scholarly journals The platformization of cultural production: Theorizing the contingent cultural commodity

2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (11) ◽  
pp. 4275-4292 ◽  
Author(s):  
David B Nieborg ◽  
Thomas Poell
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Pricing Strategies ◽  
Market Structures ◽  
Business Studies ◽  
Software Studies ◽  
Platform Governance ◽  
Production Distribution ◽  
Cultural Content ◽  
Cultural Commodity

This article explores how the political economy of the cultural industries changes through platformization: the penetration of economic and infrastructural extensions of online platforms into the web, affecting the production, distribution, and circulation of cultural content. It pursues this investigation in critical dialogue with current research in business studies, political economy, and software studies. Focusing on the production of news and games, the analysis shows that in economic terms platformization entails the replacement of two-sided market structures with complex multisided platform configurations, dominated by big platform corporations. Cultural content producers have to continuously grapple with seemingly serendipitous changes in platform governance, ranging from content curation to pricing strategies. Simultaneously, these producers are enticed by new platform services and infrastructural changes. In the process, cultural commodities become fundamentally “contingent,” that is increasingly modular in design and continuously reworked and repackaged, informed by datafied user feedback.

scholarly journals Platform Practices in the Cultural Industries: Creativity, Labor, and Citizenship

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 205630511987967 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brooke Erin Duffy ◽  
Thomas Poell ◽  
David B. Nieborg
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Production ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Cultural Industries ◽  
Comprehensive Understanding ◽  
The West ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
Production Distribution ◽  
Methodological Approaches ◽  
Cultural Content

The rise of contemporary platforms—from GAFAM in the West to the “three kingdoms” of the Chinese Internet—is reconfiguring the production, distribution, and monetization of cultural content in staggering and complex ways. Given the nature and extent of these transformations, how can we systematically examine the platformization of cultural production? In this introduction, we propose that a comprehensive understanding of this process is as much institutional (markets, governance, and infrastructures), as it is rooted in everyday cultural practices. It is in this vein that we present fourteen original articles that reveal how platformization involves key shifts in practices of labor, creativity, and citizenship. Diverse in their methodological approaches and topical foci, these contributions allow us to see how platformization is unfolding across cultural, geographic, and sectoral-industrial contexts. Despite their breadth and scope, these articles can be mapped along four thematic clusters: continuity and change; diversity and creativity; labor in an age of algorithmic systems; and power, autonomy, and citizenship.

scholarly journals ANALYZING PLATFORM POWER IN THE CULTURAL INDUSTRIES

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
David B. Nieborg ◽  
Thomas Poell ◽  
Brooke Erin Duffy
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Production ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Power Relationship ◽  
Cultural Industries ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Business Studies ◽  
Software Studies ◽  
Political Economic

Across cultures and contexts, digital platforms like YouTube, TikTok/Douyin, WeChat, and Spotify are fundamentally reshaping both the processes and products of cultural production—from music and news to entertainment and advertising. But, despite considerable attention to the perverse power of algorithms in various spheres of social and economic life, we contend that existing political economic frameworks fail to account for the distinctiveness of the cultural industries. Challenging essentialist theories of platform dominance, this paper argues that claims of platform power need to be qualified in the context of industry- and culture-specific inquiries. Building on research in science and technology studies (STS), software studies, political economy, business studies, and media industries studies, the paper presents a new analytical framework to analyse the evolving power relationship between platforms and cultural producers. It is argued that the decision space of cultural producers in their role as platform complementors is shaped by three key variables: 1) platform evolution, 2) cultural industry segments, and 3) stages of production. The proposed framework makes clear that, while the relationship between platforms and cultural producers is staggeringly uneven and, at times, highly volatile, it should be understood as one of mutual dependence. That is, platforms exert mechanisms of power over the phases of the creation, distribution, monetization, and marketing of culture; but they also furnish space for negotiation and contestation. Acknowledging this requires a framework that is less deterministic and sensitive to the nuance inherent in cultural production.

scholarly journals Continental shifts: capitalism, communications and change in Europe

2005 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 11-23
Author(s):  
Graham Murdock
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Classic Approach ◽  
Media Markets ◽  
The Media ◽  
Distribution Of Power

This article puts forward the fundamental lines of thought on the Political Economy of Communications and the Media, since the development of capitalism up to the present day. Clarifying the distinction between Economy and Political Economy, this work examines the central split between two traditions within Political Economy: the Classic approach which is centred on markets and competition mechanisms and the Critical approach which is centred on the analysis of property and the distribution of power in society. Despite internal distinct traditions, for political economists’ questions about cultural production and consumption are never simply matters of economic organisation or creative expression and the relations between them. They are always also questions about the organisation of power and its consequences for the constitution of public life. Based on different Political Economy perspectives, this article attempts to present the most recent developments on communications and media markets in Europe and the major challenges and opportunities the discipline faces in a time marked by the emergence of a digital public sphere.

Swipe To Unlock

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Werning
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Production ◽  
Haptic Feedback ◽  
User Interaction ◽  
Epistemic Status ◽  
Experience Design ◽  
User Experience Design ◽  
Software Applications ◽  
Software Studies ◽  
Cultural Imaginary ◽  
Digital Material

Abstract Since the release of iconic devices like the Nintendo DS (2004) and particularly the first iPhone (2007), touchscreen interfaces have become almost omnipresent and arguably shaped a “touchscreen generation”. But how do touchscreen experiences operate as complex assemblages of material contingencies, electronics, algorithms and user interaction? And how do they function in actual software applications? In order to address these questions, the paper outlines a comparative software studies perspective, which comprises four consecutive steps. The introduction draws on cultural studies research on touchscreen interfaces to establish a theoretical framework for understanding the shifting epistemic status of the screen and the complex relationship between technical affordances and cognitive processes. Second, the paper explores aesthetic implications of the materiality of touchscreens, including the shift from vertical to horizontal navigational logic and the focus on physical contiguity in user experience design. Third, a series of short, interconnected case studies serves to illustrate the more specific implications on practices of media use and cultural production in a variety of applications. For example, apps like Vine evoke the ‘tangibility’ of digital material by allowing users to start and stop recording video by touching and releasing the screen respectively. Other, even more iconic examples include the swipe mechanic employed in Tinder and particularly the ‘swipe to unlock’ gesture used in the Android operating system. Finally, the previous findings are contextualised by briefly investigating the cultural imaginary of the touchscreen, which manifests itself in the form of haptic feedback as well as curved and even wearable touch-sensitive surfaces.

Multinational Enterprise, Innovation, and Development: Theoretical Perspectives

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick J. W. Egan
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
International Development ◽  
Value Chain ◽  
Multinational Firms ◽  
Multinational Enterprise ◽  
Firm Level ◽  
Business Studies ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Prior Literature ◽  
Enterprise Innovation

This chapter provides the theoretic background and working hypotheses for the empirical tests that follow in subsequent chapters. The book is informed by substantial literature in several academic subfields, including but not limited to international political economy, international business studies, development economics, and global value chain research. This chapter builds a cumulative theoretic framework for interpreting multinational innovation and comparative institutionalist perspectives. Prior literature and debate inform the hypotheses presented in this chapter, which involve both country and firm level attributes and resulting investment patterns. The chapter considers ideas from international development studies regarding the role of multinational firms in processes of country growth and technological upgrading, theories of the firm and contemporary pressures for polycentric innovation models, and institutionalist perspectives from political science and political economy. This chapter also provides working definitions for key concepts and how institutions might be analytically separated from host country policies. The chapter emphasizes the theoretic support for the causal mechanisms supposed in the various hypotheses.

scholarly journals Bit by (Twitch) Bit: “Platform Capture” and the Evolution of Digital Platforms

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 205630512093398
Author(s):  
William Clyde Partin
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Production ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Management Service ◽  
Management Tools ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Business Studies ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Many

This article considers the history of donation management tools on the livestreaming platform Twitch. In particular, it details the technical and economic contexts that led to the development of Twitch Bits, a first-party donation management service introduced in 2016. Two contributions to research on the platformization of cultural production are made. One, this article expands the empirical record regarding Twitch by chronicling the role of viewer donations in livestreaming since 2010, as well as the many tools that have facilitated this practice. It is argued that this history traces the complex and co-productive interactions between Twitch as a sociotechnical architecture and a political economy. Two, by considering how the first-party donation tool Twitch Bits has gradually challenged the dominance of the third-party tools that preceded it, this article theorizes the notion of platform capture, a critical rereading of platform envelopment, a popular concept in business studies. Ultimately, it is argued that platform capture demonstrates how platform owners leverage power asymmetries over dependents to aid in their platform’s technical evolution.

scholarly journals The Political Economy of Cultural Memory in the Videogames Industry

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-84
Author(s):  
Emil Lundedal Hammar
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Game Studies ◽  
Production Networks ◽  
Cultural Aspects ◽  
Videogame Industry ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Game Developers

Abstract Following the materialist approaches to contemporary digital memory- making, this article explores how unequal access to memory production in videogames is determined along economic and cultural lines. Based on semi-structured qualitative interviews with different European, Asian and North American historical game developers, I make the case for how materialist and cultural aspects of videogame development reinforce existing mnemonic hegemony and in turn how this mnemonic hegemony determines access to the production of memory- making potentials that players of videogames activate and negotiate. My interview findings illustrate how individual workers do not necessarily intend to reproduce received systems of power and hegemony, and instead how certain cultural and material relations tacitly motivate and/or marginalise workers in the videogame industries to reproduce hegemonic power relations in cultural memory across race, class and gender. Finally, I develop the argument that access to cultural production networks such as the games industry constitutes important factors that need to be taken seriously in research on cultural memory and game studies. Thus, my article investigates global power relationships, political economy, colonial legacies and cultural hegemony within the videogame industry, and how these are instantiated in individual instances of game developers.

The Political Economy of the Market

2020 ◽  
pp. 57-69
Author(s):  
Itir Ozer-Imer ◽  
Derya Guler Aydin
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Static Analysis ◽  
The Other ◽  
Market Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Market Structures ◽  
Dynamic Framework ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Social Concerns

In the modern period, there are two concerns regarding the nature of the market. One is associated with market structures that involve solely the economic sphere and exclude all other factors including historical, social, and institutional ones. Hence, it conducts a static analysis, while the other relates the market process with all the aforementioned factors in addition to the economic ones, and therefore, combines economic and non-economic spheres, and the analysis becomes dynamic. This chapter scrutinizes the conceptualization of the market; that is whether the market is considered as a “structure” or a “process”. With this consideration, authors relate the conceptualization of the market with the type of competition. When the market is regarded as a “process”, it is possible to claim that market becomes an “institution”. Thus, by taking the market as an institution and considering competition within a dynamic framework, the emergent economic theoretical structure provides an in-depth, comprehensive, analytical, and novel approach to real economic and social concerns.

Neoliberalism’s “official crap art”?

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-131
Author(s):  
Ioannis Tsitsovits
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Big Data ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Authentic Self ◽  
Digital Environments

Abstract British writer Tom McCarthy has repeatedly taken aim at what he calls a “sentimental humanism” and the contemporary cult of the “authentic self”. This article investigates his work through the lens of that critique. Extrapolating from McCarthy’s public statements, I endeavour to delineate sentimental humanism as a mode of cultural production and flesh out his linking of it to a neoliberal political economy. I show how his antagonism manifests itself in his work, particularly his debut novel, Remainder. By contrast, his latest novel, Satin Island, marks a turning point in that trajectory. Although implicitly framed by its author as a way of thematising the challenges with which Big Data has confronted literature, Satin Island more specifically reveals that his anti-humanist agenda has also reached an impasse. Much of the logic behind the critique of sentimental humanism mounted by Remainder, I argue, is in a sense pre-empted or assimilated by the kinds of corporate digital environments described in Satin Island.

scholarly journals Out of Time, Out of Place: Primitivism and African Art

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (9) ◽  
pp. 16
Author(s):  
Meredeth Turshen
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
African Art ◽  
Cultural Legacy ◽  
Mass Migration ◽  
Declining Populations ◽  
History Of ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Cultural Hierarchies

<p>This article debates the proposition that artistic production mirrors humanity’s maturation from primitive superstition to scientific rationality. This effort sits at the intersection of demography, political economy and aesthetics. According to traditional demographic theory, primitive peoples are caught in a poverty trap of high birth rates, a condition inimical to industrialization, well-planned urbanization, universal education, women’s emancipation and cultural production. The analysis focuses on three dynamics: the demographic effects of mass migration on creativity: the trajectories of declining populations and their places in cultural hierarchies; and slavery and colonialism’s reduction to penury of skilled artists in pre-industrial societies. The method interrogates self-reinforcing trends of the canons of demography, political economy and aesthetics and the resulting concurrence on the path of progress, which assumes that art is a reflection of liberal historical advancement. The overarching argument of the article is that by setting the criteria and suppressing alternative accounts of the history of African art, these canons narrow and misrepresent our global cultural legacy. Background: sub-Saharan African art is classified as “primitive” according to the canons of art history, demography and political economy. This label is problematic because it conveys faulty demographic assumptions about sub-Saharan Africa and reflects the ways in which theories of human progress reinforce analyses underlying the designation of primitive. The proposition advanced is that these canons narrow, suppress alternative accounts of the history of African art, and misrepresent our global cultural legacy.</p>

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