‘Digital footprints, once regarded as incidental traces of online interaction, have become central to the organization of creative labour. In the age of artificial intelligence (AI), these traces function not only as markers of identity but as forms of symbolic, reputational, and economic capital that mediate visibility, opportunity, and legitimacy within cultural and creative industries. This article introduces the concept of Digital Footprint Capital (DFC) to theorize how creators cultivate and mobilize online presence across four analytically derived dimensions: visibility capital, authenticity capital, collaborative capital, and resilience capital. Drawing on a systematic and reflexive synthesis of scholarship on digital identity, creative labour precarity, AI and algorithmic governance, the framework demonstrates how AI simultaneously expands creative possibilities and intensifies structural vulnerabilities. While generative AI accelerates content production and cultural circulation, it also reproduces inequalities, amplifies reputational fragility, and deepens pressures on digital wellness. Through documented empirical examples from platformed creative work, the article shows how digital footprints are co-constructed by human and algorithmic actors, producing hybrid identities that are both strategic and unstable. By conceptualizing digital traces as capital, this study advances debates on the datafication of cultural work and offers a framework for anticipating the evolving dynamics of AI-mediated creative economies.’
Link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369118X.2026.2716340
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