ARIN1001 The Past and Futures

of Digital Cultures

Week 7 –
Sharing & Platform Ecologies

Presented by Dr. Billie Wilcox,

ARIN1001 Acting Unit Coordinator

TEQSA PRV12057
With thanks to Associate Prof. Fiona Martin

CRICOS 00026A
Acknowledgement of Country

I want to start by acknowledging the

tradition of custodianship and the law of
the country on which the University of
Sydney Campuses stand and pay my
respects to those who have cared and
continue to care for country.

The Black – represents the Aboriginal people of Australia.

The Yellow – represents the Sun, the giver of life and the protector.

The Red – represents the red earth, the red ochre used in ceremonies and
Aboriginal peoples' spiritual relation to the land.

Katherine Mullett, Gunaikurnai Monero Ngarigo (March, 2022 online)

What questions are we interrogating this week?

What are digital platforms? Why are platform companies so powerful?

How do they shape our networked information sharing?

What motivates social sharing?

How do platform companies commodify our social sharing?

What type of entities make up a platform ecology?

How can we critically understand these corporate and capitalist relations?

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Digital Platforms
We all use them…

"The centralization of the web by dominant social media platforms"

by Juliana Castro for an article by Juan Ortiz Freuler is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
What are digital platforms?
At the most general level, they are digital infrastructures
that enable two or more groups to interact.
Accordingly, platform companies often position themselves
as Intermediaries that bring together different ‘actors’, ‘users’

- Users / Customers
- Advertisers
- Service Providers
- Producers
- Suppliers, and Physical Objects.

- Srnicek, N. (2016). Platform capitalism (1st ed.). Wiley.

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 Reaction Like Media Button Youtube Facebook Social by Freeman Dixon

Platforms in our everyday life is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC 4.0)

• Social Media (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok) – allow people to connect, share and communicate;
• E-Commerce (Amazon, eBay, Depop, Uber Eats) – allow people to buy and sell products and services online;
• Streaming (Netflix, YouTube, Spotify) – allow people to stream videos, music and other content;
• Communication (WhatsApp, Zoom, Slack) – provide tools for messaging and communication;
• Educational (Khan Academy; edX, Coursera) – allow people to learn new skills and knowledge;
• Gaming (Steam, Xbox Live, PlayStation Network) – enable users to buy, download and play games;
• Job Search (LinkedIn, Seek, Glassdoor)- help people find & apply for jobs, create work profiles and connect
• Ride-Sharing (Uber, Didi, Ola) – connect riders needing transportation with drivers
• Dating (Tinder, Hinge, Bumble) – enable social connection for dates, relationships, social interactions
• Cloud Computing (Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure) – connect for online services for computing
• Development (GitHub) - offer tools and services for developers to host, share and manage code projects
• Data Storage (Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud) - allow users to store, share and manage files in the cloud

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What are intermediaries?
Intermediaries are people or businesses that act as a “middle step”
between two parties, helping them connect and interact.

For example, a physical store acts as an intermediary between

manufacturers and customers – customers buy products from the store
instead of directly from the manufacturer.

In the digital world, platforms are also intermediaries.

They provide the technology and infrastructure that enables the
connection for people to exchange goods, services and information
without necessarily needing to directly own or control…
Created on Canva

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Why does this matter? Platform Power Platform

Uber: A Case Study

Uber positions itself as a technology company, rather than a
transportation company. This distinction is strategic and intentional.
Uber’s positioning is based on the argument that the company does not own
vehicles or employ drivers directly; rather, it provides a platform that
connects independent drivers with passengers.
By positioning as a technology company, and an intermediary,
Uber aims to distance itself from regulatory and legal requirements typically
applied to transportation companies – such as licensing, insurance, and
employment laws.
Actors Actors
Uber has maintained its identity as a tech company, arguing that
its primary service is providing digital tools and facilitating Diagram created by Dr. Billie Wilcox on Canva
connections, rather than directly transporting people or goods.

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Digital Platforms and News Media
News Media Bargaining Code

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 2024…
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 META

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META

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META

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How can we understand sharing and platform ecologies?
“a comprehensive understanding…is as much institutional (markets, governance, and
infrastructures)… as it is rooted in everyday cultural practices” (Duffy, Poell & Nieborg
2019, p. 1)

• Platforms are remote server-based, internet connected software applications

• Multi-sided markets
• Act as content management systems for our transactions and communications
• Enable us to build communities and cultures of exchange
• Actively control our communications (algorithmically selecting, promoting and
removing content)
• Track our searches, our information use and production to gather valuable data.
(adapted from Gillespie, 2017)
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Platforms Intervene |
Tarleton Gillespie

“The socio-technical dynamics, context-

specific realities, and political economic
dynamics… has made clear that
platforms, in their technical design,
economic imperatives, regulatory
frameworks, and public character, have
distinct consequences for what users
are able to do and in fact do” (p. 1)

The University of Sydney Gillespie, T. (2015). Platforms Intervene. Social Media + Society, 1(1),
205630511558047-. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305115580479
Platforms Intervene
“Platforms don’t just guide, distort, and
facilitate social activity – they also
delete some of it. They don’t just link
users together; they also suspend them.
They don’t just circulate our images
and posts, they also algorithmically
promote some over others.

Platforms pick and choose” (ibid)

Platforms intervene…

The University of Sydney Gillespie, T. (2015). Platforms Intervene. Social Media + Society, 1(1),
205630511558047-. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305115580479
 • Today, online and offline
no longer represent separate
Sharing and Platform Ecologies spheres allowing activities to
be done in alternative
Sarah is watching a video on YouTube showing how to play the chords to a ways.
song she wants to learn on her guitar. The video description links to a
Kickstarter page where the artist hopes to raise enough money to produce her • Rather, online content
first album. Sarah sends the link to a friend via Facebook Messenger. On her augments the offline world
Facebook timeline, she sees an advertisement for a jacket just like the one the (Graham 2013), and an
artist in the YouTube video was wearing. She clicks on it and subsequently increasing number of offline
buys the jacket from an online marketplace. activities are incentivised by
online offers.
It is sent to her by courier service from Spain and reaches her a couple of
days later. While waiting for the parcel to arrive, Sarah arranges on • In short, online and offline
WhatsApp to meet with a friend for coffee in the afternoon. In the café, she practices do not just co-exist,
asks the friend to take a photo of her in the new jacket and immediately they overlap and interact in
uploads it to her Instagram account. such complex ways that both
spheres actually form an
inseparable amalgam.
Ibert, O., Oechslen, A., Repenning, A., & Schmidt, S. (2022).
Platform ecology:
The University A user-centric and relational conceptualization of online platforms.
of Sydney
Global Networks, 22, 564–579. https://doi.org/10.1111/glob.12355
Past Imaginaries
- Early Computing Cultures (Week 4)
- Media Transformations and the Home (Week 5)

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PLATO’S Influence on Social Computing 1960s-1980s
Dr. Fiona Martin

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A white text on a black background

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Dr. Fiona Martin

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 Minitel terminals were outfitted with credit card readers, making it possible for
people to pay bills electronically and providing a great convenience.
Photo: Michel Gaillard/REA/Redux

Social Sharing
“For a generation of French citizens, Minitel
wasn’t about hardware, switches, or software. It
was about the people they chatted with, the
services they used, the games they played, and
the advertisements for these services they saw
in newspapers and on billboards”
(Mailland & Driscoll, 2017 online)

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La Vie en Rose: 3615 ULLA was one of
Minitel’s many adult chat rooms—
“messageries roses.” Sagaphoto/Alamy
The French
Connection Machine
But it would be wrong to view Minitel as a failure.
Indeed, it offers an intriguing model for fostering innovation
without sacrificing the public’s interests in fairness and privacy.

The millions of curious and risk-taking entrepreneurs who

flocked to the platform during the 1980s were among the first
people to confront the problems of trust, intimacy, privacy,
and civility that characterize life online today.

That grand telematics experiment is over, but it still has lessons

to teach the many engineers and computer scientists struggling
to make the Web a better place.

(Mailland & Driscoll, 2017 online)

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Salle d’attente: Junked terminals await disassembly for recycling. Bruno Martin/Reuters/Alamy
Dr. Fiona Martin

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From Six Degrees to
Friendster and MySpace
- Following Six Degrees, platforms like Friendster
(2002) and MySpace (2003) gained popularity.

- Friendster aimed to connect friends and friends of

friends but encountered technical issues and lost
its user base to competitors.

- MySpace, known for its customisable profiles and

music integration, became a hub for teenagers
and musicians, peaking around 2005-2008.

The University of Sydney Illustration by Joanne Imperio / The Atlantic. Source: Getty
 A screenshot of a facebook profile

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Facebook
- In 2004, Facebook was launched by Mark
Zuckerberg as a college-exclusive network,
later opening to the public in 2006.

- Facebook transformed social networking by

emphasising real identities and creating a
sophisticated newsfeed.

- Its widespread adoption and influence on

social interaction established it as a
dominant player in the social media
landscape.

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Linkedin & Twitter
- Around the same time, LinkedIn
(2003) catered to professional
networking, helping users connect
based on business interests.
A Brief History on Linkedin Advertising

- Twitter (2006) introduced

microblogging, limiting posts to 140
characters, and became a platform
for real-time updates and breaking
news.

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This is what Twitter's interface looked like in 2006 when it was created
 YouTube website in 2005

YouTube
- In its early years, YouTube (2005) filled a gap
for easily shareable video content.
- Prior to YouTube, uploading and sharing videos
online was a cumbersome process.
- YouTube’s user-friendly interface, along with the
rise of broadband internet, made video content
easily accessible to a wider audience.
- It quickly became popular for sharing everything
from home videos and viral clips to tutorials and
personal vlogs.

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 Sonya Doctorian/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Platforms 2010s
- With the rise of Instagram (2010) and
Snapchat (2011), visual content took centre
stage.
- Instagram’s photo-sharing capabilities and
Snapchat’s ephemeral messaging model
attracted younger audiences.
- TikTok (2016), focusing on short-form
video content, further evolved the social
media scene, encouraging creativity and
viral trends.

When Instagram launched in 2010, the tabs were titled:

The University of Sydney Feed, Popular, Share, News, and, at the far right, your own profile.
2011

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The University of Sydney
 Link here

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Dr. Fiona Martin

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 Dr. Fiona Martin

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The University of Sydney
Dr. Fiona Martin
Platforms continue to shape the ways in which we create,
share and connect with one another…

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Platform Features – Visibility
Visibility on social media platforms is heavily influenced by specific platform
features that are designed to control how content is displayed and who sees it.
There are five specific platform features that influence this:

• Algorithms
• User Interfaces
• Engagement Metrics
• Paid Promotions and Ads
• Content Moderation and Policy

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Algorithmic Visibility
Algorithms dictate the content that appears on users’ feeds based on their
engagement, interactions, preferences and behaviour of their network.

Accordingly, algorithms are used to prioritise content that will engage users – such as
posts with high interaction rates (likes, comments, shares) or from frequently interacted
with accounts.

However, the difficulty with algorithms are that they are usually opaque, with
platforms keeping the details proprietary. In other words, platforms keep them hidden
or unclear, so they are not easily accessible by the public. Users usually can't see or fully
understand how these algorithms make decisions or why they show certain content.

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The University of Sydney
 Dr. Fiona Martin
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 If a user spends time engaging with potentially harmful content, that same system may lead to
them seeing more of the same material or increasingly harmful material in their feeds

• TheTW: Thisof video

University Sydney contains themes that may be distressing for some viewers.
• Link here
User Interfaces
The design of a platforms’ user interface
also plays a crucial role in what we do
and don’t see.
User interface features like “Discover” or
“Explore” pages, trending sections, and
story highlights direct user attention to
specific content.

The placement of these features can either

boost visibility of posts or bury others.

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Engagement Metrics
Engagement metrics also influence
visibility – the more likes, comments, shares
and views content receives the more likely it
is to be promoted by algorithms.

Additionally, the timing of posts, the use of

hashtags, and the relevance of content to
current events also impact these metrics, and
in turn, influence visibility.

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Advertising and Paid Promotions
Many platforms offer advertising options that
allow users to boost their content to reach
larger audiences.

This introduces an economic logic to visibility,

where those that have the means and resources
can potentially dominate attention.

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Platform Policies
Content Moderation
Platform policies and content moderation
practices also have a significant impact on what
we do or don’t see…

Platforms enforce rules, community standards and

guidelines that can either promote or suppress
certain types of content.

For example, content that is considered to violate

community guidelines may be demoted, hidden, or
removed. And repeat flagged offences can also
lead to users being deplatformed.

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Algorithmic processes often disproportionately
remove content that does not fit “conventional” Article here

socio-cultural standards or norms…

For example:
Over the years, Instagram has been called out many times for
disproportionately flagging images of people in bigger bodies:

This algorithm not only affects the

emotional well-being and
livelihood of users but has large
downstream effects. Article here

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Platforms Intervene |
Tarleton Gillespie
“It is a question about when some content is forbidden to appear
where people expect it to be, in the massive online spaces where
audiences can be built.

It is why the common admonition “if you don’t like it here, just leave” is
insufficient when it comes to culturally and politically contentious
speech.

While it is not unreasonable for a platform to want to set rules and

install algorithmic mechanisms for highlighting content for its
users, things change as these platforms grow.

Scale and centrality make a difference; once a platform becomes

massive, new kinds of expectations emerge, and new kinds of
obligations arise. But we will never identify what these obligations
are, or should be, until we recognize that there is selection and
deletion going on, all the time” (p. 2)

The University of Sydney Gillespie, T. (2015). Platforms Intervene. Social Media + Society, 1(1),
205630511558047-. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305115580479
The University of Sydney
Dr. Fiona Martin
The University of Sydney
Dr. Fiona Martin
Dr.The University of Sydney
Fiona Martin
Dr.The University of Sydney
Fiona Martin
Why We Post Link Here

Dr.The University of Sydney

Fiona Martin
 The University of Sydney

Dr. Fiona Martin

Indigenous Social Sharing
Carlson & Frazer (2020) discuss how social media can be used to
share indigenous perspectives and cultural heritage…

For some Indigenous Australians, social media is used to share content

that offers a different image of indigenous futures - one that exceeds
the dominant settler colonial narrative of indigenous decline – instead,
offering politics of hope.

“self-writing,” where Indigenous Australians overtly perform their

identities online, constitutes an everyday form of “micro-activism”
through which pejorative stereotypes may be challenged”
The University of Sydney (Carlson & Frazer, 2020)
 Dr. Fiona Martin

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Dr. Fiona Martin
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Data Driven Systems
Economic Logics

Our dominant conceptions about our identity, how we present

ourselves, how we value and interrelate with each other have always
existed in tension with the socio-economic, cultural, technological, and
aesthetic forms and practices available to us.

Digital affective capitalism purloins our desires, emotions, and forms of

expressivity and turns them into commodities and assets...
Affective capitalism is, quite literally, run on the fuel of individual feeling and
self-expression taking place online; self-presentation is now a crucial part of
the economic infrastructure… (Hearn 2017, p. 63)

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Transparency Society

In a transparency society, where the Neoliberal economy subjects

everything to compulsory exhibition… the mere pursuit of and
engagement with sharing and platform ecologies generates value…

This is by and large due to platform processes of big data extraction,

colonisation, and commodification by companies such as Google, Microsoft,
Apple, Amazon, and Meta

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 Surveillance Capitalism,
Shoshona Zuboff
- Zuboff describes how surveillance capitalism follows
the historical tradition of capitalism by taking
something external to the market and adopting it as a
commodity to be bought and sold.

- In this case, the commodity is ‘us’, and

our ‘behavioural data’.

- This surplus data of our internet activities is combined

with machine intelligence, to manufacture a ‘Prediction
Product’ which envisages what we will do now, sooner
and later.

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Surveillance Capitalism, Shoshona Zuboff
Zuboff argues this extends beyond our previous conceptions of business, capitalism
and economics, because it accesses our once private lives and changes our
relationship to ourselves and to others.

Further, she asserts that by reaching into our rights and sense of what is normal and
appropriate, surveillance capitalism is accessing the essence of our freedoms and
democracy.

Zuboff points out that this is especially so, as most of its processes are secret and
absent of regulatory examination.

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 Dr. Fiona Martin

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 The University of Sydney

Dr. Fiona Martin

 The University of Sydney
Dr. Fiona Martin
Carlson, B., & Frazer, R. (2020). “They Got Filters”:Indigenous Social Media, the Settler Gaze, and a Politics of Hope.
Social Media + Society, 6(2). doi.org/10.1177/2056305120925261

Duffy, B. E., Poell, T., & Nieborg, D. B. (2019). Platform Practices in the Cultural Industries: Creativity, Labor, and
Citizenship. Social Media + Society, 5(4). https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305119879672

Gillespie, T. (2015). Platforms Intervene. Social Media + Society, 1(1), 205630511558047

https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305115580479

Hearn, A. (2017). Verified: Self-Presentation, Identity Management, and Selfhood in the Age of Big Data. The
International Journal of Media and Culture, 15(2), 62-77.
https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1080/15405702.2016.1269909

Ibert, O., Oechslen, A., Repenning, A., & Schmidt, S. (2022). Platform ecology: A user-centric and relational
conceptualization of online platforms. Global Networks, 22, 564–579. https://doi.org/10.1111/glob.12355

Srnicek, N. (2016). Platform capitalism (1st ed.). Wiley.

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