Inclusion and Exclusion in the Digital Economy: Disability and mental health as a live streamer on Twitch.tv Citation: Johnson, M. R. (2018). Inclusion and Exclusion in the Digital Economy: Disability and mental health as a live streamer on Twitch.tv. Information, Communication and Society, first published online. Introduction Twitch.tv is the dominant market leader in the broadcast of live user-created video content - primarily, but not exclusively, the play of video games - over the internet. In 2016 Twitch broadcasted over half a million years of video content, produced by over two million regular ‘streamers’, to an audience well in excess of one hundred million people (Twitch, 2017). At one end, there are streamers broadcasting for the first time from their bedrooms, viewed by perhaps a handful of individuals. At the other are professional streamers with top-of-the-range broadcasting equipment, watched by tens of thousands at any one time and millions over longer periods, and who can comfortably bring in six-figure incomes. A core element of successful streams is the ability for viewers to talk directly to streamers through a facility known as ‘Twitch Chat’ or simply ‘Chat ’, which allows streamers to immediately reply to viewers. Such a shrinking of the distance between media producer and media consumer, and the centrality of this responsiveness to the success of the phenomenon, highlights the profound newness and wider importance of live streaming in a rapidly-changing media ecosystem. Equally, by providing opportunities in the digital economy to thousands at a rate expanding every day, it is also of great interest for scholars of digital labour, digital work, and the digital economy.