Platform Logic : An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Platform-Based Economy

• Digital platforms are not just software-based media, they are governing systems that control, interact, and accumulate. They also solidify markets; that is, social networks of exchange that do not necessarily leave data traces, into infrastructure, that is, material arrangements of traceable activity. This article examines the forms of domination found in this digital platform model, and corrects some existing simplistic theoretical conclusions about digital platforms. It first provides a schematic overview of digital infrastructures of governance, and the attendant systemic mechanics they engender. It then argues that we need a more syncretic, interdisciplinary approach to the platform-based economy. The shifting emphases of different academic disciplines in relation to digital platforms are only partially grounded in their different normative biases; they can also be attributed to use of different disciplinary lenses. The field of information systems management and design studies is chiefly concerned with direct, technical interplatform affordances and connections, and with providing observations of certain systemic attributes of digital platforms. Critical political economy, by contrast, mainly considers the emerging transnational, geopolitical formations of platform capitalism. The interplay between these different systemic mechanics is summarized and presented here in the concept of "platform logic."

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Media and Communications (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Social och ekonomisk geografi -- Ekonomisk geografi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Social and Economic Geography -- Economic Geography (hsv//eng)

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Samhällsbyggnadsteknik -- Annan samhällsbyggnadsteknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Civil Engineering -- Other Civil Engineering (hsv//eng)

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Data- och informationsvetenskap -- Medieteknik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Computer and Information Sciences -- Media and Communication Technology (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Big data

Infrastructure

Media ecology

Multi-sided markets

Platform management

Platform power

Platform regulation

Platformization

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