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research-article20192019
SMSXXX10.1177/2056305119879672Social Media <span class="symbol" cstyle="Mathematical">+</span> SocietyDuffy et al.

Platformization of Cultural Production

Social Media + Society

Platform Practices in the Cultural

October-December 2019: 1­–8
© The Author(s) 2019
Article reuse guidelines:
Industries: Creativity, Labor, [Link]/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/2056305119879672
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and Citizenship [Link]/home/sms

Brooke Erin Duffy1 , Thomas Poell2, and David B. Nieborg3

Abstract
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.

Keywords
cultural production, platformization, creativity, labor, citizenship

In the wake of a string of allegations issued against YouTube while circumventing those regulatory structures that govern
in the first half of 2019, including charges that the company traditional media industries. Such academic critiques—amid
failed to protect its creator community from targeted more widespread concern about the impact of technology on
harassment, tech journalist Alexis Madrigal called out the contemporary social, economic, and civic life—are a testa-
video-sharing site’s “rhetorical sleight of hand” (Madrigal, ment to the profound impact of digital/mobile media on the
2019). By deploying the buzzy-yet-elusive term “platform,” people, processes, and products of the cultural industries.
Madrigal argued, the Alphabet-owned network was conceal- Indeed, contemporary platforms—from GAFAM (Google,
ing its role as a broadcaster, thus deflecting responsibility Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft) in the West, to
for the content posted and circulated among its sprawling the so-called “three kingdoms” of the Chinese Internet (Baidu,
user base. Indeed, what Madrigal aptly labeled “the plat- Alibaba, and Tencent)—are reconfiguring the production,
form excuse”—one that perhaps all Silicon Valley social distribution, and monetization of cultural content in staggeringly
networks have deployed to evade liability and downplay complex ways. Given the nature and extent of transforma-
their pivotal role in shaping society’s news, information, tions in cultural industries across genres and geographies, and
and entertainment agendas—could no longer be unquestion- spanning individuals and organizations, how can we think
ably delivered. about the transformed nature of cultural production in a
To be sure, Madrigal’s polemic echoed those put forth by
members of the academic community. Nearly a decade ago, 1
Cornell University, USA
Gillespie (2010) contended that the term “platform” is an 2
University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
astute discursive device that belies structures of power pro- 3
University of Toronto, Canada
pelling the tech industry. More recently, scholars like Napoli
Corresponding Author:
and Caplan (2017) and Hesmondhalgh (2017) have argued Brooke Erin Duffy, Department of Communication, Cornell University,
that Big Tech companies’ vehement denial of their role as Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.
media allow them to systematically shirk social responsibility Email: bduffy@[Link]

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2 Social Media + Society

systematic way? While both academics and cultural critics demonstrates, platformization especially involves key shifts
have offered various frameworks to address these shifts, we in practices of labor, creativity, and citizenship. Thus, we
argue that a focus on platformization is an especially useful define platform practices in the cultural industries as the
way to understand these changes and their implications for strategies, routines, experiences, and expressions of creativ-
the wider social world. ity, labor, and citizenship that shape cultural production
Given the just-mentioned ambiguity in nomenclature, it through platforms.
seems worthwhile to briefly unpack the term “platformiza- Owing to this dynamism, the 14 papers in this first special
tion.” Helmond (2015, p. 1), in an article published in this collection interrogate the platformization of cultural produc-
journal, offered a definition rooted in software studies that tion across cultural, geographic, and sectoral-industrial
emphasized “the extension of social media platforms into the boundaries. The collection brings together original research
rest of the web and their drive to make external web data plat- on such diverse sectors and genres as live streaming, book-
form ready.” Expanding on this, two of us sought to broaden tubing, game development, music streaming, podcasting,
the scope of inquiry by introducing a framework that fore- social media content creation, and webtooning, among oth-
grounds the political-economic dimension of platformization ers. Together, the articles cover instances of cultural produc-
(Nieborg & Poell, 2018). The article, moreover, aimed to tion across Australia, Canada, China, Columbia, Germany,
make more explicit how the processes of platformization are Italy, Mexico, Poland, Sweden, Spain, South Korea, the
relevant for understanding the reconfigurations of cultural United Kingdom, and the United States. The contributors are
production. Bringing recent work in software and platform equally diverse in their approaches, drawing on interviews
studies into dialogue with business studies and critical politi- and ethnography, software and platform studies research,
cal economy, we argued that the platformization of cultural cultural and historical approaches, textual and discourse
production involves the “penetration of economic, govern- analysis, and (political) economic analyses. Despite the wide
mental, and infrastructural extensions of digital platforms range of topics, disciplines, cultural contexts, and methods,
into the web and app ecosystems, fundamentally affecting the there are a number of consistent themes that resonate across
operations of the cultural industries” (p. 4276). Thus, the arti- these papers.
cle contributed an expressly institutional perspective to theo-
rizing platforms’ reconfiguration of cultural production.
Yet, in assembling the papers for the two special collec-
Continuity and Change
tions of Social Media + Society (the second of which will One recurrent theme involves the temporalities of platform-
appear in 2020), as well as through a productive year-long based modes of cultural production, and, more specifically,
conversation with the contributors, we realized the need to the nature and extent of their ostensible “evolution.”
account for the wide variety of cultural practices that shape Following from Hesmondhalgh (2012/2019), we wish to
the platformization of cultural production. Building on and make clear at the outset that digitally wrought transforma-
engaging with the ideas put forth in some of the key texts in tions in the cultural industries are as much about changes as
media/cultural industries and media industry/production they are about continuities (p. 3). When researching the plat-
studies to emerge over the last decade—including mono- formization of cultural production, we need to be especially
graphs and edited volumes by Deuze and Prenger (2019), attentive to change and continuity at the levels of industry,
Havens and Lotz (2012/2017), Hesmondhalgh (2012/2019), platform, and producer. Thus, most industries have longer
Holt and Perren (2009), Mayer, Banks, and Caldwell (2009), institutional histories, which inevitably shape professional
McRobbie (2016), among others, we acknowledge that insti- routines, governance frameworks, distribution and moneti-
tutional structures are mutually articulated with the lived zation strategies, genres, and audience expectations in the
social experiences of producers and consumers in particular platform environment. Second, the evolution of platforms
contexts. In the case of platforms, individual social media themselves needs to be taken into account. Far from stable
creators or “complementors” who develop professional- entities, platforms should be thought of as dynamic infra-
quality media content shape platforms just as much as the structures that continuously change their user (front-end) and
other way around. Without rehearsing the now-tired debate application programming (back-end) interfaces, algorithms,
between political economy and cultural studies, it seems sig- terms and conditions, developer resources, and business
nificant to note that any understanding of the platformization models, all of which impact how cultural production unfolds.
of cultural production should acknowledge such recursivity Finally, cultural producers are themselves mindful of institu-
between institutions and cultural practices. tionally ingrained traditions and routines, while expected to
Hence, in revisiting our initial framework, we propose respond to emergent modes of production, content formats,
that a comprehensive understanding of the platformization and revenue opportunities. The contributions to this collec-
of cultural production is as much institutional (markets, tion provide vital new insights into these complex processes
governance, and infrastructures), as it is rooted in the prac- of change and continuity.
tices of people. As the contributions to this special issue, and Some of the papers in this collection speak to the former
more generally, research in production and cultural studies by highlighting the novel markets and institutional practices
Duffy et al. 3

engendered by platform-based cultural production. Mark “field” of book publishing. One such stratum relates to the
Johnson and Jamie Woodcock, for instance, provide a com- much-vaunted ideal of online ranking, which is configured
prehensive overview of the profoundly diverse set of “mon- by what Van Dijck (2013, p. 21) has aptly described as the
etization strategies and features” introduced by Twitch—the “popularity principle,” namely “an ideology that values hier-
Amazon owned live-streaming platform that Digiday archy, competition, and a winner-takes-all mindset.”
recently dubbed “a favorite new platform for publishers” Accordingly, in defiance of upbeat narratives of diversified
(Flynn, 2019). Not only does content on the platform tend to expertise, the practices emerging across the (new) publishing
eschew the slickly produced aesthetics of legacy media in industry seem to—in the words of Tomasena—“reproduce
favor of live footage, it provides a direct, immediate channel the inequalities of online popularity.”
of communication between streamers and their audience.
This interactivity allows streamers to solicit on-platform
Diversity and Creativity
donations directly from viewers via novel features such as
“cheering” (i.e., a public form of real-time donations), The glib assurance of content diversity—bound up with the
revealing an intimately more complex revenue stream than ideal of innovation and the well-worn but problematic “long
the traditional model of advertising-supported broadcasting. tail” hypothesis—is another theme that the papers in this
By drawing upon an analysis of Twitch streamers across four contribution help to address. Indeed, among the resonant
countries—the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, narratives about cultural production in the digital age is the
and Poland—Johnson and Woodcock produce a typology of promise of flourishing creativity and, consequently, the sup-
seven different monetization strategies. Because of the nov- planting of mass customization with niche taste cultures
elty and the constant tweaking of these strategies, Twitch (Burgess & Green, 2018). In a characteristic summary of
effectively functions as a monetization laboratory of sorts for this perspective, U.S. media industry exec Michael
emergent entertainment cultures. Rosenbaum offered his assessment of the so-called “democ-
Other forms of digitally enabled cultural production can ratisation of creativity and production” in online video:
be situated on a much longer historical timeline. For instance,
while “webtoons,” “booktubing,” and “podcasting” appear “It doesn’t cost anything to make broadcast quality video, all you
to be radically new modes of cultural production, the works need is talent. The tools out there are so cheap and easy to use that
any nine-year-old can operate them . . . Ten years ago if you
of Ji-Hyeon Kim and Jun Yu, José Tomasena, and John
wanted to create a TV network you needed to have a billion
Sullivan reveal continuities with the respective legacy comic, dollars to invest . . . Today, we have this explosion of platforms on
book publishing, and broadcasting industries within particu- the internet in general but also it’s the amount of screens that are
lar cultural-geographic contexts. John Sullivan’s contribu- out there today. As screen technology becomes less expensive and
tion on the history, present, and potential future of the U.S. streaming and compression algorithms improve, it means that
podcasting industry provides, much like Johnson and every screen is going to be populated with video. (Smith, 2012)
Woodcock’s piece, a wide-frame institutional angle on the
diverse economies of platformization. While the roots of While Rosenbaum’s assessment of the diversification of
podcasting can be traced to a variety of formats that took content channels in the platform ecosystem is optimistic (and
shape in the late 20th century, the recent history of audio presumably self-serving), it fails to account for the nuanced
blogging is, as Sullivan shows, more closely hitched to dis- meanings of “diversity” within the culture industries.
crete platform markets. Apple iTunes has been a driving Indeed, diversity can be considered at the level of plat-
force in shaping the podcasting ecosystem and, more broadly, forms, cultural content, and cultural producers, all of which
serves as an archetypical case of “platform enclosure,” can—and often do—overlap. Within discrete cultural indus-
wherein podcast content—which was previously available try segments, competing platforms have emerged with the
via a decentralized distribution architecture—is pulled back aim of attracting end-users, cultural producers, and advertis-
into Apple’s “walled garden.” One of the implications of this ers. The question then becomes whether or not such increased
case is that platform operators, beyond merely intervening in competition between platforms will lead to a multiplicity of
an existing site of cultural production, reassert their control offerings: will we see monopolization, as can be observed in
over the means of distribution and marketing. the markets for search and apps? Or, is there room for a vari-
Tomasena’s research on the Ibero-American “booktub- ety of platforms? Similar questions can be asked at the level
ing” community also offers a historically contextualized of cultural content. In traditional media markets, as Havens
treatment of platform-dependent creativity. As members of and Lotz (2017) argue, regulatory decisions are structured to
the Spanish-speaking booktubing community, reading afi- uphold “both a diversity of voices and localism in media
cionados take to YouTube to furnish networked audiences industries” (p. 87). With the proliferation of platforms and
with book recommendations, reviews, commentary, and the creativity of cultural producers generating new genres of
even unique expressions of fan fiction. But, as Tomasena content, it seems worthwhile to examine whether dominant
shows, booktubers are beholden to many of the same indus- platforms truly facilitate unbridled creativity and diversity,
try logics and hierarchies that structured the traditional opening up new spaces for expressions of citizenship. And,
4 Social Media + Society

do audiences embrace novel forms of cultural expression? To this end, several other pieces in this collection—espe-
Finally, it is equally important to consider diversity among cially the contributions of Sophie Bishop and Stefanie
cultural producers themselves. As the quote by Michael Duguay—offer a detailed treatment of producer diversity.
Rosenbaum illustrates, platforms are often cast as public Amid growing recognition of the pervasive inequalities that
stages that empower users to express themselves and become structure the media and technology industries, there is a
cultural producers in their own right. While we would argue noteworthy—and long overdue—uptick in studies of digital
that such a mass empowerment has not materialized fully, a cultural production that foreground issues of identity and
crucial question remains whether platformization enables representation. Stefanie Duguay’s analysis of queer women’s
more diversity in cultural producers in terms of gender, sex- micro-celebrity and self-branding practices sheds light on
ual identity, race, ethnicity, age, and social class/location how marginalized communities utilize social networking
(Cunningham & Craig, 2019, pp. 184-187). These various sites for improved access to the means of cultural produc-
dimensions of diversity are deeply interwoven, owing to the tion, or, perhaps more aptly, cultural promotion. Through the
reality that the implications of systematic inequality and dis- process of platformization, creators’ sexual identity becomes,
crimination go well beyond the devastating effects on indi- in Duguay’s words: “a form of intimacy, a self-branding aes-
vidual workers’ self-worth. Without a diverse pool of talent, thetic that conveyed authenticity, and as a common ground
the scope of cultural, symbolic, and informational products from which to form relationships.” Acccordingly, her paper
is inherently limited. allows us to see how emerging creative practices become
Maxwell Foxman’s mixed-methods analysis of the cross- more intricately entangled with commercial logics.
platform game engine Unity—a “platform tool” that witnessed
a profound uptake among the augmented and virtual reality Labor in an Age of Algorithmic
(VR) communities—probes a related promise of platforms, Systems
namely the persistent myth of technological democratiza-
tion. To Foxman, the case of Unity helps to foreground the Duguay’s paper also underscores the new laboring subjectivi-
role of platforms as tools that promise—superficially at least, ties that have emerged in a platform-centric cultural economy.
to engender new forms of creativity. Platforms may afford And, indeed, owing to a wider “turn to cultural work” within
new modes of production to a larger, but not automatically the academy (Banks, 2007), a number of papers in this collec-
more diverse pool of creators. As Foxman concludes, “cul- tion address an interrelated series of transformations in work
tural producers are encountering an increasingly rule-bound and labor unfolding across the platform economy. For one,
set of tools with which they must construct content. Those cultural workers across cultures and contexts are encouraged
rules flow from the top down, rather than the bottom up, cre- to be entrepreneurial, self-directed, and adaptable to the
ating a path dependence for creativity.” This path depen- whims of the wider commercial, platform, and neoliberal log-
dency, Foxman argues, does not necessarily have negative ics (see, for example, Baym, 2018; Duffy, 2017; Gandini,
outcomes for either content or workforce diversity. Rather, 2018; Gill, 2011; Hearn, 2010; Marwick, 2013; McRobbie,
there is a discernible nuance in the various instances of 2016; Neff, Wissinger, & Zukin, 2005; Zhang, Xiang, & Hao,
“platform lock-in,” which transcends simple economic 2019). The command for workers to engage in online self-
dependency to include the lock-in of content genres, the branding, moreover, exacerbates the precarity of career fields
future of technologies such as VR, as well as the identity and that are characteristically unpredictable and individualistic.
education of industry professionals. While workers were formerly stirred by “the promise of one
Meanwhile, Ji-Hyeon Kim and Jun Yu’s analysis of the Big Job being right around the corner” (Neff et al., 2005,
Korean webtoon industry considers the heterogeneity of cul- p. 319), they are now assured they’re just an app-tap away
tural products. Crucially, webtoons have witnessed a stag- from monetizing their side hustle.
gering ascent in recent years, a trend that can be understood At the same time that platformization has transformed
against the backdrop of Korea’s top worldwide ranking in traditional work regimes across the news, information, and
smartphone ownership and Internet penetration (Ji-young, entertainment sectors, the platform ecosystem has also given
2018). Yet webtoons draw upon a much longer tradition in rise to new categories of creative laborers—including social
the Korean culture industries, namely manhwa—the Korean media entertainers (Bishop, 2018; Cunningham & Craig,
term for print comics and cartoons. Contrasted with their 2019), influencers (Abidin, 2016; Duffy, 2017; Hearn &
precursors, Kim and Yu argue, webtoons are much more Schoenhoff, 2015), and a sprawling class of value-generat-
diverse, in part because creators are not forced to conform to ing albeit unpaid digital laborers (e.g., Terranova, 2000).
the same culturally embedded expectations about content Whether professional or amateur (a line that is fuzzy, at best),
quality and standards. Moreover, these new digital platforms contemporary cultural laborers are beholden to platform
don’t just increase the range of content; they also, the authors governance frameworks and must consequently adapt to
contend, provide greater diversity “in terms of genres, meth- their recurrent “tweaks,” including to their algorithmic sys-
ods of production, and even the demographic and educa- tems. It is in this vein that a number of contributors in this
tional backgrounds of the artists.” collection examine the role of algorithms in the production,
Duffy et al. 5

circulation, and monetization of cultural products. Such of users.” Ultimately, though, such pronouncements are in
empirical insight, with an emphasis on labor, is a testament the service of the platforms’ own financial gains.
to Napoli’s (2014) argument that the so-called “algorithmic As fraught discourses of algorithmic-gaming make clear,
turn” is among “the most visible and potentially significant cultural laborers do not uncritically accept platform rules and
transformations currently affecting media industries” (p. 34). governance. Victoria O’Meara’s case study of Instagram
Jian Lin and Jeroen de Kloet’s analysis of Kuaishou— “engagement pods”—networked communities of creators try-
the immensely popular Chinese social networking app that ing to strategize against the platform’s incessantly evolving
boasts more than 700 million registered users—explores an algorithm—shows how frustration over platform transforma-
instance of labor on an algorithmically driven platform. By tion can mobilize workers. Through the lens of labor process
presenting the “real lives of real people” (“Kuaishou: The theory, O’Meara considers how content creators’ reciprocal
Lens to a Different China,” 2018), Kuaishou is chock full of acts of commenting and liking—largely undertaken to chal-
content that defies traditional genres: exotic depictions of lenge Instagram’s algorithmic ranking and filtration mecha-
country life, seemingly mundane recordings of family life and nisms—can be understood as a form of collective organization.
pets, and short fiction films—all of which offer new depictions Though she notes how the individualist orientation of digitally
of Chinese citizenship. By enabling amateur content creators enabled workers represents a marked distinction from earlier,
to pursue skills-building and monetization opportunities, union-models of worker collectives, the case of engagement
Kuaishou is a creative catalyst for what the authors describe as pods can inform understandings of worker resistance amid
an “unlikely” class of creative workers. More broadly, their platformized cultural production.
article reveals how platformization can allow for unexpected Thus, by exploring seemingly discrete shifts in work and
class mobility among creative aspirants who reside outside labor brought about by platformization, we can observe a
traditional urban hubs of creative innovation. complex transformation in creative labor markets across the
Sophie Bishop’s exploration of YouTube’s creator com- globe. While there is a strong demand on laborers to be
munity offers a less auspicious take on the possibilities for entrepreneurial—exacerbating the individualistic, competi-
marginalized groups—in this case, young women vlog- tive, and largely unpredictable nature of creative work—
gers—to self-fashion careers on social media. Though the there is also unexpected class mobility, worker resistance,
inner-workings of algorithmic systems are concealed—or and instances of solidarity. In other words, the story of plat-
“black-boxed” (Pasquale, 2015)—to user-creators, cultural formized cultural labor is not one of precarisation versus
producers tend to construct and share “algorithmic imagi- emancipation. Transformations in creative labor markets are
naries” (Bucher, 2018) in pursuit of the ever-elusive ideal of fundamentally shaped by the continuous strategic position-
“visibility.” Increasingly, as Bishop shows, prominent mem- ing and discursive framing on the part of platforms in their
bers of creative communities are projecting themselves as efforts to govern cultural production, as well as on the part of
“algorithmic experts” in hopes of monetizing what amounts cultural workers to get ahead in the game.
to “algorithmic lore,” which she notes is a heady brew of
“experiment data, theorisation, assumptions. . .into a narra-
Power, Autonomy, and Citizenship
tive on how algorithms work, and used as advice on how to
successfully produce content.” The patterned deployment of The above discussions of inequality, democratization, and
such lore, she shows, falls along historically rooted gender resistance are a testament to our overarching concern with
lines by reproducing problematic assumptions about male- the potential redistributions of power and autonomy engen-
coded expertise and, more broadly, rendering the digital nar- dered by the platformization of cultural production. In an
rative of “meritocracy” profoundly superficial. earlier paper, we stressed that the mounting dominance of
Caitlin Petre, Brooke Erin Duffy, and Emily Hund, mean- major platform corporations in the cultural field “warrants
while, highlight a different mode through which algorithmic sustained and relentless critique, as power continues to shift
systems are implicated in wider structures of power and in a constantly evolving ecosystem that, for complementors,
inequality. Their article probes the capricious meaning of is fraught with a loss of autonomy, risk, and uncertainty”
“gaming the algorithm”: that is, though cultural workers (Nieborg & Poell, 2018, p. 4289). While platform dominance
attempt to optimize platforms’ algorithmic systems to ensure continues to be a central concern of this collection, the con-
the visibility of their content, tech companies publicly tributions that follow reveal that the relations of power and
denounce such practices as cheating, fakery, or even indexes dependency are multilayered and by no means unidirec-
of immorality. The demarcation that companies like Google tional. Put differently, platforms can be a site of profound
and Facebook invoke between legitimate and illegitimate political-economic authority while giving rise to forms of
algorithmic strategy—spurious as it is—nevertheless shores resistance, collective citizenship, and strategic maneuvering
up their own moral authority. The authors describe this power on the part of cultural workers.
exertion as an expression of “platform paternalism,” wherein To Sarah Banet-Weiser and Alison Hearn, the ideals of
tech companies issue “rules, pronouncements, and punish- resistance and empowerment promised by platformized cul-
ments that purport to be in the best interest of their networks tural production often amount to window dressing—a
6 Social Media + Society

dynamic that is especially discernible in the case of popular individual content creators. Drawing upon interviews with a
feminism. The notion of glamor, they argue, is a productive global network of what they call “social media entertainers,”
heuristic through which to see the disparities between con- they highlight the emergence of new economic models that
temporary rhetorics and structural realities of power in cul- defy the power dynamics underpinning traditional creative
tural production—from Instagram feeds promising body industries. As they argue, “The same network effects that
positivity to metrics functioning as proxies for social accord platforms enormous power also enable better con-
approval us to wider assurances of “purity” and “neutrality” nected, networked possibilities for horizontal, grass roots
promised by platform’s computational logics. Glamor, peer-to-peer connectivity and communicative and organiza-
according to the authors, represents a “superficial form of tional capability.” The authors also highlight new actors
allure involving technological magics.” The work of glamor, emerging within this space—including talent agencies and
they conclude, is “done to enhance the affordances, data the Internet Creators Guild (ICG)—revealing how social
extraction practices, and profit of the major platforms,” all of media entertainment is being transformed from both the bot-
which have significant social and political consequences for tom-up and the top-down.
citizen-consumers.
The articles on the music industry, meanwhile, offer
Conclusion
insight into the struggle between different power players in
the cultural field, as well as the potential space for autonomy While the articles in this collection are richly nuanced in
and creative independence. Tiziano Bonini and Alessandro their breadth, foci, and analytical approaches, such diversity
Gandini show how music streaming platforms function as does not belie their productive points of overlap which,
“new gatekeepers” of the industry with “proprietary algo- together, reveal the potential for a systematic examination of
rithms and human curators” supplanting the industry’s for- the platform practices of the cultural industries. First, the
mer curatorial actors: radio programmers, disk jockeys, and authors foreground the importance of exploring potential
journalists, among others. Drawing upon interviews with key transformations in the creative process. Returning to queries
players in the music industry, they show how the exhortation raised earlier: Do platforms enable new modes of produc-
to be ever more attuned to ranking systems challenges popu- tion, novel content genres, and more diverse cultural and
lar understandings of music curation. Instead, platformized symbolic expressions? Collectively, the contributors are
cultural fields are increasingly structured by what the authors ambivalent. Although newfangled genres and hybrid busi-
call “algo-torial” power—a dynamic hybrid of algorithmic ness models are emerging, platforms simultaneously exert
and editorial influence that is as much cultural as it is techno- constraints that steer the creative process. Second, key shifts
logical. Different players, moreover, “struggle” to wield are occurring in the nature of creative labor. The conse-
authority over streaming; the output of this struggle, they quences of platformization are equally contradictory here as
show, is a playlist in which these power relations are finally cultural workers are finding new routes to audiences and vis-
“coded” in. ibility, but many of these paths exist within spaces still-
David Hesmondhalgh, Ellis Jones, and Andreas Rauh wrought by the structural realities and inequalities of
offer a quite different way to conceptualize the power and traditional labor markets. The breakneck pace of change
curatorial logic of music streaming services, namely through within the platforms themselves, moreover, exacerbates the
the typology of “consumer-oriented” versus “producer-ori- precarity of highly unpredictable, “always on,” career fields.
ented” platforms. The former describes mainstream stream- Finally, the contributions broaden the ways through which to
ing services like Spotify and Apple Music; the latter, which interrogate notions of power, autonomy, and citizenship in
includes services like Bandcamp and SoundCloud, refers to the platform economy. This is a particularly complex issue:
platforms “designed in such a way to encourage producers while platforms are becoming central nodes in virtually
of music to upload content.” On the surface, at least, pro- every cultural industry, their power is based on mutual
ducer-oriented platforms seem to grant musicians greater dependency. Consequently, as the articles in this collection
degrees of agency and autonomy. Yet the authors’ analysis demonstrate, platforms also open up spaces for negotiations,
reveals a much more nuanced dynamic at play, wherein contestation, and even acts of resistence.
SoundCloud becomes drawn deeper into to the platform Studying the transformations in cultural production
ecosystem through funding rounds, as well as by adopting wrought by platforms thus requires an appreciation for the
platform functionalities. Bandcamp, on the other hand, man- mutual articulation between institutional changes and shift-
ages to remain independent by keeping finance capital and ing cultural practices. Returning to the example that opened
datafication at a distance. More broadly, the authors show this chapter, concerns about YouTube’s lackluster protection
how difficult it is for cultural producers to develop economi- of its creator community both reflect its institutional struc-
cally viable businesses without succumbing to the dynamics ture (e.g., markets, infrastructure, governance) as well as the
of platformization. creative practices of its laborers as they engage with context-­
Cunningham and Craig, finally, offer a rejoinder to narra- specific understandings of citizenship. Hence, we certainly
tives that platform behemoths wield complete control over agree with Alex Madrigal’s clarion call for all of us to
Duffy et al. 7

challenge the idea that Facebook, YouTube and the likes are Flynn, K. (2019). Twitch is emerging as a favorite new platform
just platforms. It is crucial that we take seriously not just for publishers. Digiday. Retrieved from [Link]
what, but how these platforms are fundamentally impacting /media/publishers-growing-twitch/
the cultures, technologies, and political economies of cul- Gandini, A. (2018). Labour process theory and the gig economy.
Human Relations, 72, 1039–1056. doi:10.1177/00187267187
tural production.
90002
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