The platformization of cultural production: Theorizing the contingent cultural commodity

TLDR

Platformization reshapes the political economy of cultural industries by extending online platforms’ economic and infrastructural reach, altering production, distribution, and circulation, while producers navigate unpredictable governance shifts and new services. The study examines platformization through a critical dialogue with business studies, political economy, and software studies. The analysis finds that platformization replaces two‑sided markets with complex multisided configurations dominated by major platforms, rendering cultural commodities increasingly modular, contingent, and continuously reworked based on data‑driven user feedback.

Abstract

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.