Sustainable Community-Based Contentpreneur Model for Digital Tourism Promotion in Platform Ecosystem

Abstract

This research aims to analyze how the meaning of tourism destinations is constructed, negotiated, and stabilized in a platform-based digital ecosystem through the role of contentpreneurs. This study responds to the limitations of the technological deterministic approach in the study of digital tourism which tends to ignore social processes in the formation of meaning. The research uses an exploratory qualitative approach with a combination of digital ethnography, in-depth interviews, and content analysis. The Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) framework is used to examine the process  of interpretative flexibility, negotiation, and stabilization in interactions between actors, namely contentpreneurs, local communities, business actors, digital audiences, and platforms. The results of the study show that digital tourism promotion is a socio-technical process that is not only determined by technology, but is formed through communication interaction and algorithmic logic of platforms. Contentpreneurs act as socio-technical mediators who bridge local cultural values with economic interests and digital visibility. The destination narrative is formed through a cycle of repetitive negotiation of meaning until it achieves stabilization through audience validation and community acceptance. Theoretically, this study expands SCOT by including platforms as non-human actors and develops the concept of contentpreneur as a socio-technical intermediary in community-based digital tourism communication.