Platformization

This article focuses on WeChat, which remains China’s most iconic mobile application. After offering a short history of WeChat’s development and growth, the next section reviews popular narratives of Tencent’s messaging app--ranging from its role as an exemplar of Chinese innovation to its pioneering embrace of a centralized platform model. I then engage with recent analyses that identify in WeChat traits typical of digital and social infrastructure. [...] If WeChat is indeed becoming (or it has already become) an infrastructure, what kind of infrastructure is it? Which affordances does it provide, and how?

The prominent role played by algorithmic platforms in people’s everyday lives has in recent years triggered a growing interest towards algorithmic imaginaries, intended as worlds of experience users make of the algorithmic media, thereby building up their own awareness of the platform and in turn moulding the algorithm itself through their performativity. Today, part of the construction of individual cultures takes place on streaming platforms, media environments where subjects access cultural materials and cultural exchanges occur. Platforms, such as Netflix or Spotify, have become privileged sites for studying the platformization of cultural production and the construction of algorithmic imaginaries by users and developers. Despite this, to date little has been discussed about cultural creators’ algorithmic imaginaries. This paper intends to discuss how to include algorithmic imaginaries in research regarding platforms and cultural production, by focusing on the case of music plat...

Entre os anos de 2013 e 2018, o Brasil passou por um período de desestabilização das instituições democráticas, que levou à Presidência um defensor do regime ditatorial e de torturas. As mídias sociais foram frequentemente apontadas como um dos vetores desse processo, sobretudo pela articulação de campanhas de desinformação com alcance massivo e pelo tom de perseguição hostil, silenciamento e linchamento de adversários políticos. O argumento dessa tese é que esse fator deve ser investigado em conjunto com outros eixos explicativos, como o desvirtuamento das funções da imprensa de massa, do Congresso Nacional e do sistema de justiça. Dessa forma, propõe compreender as mídias sociais não como o elemento principal que minou a democracia, mas como um sintoma já avançado de um arcabouço de elementos, como o jornalismo adversarial, a dominação digital, poder das plataformas, fragmentação do sistema midiático híbrido, os excessos e ilegalidades da Operação Lava-Jato. A partir dessa oportunidade de colapso político e desconfiança na democracia, as mídias sociais catalisaram sentimentos de insatisfação e revolta operados estrategicamente por núcleos de direita. A pesquisa oferece um olhar longitudinal sobre a crise democrática brasileira, a partir da análise de 3.236.665 publicações do Facebook. Os achados desafiam paradigmas da comunicação, visto que as operações algorítmicas do news feed e sua regulação no alcance do conteúdo quebram a hegemonia da visibilidade das empresas de comunicação de massa na plataforma. Diferentemente do esperado, essa reconfiguração não necessariamente favoreceu atores marginalizados, mas privilegiou iniciativas e técnicas de captura da atenção da extrema-direita; reverberando pautas de prisão de oponentes políticos, fechamento do Congresso Nacional e do Supremo Tribunal Federal e censura do jornalismo, de manifestações artísticas, das universidades e da sociedade civil. Os resultados jogam luz empiricamente sobre o desarranjo da visibilidade e da articulação de iniciativas de desinformação no Facebook e detalham como Jair Bolsonaro e grupos antipetistas construíram e coordenaram ações comunicacionais com alto poder de viralização na plataforma.

Purpose: Platformization is one of the most insightful theoretical frameworks with an exceptional potential to provide a fine-grained ground for understanding how digital platforms contribute to the development of the media industry by facilitating entrepreneurial activities. Therefore, given the significant role of digital platforms in developing the field of 'media entrepreneurship,' the present paper seeks to (re)reading the field of 'media entrepreneurship" by employing the platformization framework. Methodology: We have adopted a conceptual reseach design, which tries to build a bridge between different theoretical frameworks in a novel way, and thus broaden our understanding on a particular issue. In so doing, we have calibrated our efforts based on the theory synthesis method. As such, using the platformization theoretical lens, this paper summarizes and integrates the fragmented literature on media entrepreneurship to offer a new way of thinking within this field. Findings/Contribution: The investigations in this study corroborate the idea that media entrepreneurs should be equipped with a multi-paradigmatic lens to see how their practices may have beneficial implications for the media industries, and they can also engage in some unfair and monopolistic initiatives that are prompted by the platforms and/or by governmental interventions. The platformization framework, introduced and developed in this research, reveals its potential as insightful perspective to systematically move the field of media entrepreneurship forward, from theory to practice.

The purpose of the article is to discuss the negotiations and tensions between the platform Facebook and the news companies during the implementation of the Instant Articles (IA) project. Launched in 2015 to facilitate the creation of “quick and interactive articles”, this feature can be considered a milestone in Facebook’s efforts to become a technical and cost-effective infrastructure for journalistic publications. The empirical material is composed of press releases published by Facebook, opinion articles in the specialized press, and other documents. The analysis reveals nuances of power disputes between the different actors involved in the controversy surrounding the process of platformization of journalism.

O objetivo do artigo é discutir as negociações e as tensões entre a plata-forma Facebook e as instituições jornalísticas a partir da implementaçãodo projeto Instant Articles (IA). Lançado em 2015 para facilitar a criaçãode “artigos rápidos e interativos”, este recurso pode ser considerado ummarco nos esforços do Facebook para se tornar uma infraestrutura técnicae econômica para as publicações jornalísticas. O material empírico é com-posto por comunicados publicados pelo Facebook, artigos de opinião naimprensa especializada e outros documentos. A análise revela nuances dasdisputas de poder entre os diferentes atores envolvidos na controvérsia emtorno do processo de plataformização do jornalismo

Introduction: In recent years, digital platforms, especially mobile instant messaging services such as WhatsApp,  have  become  essential  tools  for  local  administrations.  Changes  in  the  habits  of  the population, more likely to carry out their procedures through mobile devices, but also the possibility that these platforms offer to promote direct and immediate communication have made city councils see  in  them  a  way  to  improve  relations  with  the  citizens.  Our  objective  is  to  analyze  the characteristics,  uses,  and  functions  that  local  institutions  confer  on  their  mobile  instant  messaging services  to  communicate  with  citizens. Methodology:  A  qualitative  analysis  has  been  carried  out through  in-depth  interviews  with  eighteen  municipalities,  selected  based  on  their  number  of inhabitants. Results:  The  results  show  an  overview  of  the  uses  of  WhatsApp  by  local administrations.  This  makes  it  possible  to  identify  the  motivations  and  objectives  in  its implementation,  its  characteristics  concerning  its  contents  and  planning,  and  its  future  challenges. Conclusion and discussion: The findings of this research show that WhatsApp is established in the local administrations. However, its use is not capable of taking advantage of all the potentialities of the  digital  environment,  especially  due to  the  lack  of  dialogue  with  citizens  and  solid  strategic planning.

The COVID-19 pandemic has consolidated a double move. On the one hand, universities are becoming increasingly aware of the strategic value of copyright. On the other hand, the necessity to embrace distance education is making universities realise that there is a wealth of issues that go beyond ownership of research outputs and reprography rights. Understanding the role of universities as copyright subjects today requires understanding the rise of the ‘platformisation’ of learning, which this chapter does by analysing the audio-visual lecture capture policies of the largest universities in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy and France. The rules on lecture capture represent a meaningful entry point to investigate strengths and weaknesses of the universities’ approach to the creation and use of protected content online. Through this lens, it is possible to reflect on both the underlying exacerbated power imbalance between universities and teachers, and the diverging approach towards copyright law across the European higher education landscape. First, the chapter considers whether the selected universities had a specific policy on lecture capture, and, if so, what it covered, and where the default rule sat in the continuum between opt-out and opt-in. Then, it investigates issues of ownership of the lecture recordings, including the incorporated slides and other materials as well as the performance rights. Ownership rules significantly affect who can exploit the recordings and under which conditions, thus raising delicate and timely questions on the management and commercialisation of recorded lectures, the protection of moral rights and the retention of economic ones. Despite stark differences between the selected countries’ approach, the clear trend towards an increased expectation that teachers have to record their lectures epitomises the digital dispossession that is inherent to the platformisation of education. Nonetheless, the oft-forgotten rights in performances can still play a role in pursuing a fairer balance between the competing interests at play.

A key concern in international policy debates about articulating oversight of digital platform markets involves policy silos, arising from the scope of platformization and datafication, and the challenges in defining their policy boundaries and coordinating a comprehensive policy response. This article examines how policymakers grapple with the problem by looking at a growing number of expert inquiries on digital platforms—a proxy for the international policy debate—that focus on policy problems ranging from market dominance and privacy risks to the spread of disinformation. Specifically, the article develops a schema of related policy silos and tradeoffs that arise in these debates: (1) policy area silos, (2) market/sectoral silos, (3) temporal silos, and (4) normative tradeoffs. Then, it critically examines the implications of these silos and tradeoffs for policy interventions aimed at addressing concerns related to datafication and platformization, raising key questions about the scope of and assumptions underlying platform regulation internationally and noting the way they constrain policy design and thwart more holistic policy solutions.

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.

The project studies the entry of digital platforms into India’s domestic and care work sector. We find that platforms rely on and amplify unequal structures of power that workers already experience. We use a feminist lens to critique platform modalities and orient platformisation dynamics in radically different, worker-first ways.

Hosted at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), the research was led by Ambika Tandon and Aayush Rathi, with Sumandro Chattapadhyay providing planning, editorial and project management support.

This work forms part of the APC 'Feminist Internet Research Network' project, supported by the International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent those of IDRC or its Board of Governors.

The article focuses on the analysis of the social agency of digital platforms through the lens of the value-based perspective. The specificity of the social reality of platforms is their dependence on the generation of content by users, so the core value for platforms is the productivity of users. The agency of platforms aimed at the realization of this value emerges in the strategy of narrativization. Narrativization refers to the focus of platforms on retention of users in the role of "storytellers," which provides for the production of the most successfully consumed content. In the short term, this strategy may lead to the creation of bots capable of generating multimedia stories that are fascinating to users and provide a self-sustaining platform. In the long term, this strategy transforms the notion of sociality, which is reduced to narrative productivity, with the ultimate goal of generating the learning material for artificial intelligence that will create a metanarrative that reveals the value of each individual user's productivity.
Shatkin, M. (2022). The Agency of Digital Platforms: A Value-Based
Perspective. Izv. Sarat. Univ. Philosophy. Psychology. Pedagogy, 22 (2)
(forthcoming).

Although the platformization process has been intensively studied, a better understanding is needed of how it has affected media dynamics such as the formation of media memory. The original contribution of this paper to the research field is, thus, to highlight the interrelatedness of issues, such as media memory, social media, and the platformization process that are usually considered independently. To achieve this, three theoretical frameworks-media and memory, social media logic, and platformization-will be bridged by means of the platformization of cultural production of Nieborg and Poell with the aim of analysing the case study of the Festival di Sanremo, chosen because of its relevance to the Italian mediascape, Italian cultural memory, and social media presence. The argument will demonstrate that the ongoing process of platformization of media memory is operating in three dimensions: archive, assemblage, and ephemerality. The analysis of the case proposed will also help to highlight the fact that the platformization process is not an unavoidable end, but that there are margins of resistance to it adopting digital platforms connected to mainstream social media ones though independent of them. Issues left open are the governance and the responsibility for custody of media memories, the risk of a fragmented use of archived contents, the decontextualization of media memories, their (mis)appropriation, manipulation, he-gemonic selection, and the threat that media memory may become a commodity, reactivated only when necessary and at the mercy of social media platforms' policies.

Digital mobility platforms such as “Uber” are forms of passenger transportation that have become integral parts of the mobility landscape of cities. The policy response to these services has varied across the world, from complete abolition to integration into local transportation laws. The global business model of Uber has been met with fierce resistance by local taxi service providers and resulted in open conflicts in cities such as Barcelona, Berlin, Paris and even stirred violence e.g. in Johannesburg. In all these cities, taxi operators feared and experienced a substantial loss of patronage. Due to the legal challenges and increased competition in almost every part of the world, the consequences have been widely reported and discussed in the media. However, the dynamics of the changing mobility landscapes in cities have been poorly understood so far, partially because they have been observed without taking into account global as well as specific local processes of urban change.
Although being a universal business model making use of similar sets of digital tools, I point towards the fact that the actual operation of these services is embedded in the local social, political and economic fabric. While being a “disruptive” business model, I argue that these services are also part of a wider process of urban change. At the same time, the operation of such services builds on pre-existing social inequalities, socio-spatial fragmentation and exploitation that are defining characteristics of the capitalistic city in both the global North and South. This PhD project aims at better understanding the nature of the apparent conflict between the “new” and “old” forms of mobility. I chose Mumbai, with its iconic black-and-yellow taxi, as a case study.

This article proposes a new model of privacy: infrastructural surveillance. It departs from Agre’s classic distinction between surveillance and capture by examining the sociotechnical claims of connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs) as requiring totalising surveillance of passengers and environment in order to operate. By doing so, it contributes to the ongoing debate on the commodification and platformisation of life, paying attention to the under-explored infrastructural requirements of certain digital technologies, rather than its business model. The article addresses four distinct characteristics of infrastructural surveillance: the aggregation of data, initialisation of protocols limiting possible actions, the prioritisation of distributed modes of governance and the enclosure of the driver in a personalised bubble of sovereign power. Ultimately, unlike previous modes of computer privacy in which activities are being constructed in real time from a set of institutionally stan...

How can the ubiquitous digitalization in the early 21st century be grasped and characterized? A media-change perspective that focuses on innovation-driven, complex co-evolutionary processes points to the following characteristics: digitalization is an intertwined co-evolutionary bundle of sociotechnological transformation processes that reveals itself as a trinity of datafication, algorithmization, and platformization. It is embedded in the nano-bio-info-cogno-convergence (NBIC), accordingly linked to a transhumanism standing for the belief in a controllable human evolution, and characterized by the convergence of technology and religion in the form of an implicit everyday religion of the digital. These hallmarks of digitalization are reflected in an altered social order, which is driven by the interplay of governance by and of digital technology.

Internet pidi meid vabaks tegema. Aga ei teinud. Pigem vastupidi. Sellest, miks nii läks ja mis saab edasi, käesolev essee ongi. Aga alustagem algusest. Juba rohkem kui paar aastatuhandet on laialt tuntud lugu sellest, kuidas maailm loodi vaid nä-dalaga. Kohe esimesel päeval, enne kõike muud loodi taevas ja maa. See tähendab: ruum. Ruumist kõik algas. Niisamuti oli ka internetiga aasta-tuhanded hiljem. Ammu enne kui inter-net massikasutusse läks, kujunes arusaam sellest kui ruumist, "küberruumist". Te-gelikkuses, füüsiliste tunnuste järgi, on internet siiski vaid hulk kaablitega ühen-datud servereid ja terminale. Kuid 1984. aastal ilmunud William Gibsoni romaanist "Neuromancer" saati on inimkonnal ikka veel ettekujutus internetist kui alterna-tiivsest ruumist-sellisest, kus kehtivad teistsugused reeglid, kuhu saab minna ja olla keegi teine, kus saab teha tegusid, mis päris reaalsuses oleksid võimatud. See oli uus ruum, uus reaalsus, korraga nii erutav kui ka pelutav, nii riskantne kui ka ideaalne. Igal juhul uusi vabadusi ja võimalusi loov. Vabadused olid tollal olulised. Kui tänapäeval kõneleb igapäevadiskurss internetist ennekõike kui äritegemise võimalusest, siis 1990. aastatel ja veidi hiljemgi kõneldi peaasjalikult vabadustest ja demokraatiast. Internet pidi andma hääle ja avalikkuses teotsemise võimalu-se neile, kellel need puudusid. Internet pidi ka vabastama sotsiaalsete normide survest identiteetidele-nagu Donna Ha-raway, tuntud digikultuuri uurija, tollal näitas, lõi küberruum justkui võimaluse olla keegi teine, huvi korral ebakonvent-sionaalsem, võimu ja selle normatiivide suhtes väljakutsuv. 1 Aga samuti sai interneti kui ruumi koh-ta tollal selgeks, et ta ei saa niisama liht-salt täis, sel ruumil on küllalt kasvuruumi. Kõige kiiremini aga hakkas see ruum kas-vama siis, kui kommertsalusel toimivad ettevõtted hakkasid mõistma selle ruumi kui teenuste turu kasvupotentsiaali ja et infoteenuste turul on oluline saavutada mastaabiefekt kiiresti. Sest kes kasvab suurimaks, suudab seda positsiooni eel-datavalt, just mastaabisäästu loogikast lähtudes, ka hoida. Nii käivituski 90ndate lõpul internetiinvesteeringute kullapala-vik. Tollastesse idufirmadesse valati sisse raha, millist pole ka kunagi hiljem nähtud (võrreldavaid summasid on liikvel ehk vaid kõige viimasel ajal-rahatrükkide aegu idufirmadesse pressitavate eurode ja dollarite hulk on üsna sarnaselt pöörane). Kuid turg ja ärimudelid ei olnud nul-lindate alguses veel valmis, investeerin-gute börsimull läks 2000. aastal lõhki. Tuntud innovatsioonimajanduse uurija Carlota Perez on näidanud, et selliseid

Workers in cultural industries often say that the best part of their job is the opportunity for creativity. At the same time, profit-minded managers at both traditional firms and digital platforms exhort workers to “be creative.” Even as cultural fields hold out the prospect of meaningful employment, they are marked by heightened economic precarity. What does it mean to be creative under contemporary capitalism? And how does the ideology of creativity explain workers’ commitment to precarious jobs?

Michael L. Siciliano draws on nearly two years of ethnographic research as a participant-observer in a Los Angeles music studio and a multichannel YouTube network to explore the contradictions of creative work. He details how such workplaces feature engaging, dynamic processes that enlist workers in organizational projects and secure their affective investment in ideas of creativity and innovation. Siciliano argues that performing creative labor entails a profound ambivalence: workers experience excitement and aesthetic engagement alongside precarity and alienation. Through close comparative analysis, he presents a theory of creative labor that accounts for the roles of embodiment, power, alienation, and technology in the contemporary workplace.

Combining vivid ethnographic detail and keen sociological insight, Creative Control explains why “cool” jobs help us understand how workers can participate in their own exploitation.

This thesis examines how recording artists and professionals understood the impact of music streaming services in the Australian market between 2017 and 2018. During this period, services such as Spotify and Apple Music emerged as the largest generators of recording revenue for copyright holders following years of rapid global growth. This coincided with an increasing popularity of curated playlists and automated recommendation features, as well as persistent media narratives positioning streaming as economically unfair and/or culturally harmful to popular music. Drawing on twenty-nine semi-structured interviews with Australian musicians and music business professionals, this thesis explores how participants in the music industries understood and responded to the new affordances of music streaming interfaces, the usage data and other metrics generated by these services, and the role these services play within the commercial circulation of recordings.

This thesis finds that during these key years of transition to streaming for the Australian recording industry, specific areas of practice became highly interdependent with streaming services. However, there was little evidence of 'producing for the platform.' Participants described their roles in the music industries as artists, producers, and professionals who work together with interdependent firms and agents to circulate music. Streaming services were positioned as information technology or media firms extending prior functions of radio and retail, rather than as co-producers of musical experience commodities, new versions of record labels, or as 'music companies.' This separation between (creative) production and (mundane) distribution by streaming services reflects boundary disputes over art and commerce, as well as territorial concerns over who are the legitimate producers of popular music. The research finds that participants adjusted their distribution strategies to suit the new environment of streaming services; however, optimising musical production specifically for streaming services was considered inauthentic.

My thesis locates these articulations of industry practice within current debates in music industries research, and related fields including digital media studies, popular music studies, media industry studies, sociology, and cultural economics. I show how current debates about music streaming relate to larger concerns about autonomy in cultural production. The thesis reveals specific areas of industry practice where technological change was embraced, and where existing logics of autonomy were defended. By analysing these understandings of technological change during a period of considerable industry volatility, the thesis seeks to recognise, acknowledge, and contribute to improving the conditions under which musicians and professionals in the music industries derive livelihoods from the creation and circulation of music.