved quickly and the smartphone in our pocket, not only made everyone a photographer, it also made them a publisher. A publisher of their photography and words, across social media platforms. Those platforms loudly proclaimed that they were not publishers in the traditional sense, to avoid any legal issues, with what was being published. That was the responsibility of the person posting they said. It’s nothing to do with us!

The smartphone has made everyone that owns one, a photographer, publisher, filmmaker, researcher, commentator, journalist and writer. Where once these practices required training, knowledge, experience, creativity and a sense of ethics and responsibility, now by signing a simple contract with a phone network, such powers are put into the hands of everyone and anyone. Everyone and anyone can now create ‘content’.

Recently, a reader of this site sent me a link to a news article on http://www.forbes.com by Anna Esaki-Smith, titled, Arizona State University Launches Degree In Content Creation. He thought I might be interested in what it had to say, and he was right. What he didn’t know is, that I have been in the process of writing two similar programmes over the past six months. The article outlined how “the university’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication will launch a bachelor’s degree in ‘Content Creation’, one of the nation’s first degrees dedicated to preparing students for careers in the booming creator economy. Students will learn skills ranging from video production and audience analytics to branding, podcasting and social media strategy. The new degree reflects a growing recognition of content creation as a legitimate profession rather than a hobby, and one that universities believe merits formal academic training.”

A perfect illustration of ‘the tail wagging the dog’. A reclaiming of the need to teach, what those who are already engaged with a practice, have required no teaching to master. The article goes on to say that, “A 2023 poll conducted by the market research firm Morning Consult found that 57% of Gen Z’ers, ages 13 to 26, wanted to become an influencer, if given the opportunity. While previous generations often viewed these ambitions skeptically, universities are beginning to recognize that digital content creation represents a broader shift in how careers are built.” This is something I have been tracking for some years, writing about on this platform and speaking about on the A Photographic Life podcast. However, within academia, where I spend much of my time, I have been a lonely voice, but things are changing in some institutions as the ASU announcement illustrates.

So, why you may ask have I spent my time, writing programmes that I say do not need to exist? That is a good question, and one I will answer. It is interesting to me that it is ASU who are taking this initiative, as it is also the university where Bill Jay ran his innovative photography programme (You can find out about Bill, by watching the film I made on his life here www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd47549knOU&t=3066s). There is therefore, some personal synchronicity in this coincidence. However, the new ASU course does not mention photography (more on that in a moment)in its syllabus and that to me is strange, but actually perhaps not, as it is coming out of a journalism school. And that is a problem for anyone continuing to conform to a specific label defined practice. My point here is further confirmed within the Forbes article when it says that, “By placing content creation alongside journalism, marketing and communications as a field of academic study, universities are signaling that the creator economy has matured from a pastime into a profession.” Can you see the problem? Well, if not let me help you. Photography is central to all forms of journalism, marketing and communications, in the digital age we are now experiencing, and they are going to teach everything, except the most important thing.

Areas within academia are often overly siloed and there are few academics who can jump across those silos. There is much discussion of inter-programme, school and faculty collaboration within universities, but the truth is, that there is little time or enthusiasm for this to actually happen, amongst experts within their chosen fields, on subject specific programmes. This can potentially create a sense of ‘subject-based’ superiority and insolarity, as this comment evidences, “I don’t know any content creator who wouldn’t benefit from having world-class faculty whose sole mission is to help you and support your growth as a creator,” stated Jessica Pucci, the Senior Associate Dean at ASU’s Cronkite School. Well, I’m sorry, Jessica, but you only have to look on any social media platform, to see that there are thousands of them working successfully, without having your faculty support. You may not know them, but that is not the point. They do exist.

We could transpose this lack of enthusiasm to work across creative disciplines to all areas of creative practice, outside of academia, but I do find photographers to be the most conservative (with a small ‘c’). The lack of willingness to push the video button on their cameras, can be seen as just one obvious proof of this.

I do believe, that it can be beneficial to have a solid foundation of understanding, of all aspects of content creation, if you want to be a content creator, outside of YouTube videos and Tik Tok tutorials on how to be an influencer. However, for this to be relevant to potential content creators, (whatever age they may be) teaching must be based on real-life experience, in and without academia. Therefore, I believe that to teach such a programme requires a collaborative team of experts, from photography, journalism, marketing, filmmaking, editorial design, proof writing and publishing; both new school and old school. And of course successful content providers. It is important to know the rules before you break them, anything else is guesswork, that may or may not be successful. A dangerous position for any professional to be in, as a lack of knowledge will not create the essential required consistency in making. However, photography should be taking the lead. It should be central to all ‘content providing’ education.

That is the basis of the courses I am writing, and my answer to why I am confident that the future of photography, needs to fully embrace content creation as a practice, a profession and a label!

The fact that I did not study photography at degree level, (I studied Graphic Design) combined with my professional career as a photographer, art director, creative director, curator, writer, editor, filmmaker and broadcaster, may well contribute to my willingness to work across different practices. I even played bass in a band! Experiencing ‘Punk’ and ‘New Wave’, in London, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as I did, created a mindset that you could do anything you wanted. At that time, we didn’t have any money or the tools, but we gave it a good go, with the resulting creative boom in music, films, design, magazines, television, comedy and advertising through the following decades. Today, we have the tools, and many are available to us for free, so why wouldn’t we challenge ourselves creatively, through our photography and associated creative outputs? Why wouldn’t we embrace the idea of being a content creator? Is it because we don’t like the term, or is it because we lack a sense of adventure? Or do we fear the future?

Further Reading
www.forbes.com/sites/annaesakismith/2026/08/03/arizona-state-university-launches-degree-in-content-creation/ 
https://unitednationsofphotography.com/2026/08/02/photography-is-being-abused-every-minute-of-every-day/

Dr.Grant Scott
After fifteen years art directing photography books and magazines such as Elle and Tatler, Scott began to work as a photographer for a number of advertising and editorial clients in 2000. Alongside his photographic career Scott has art directed numerous advertising campaigns, worked as a creative director at Sotheby’s, art directed foto8 magazine, founded his own photographic gallery, edited Professional Photographer magazine and launched his own title for photographers and filmmakers Hungry Eye. He founded the United Nations of Photography in 2012, and is now a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, and a BBC Radio contributor. Scott is the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Routledge 2014), The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Routledge 2015), New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography (Routledge 2019), What Does Photography Mean To You? (Bluecoat Press 2020) and Inside Vogue House: One building, seven magazines, sixty years of stories, (Orphans Publishing 2024). His photography has been published in At Home With The Makers of Style (Thames & Hudson 2006) and Crash Happy: A Night at The Bangers (Cafe Royal Books 2012). His film Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay was premiered in 2018.

© Grant Scott 2026