Cultural production and work economics are in creative industries are changing: one of the prominent companies –– Adobe Inc. with the market share of 70% (Dey, 2025) has created an ecosystem within inself with a multitude of services to offer.
The current state of research includes case studies on the cycle of cultural production, thematic studies and raw data on Adobe Inc., while reseach of how its platform structire shapes the job market has not been assesed thoroughly and this study aims to close the following gap. The study also aims to position Adobe and Behance within the three-stage cycle of cultural production.
With the an adapted methodology from Nieborg & Helmond (2019), it was discovered that Adobe has created a cycle of cultural production within itself, where Behance is the final with concentrated political and economic power. This study is original in its analysis of platformisation, cultural production cycles, and labor market consequences within a creative industries. Promotion of certain artists via algorithmic approach and commissioned art, inequalities between the payroll employees and independent contractors were defined as potentially problematic and requiring further assesment. Study’s limitations were the absence of algorithmic trasparency of Behance. Creative labor market assesments are suggested, in order to understand what inequalities are present and how should such labor relations be governed.
Research Questions
RQ1: What is the positioning of Adobe and Behance within the cultural production cycle?
RQ2: How does Adobe Behance platform structure cultural production processes and shape labor conditions within its platform ecosystem?
Research Methods
The total scope of sources used for analysis involves analysis of both business strategies of Behance, based on the official documentation, such as revenue records, annual reports, official blog posts and external data on the creative economy to which Behance can be related, such as Gartner’s Magical Quadrant and statistical data. It was collected via simple online search, peer recommendations, or through inquiries via ChatGPT, Gemini and Grok.
The method of analysis employed analysis of these sources, related to Adobe from the business, politics and software perspectives (adapted from Poell et al., 2019, p. 4) and from the perspective of a three-stage cycle of cultural production (Mosco, 2015; Poell et al., 2019), discussed earlier.
Key Findings
This study contributed to the existing literature by explaining how Adobe’s Behance (a platform for creative production) impacts the job market and creative industries.
It also discussed the changes in three stages of creation, distribution, marketing and monetisation within Adobe and Behance’s ecosystems; how they are being changed by this platform and confirmed previous findings by other scholars.
Limitations & Further Research
Inability to assess certain aspects of Behance’s case study; causal relations could not be established in the most precise way.
Need for precise studies and labor market assessments and possibly, qualitative studies
References
Dey, M. (2025, June 10). Adobe Photoshop Vs. Canva Statistics – Which is the Better Design Tool? (2025). Electro IQ. https://electroiq.com/stats/adobe-photoshop-vs-canva-statistics/
Mosco, V. (2015). Political Economy of the Media. In W. Donsbach (Ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Communication (1st ed., pp. 1–13). Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781405186407.wbiecp057.pub3
Nieborg, D. B., & Helmond, A. (2019). The political economy of Facebook’s platformization in the mobile ecosystem: Facebook Messenger as a platform instance. Media, Culture & Society, 41(2), 196–218. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443718818384
Nieborg, D. B., & Poell, T. (2018). The platformization of cultural production: Theorizing the contingent cultural commodity. New Media & Society, 20(11), 4275–4292. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444818769694
Poell, T., Nieborg, D. B., & Duffy, B. E. (2022). Platforms and cultural production. Polity Press.
Poell, T., Nieborg, D., & Van Dijck, J. (2019). Platformisation. Internet Policy Review, 8(4). https://doi.org/10.14763/2019.4.1425