Platform Infrastructures Research Articles

How partners mediate platform power: Mapping business and data partnerships in the social media ecosystem

Social media platforms’ digital advertising revenues depend considerably on partnerships. Business partnerships are endemic and essential to the business of platforms, yet their role remains relatively underexplored in the literature on platformisation and platform power. This article considers the significance of partnerships in the social media ecosystem to better understand how industry platforms, and the infrastructure they build, mediate and shape platform power and governance. We argue that partners contribute to ‘platformisation’ through their collective development of business-to-business platform infrastructures. Specifically, we examine how partners have integrated social media platforms with what we call the audience economy – an exceptionally complex global and interconnected marketplace of intermediaries involved in the creation, commodification, analysis, and circulation of data audiences for purposes including but not limited to digital advertising and marketing. We determined which relationships are involved, which are exclusive or shared, and identified key ecosystem partners. Further, we found that partners build and integrate extensive infrastructures for data-sourcing and media distribution, surfacing infrastructural and strategic sources and locations, or ‘nodes’, of power in this ecosystem. The empirical findings thus highlight the significance of partnerships and partner integrations and draw attention to the powerful industry players and intermediaries that remain largely invisible.

The Cost of Disbelief: Fracturing News Ecosystems in an Age of Rampant Media Cynicism

In the United States, and around the world, journalism and public information exist across broken media architectures. Citizens are at the mercy of those eager to take advantage of platform infrastructures in which access, quality, and diversity varies so wildly. Increasingly, politicians are taking advantage of these platform architectures to position people against one another. The result is a fracturing of belief, where truths splinter and trust erodes. Our digital environments are at the center of this fracturing, and our social and civic cohesion is at risk. What has resulted is a rampant cynicism, which is reflected in an intentional disengagement from the information infrastructures that provide civic cohesion. This is buoyed by an erosion of local news environments, which has further disconnected communities or forced them to rely on large scale digital media companies. This article will detail three areas eroding public trust and engagement— distributed propaganda, hijacking of local news, and reifying polarization—and their contributions to growing cynicism toward our current civic and political environments. It will unpack the frame of cynicism to articulate a lack of willingness to participate in civic processes that are seen as inclusive and reach beyond differences. The essay will pivot to the concept of civic-mindedness to promote an approach to combat the cynicism that has engulfed our political and civic infrastructures.

SOCIALITY AND MONETIZATION ON LIVE STREAMING PLATFORMS

This panel presents ongoing research into online “live streaming” platforms, which offer the live broadcast of individuals’ activities - primarily but not exclusively digital gameplay - over the internet to potentially massive worldwide audiences. The largest platform in this area (on which we focus) is Twitch.tv, already the 30th most-viewed website in the world, with comparable platforms boasting large viewing numbers in China, Korea, and Japan. Our first talk examines Twitch as the dominant leading live streaming platform, outlining its evolution and historical origins while unpacking some of the fundamental user-platform relationships manifested on the site. The second addresses itself to the sociality of live streaming, which unlike traditional video media formats enables a rapid live exchange of comments and conversation between live streaming producers and consumers. The third paper presents an overview and typology of monetization methods in live streaming, focusing in particular on the gamified and “gamblified” elements of making money through the practice, as well as how these practices have evolved through a three-way dialogue between viewers, “streamers”, and platforms. The fourth paper builds on this by examining the on-platform currency of Twitch, known as “Bits”, and how the platform captured donations from viewers through the implementation of this currency system. The fifth and final paper will then further develop these critical enquiries into monetization methods and platform dynamics by presenting a number of extremely contemporary developments in this area on Twitch, exploring new the routes for capital flow enabled by new platform infrastructures and technological systems.

Knowledge bases and responsibility within regional innovation systems: reflections from the Twente region

ABSTRACTIncreasing public investments in distributed platform infrastructures created new opportunities for economic growth and social welfare but simultaneously were associated with growing societal distrust in science’s power to solve societal problems. The concept of Responsible Research and Innovation was advanced as providing mechanisms to recouple science and society ensuring that research and innovation continues to uphold its societal duties. In this paper, we explore the extent to which it is possible to identify repertoires of responsible innovation behaviour within extant regional research and innovation networks through the way that these innovation networks draw on informal regional innovation resources. We distinguish two kinds of regional innovation network, those based on primarily synthetic knowledge bases, and those based on primarily analytic knowledge bases, in the eHealth sector where there are substantive societal concerns regarding responsibility and innovation. We contend it appears that the coupling of patients to innovation networks through their prior association with innovators (e.g. as patients) affects the scope for responsibility. We therefore contend that more attention is required for understanding the dynamics of citizen-innovator coupling in regional innovation networks if responsibility is to become a more common systemic property.

Reframing platform power

This article addresses the problem of platform power by probing current regulatory frameworks’ basic assumptions about how tech firms operate in digital ecosystems. Platform power is generally assessed in terms of economic markets in which individual corporate actors harness technological innovations to compete fairly, thereby maximising consumer welfare. We propose three paradigmatic shifts in the conceptualisation of platform power. First, we suggest to expand the notion of consumer welfare to citizen wellbeing, hence addressing a broader scope of platform services’ beneficiaries. Second, we recommend considering platform companies as part of an integrated platform ecosystem, acknowledging its interrelational, dynamic structure. And third, we shift attention from markets as level playing fields towards societal platform infrastructures where hierarchies and dependencies are built into their architecture. Reframing platform power may be a necessary condition for updating and integrating current regulatory regimes and policy proposals. Citation & publishing information

Datafication as parenthesis: reconceptualising the best interests of the child principle in data protection law

ABSTRACT The objective of this article is to shed light on a question that has considerable policy significance for the child as a data subject under the General Data Protection Regulation 2016 (‘Regulation 2016/679’) – how can we better integrate the best interests of the child principle, including the emphasis placed by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) on respecting a child's autonomy and development in a datafied environment? This article lays the foundation to an answer in three steps. First, it questions whether the political act of integrating the lifeworlds of children into digital infrastructures of the personal data economy and structuring of responsibilities to be owed by data controllers through data protection rules and principles is truly empowering. Second, it uses the dialectical relationship between critical infrastructures in the datafied environment and data protection rules to explain the ramifications of the analytical shift from children's rights to information rights, for conceptions and understandings of autonomy, agency and best interests. Third, CRC provisions will be used to expose the incompatibility of the ontological turn initiated by data protection rules and platform infrastructures with received understandings of the best interests of the child principle. The article concludes with an account of how the present gulf that exists in the understanding of the role of CRC and their application in data protection policymaking in a datafied environment could be bridged.

Digital online music in China – A “laboratory” for business experiment

•Digitisation in music and other cultural industries in China has followed a trajectory strikingly different to the West•A liberal environment initially allowed many players to enter the market and offer a wide array of digital music services•As licensing requirements were more strictly enforced internet giants Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent: BAT) became dominant.•Diverse services and value propositions can be simultaneously exploited through•BAT's cross-sector platform infrastructures China has been a laboratory for new kinds of innovation in digital music and other services that may be relevant elsewhere

Circulation Gatekeepers: Unbundling the Platform Politics of YouTube's Content ID

Abstract This article explores how circulation flows are shaped by the politics of digital platforms. The author introduces the concept circulation gatekeepers to consider the infrastructures (people, institutions, technologies, discourses, etc.) that control and direct the flow of how, or if, matter moves in particular rhetorical ecologies. Focusing on YouTube's Content ID as a case in point, the article explores how YouTube exercises circulation gatekeeping power by blocking some circulation flows and boosting others. It traces how Content ID aligns itself—materially through its computational procedures, economically through its monetization practices, and rhetorically through its published legal positions and community guidelines—with a view of copyright that privileges the interests of corporate rightsholders and neglects those of everyday users. The author shows how these interests are embedded in copyright discourses and regimes of property control, suggesting systems such as Content ID have broader implications for digital writing in an age where platform infrastructures determine authorship and ownership status. In addition to discussing why rhetoric and writing scholars should care about circulation practices on YouTube (and other corporate platforms), the article closes by calling for more work that considers the role other circulation gatekeepers play in networked economies.

Do algorithms dream of ‘data’ without bodies?

ABSTRACTThe question whether algorithms dream of ‘data’ without bodies is asked with the intention of highlighting the material conditions created by wearables for fitness and health, reveal the underlying assumptions of the platform economy regarding individuals’ autonomy, identities and preferences and reflect on the justifications for intervention under the General Data Protection Regulation. The article begins by highlighting key features of platform infrastructures and wearables in the health and fitness landscape, explains the implications of algorithms automating, what can be described as ‘rituals of public and private life’ in the health and fitness domain, and proceeds to consider the strains they place on data protection law. It will be argued that technological innovation and data protection rules played a part in setting the conditions for the mediated construction of meaning from bodies of information in the platform economy.

Do Algorithms Dream of 'Data' Without Bodies?

The question whether algorithms dream of “data” without bodies is asked with the intention of highlighting the material conditions created by wearables for fitness and health and underlying assumptions of the platform economy regarding individuals’ autonomy, identities and preferences and justifications for intervention under the General Data Protection Regulation The article begins by highlighting key features of platform infrastructures and wearables in the health and fitness landscape, explains the implications of algorithms automating, what can be described as “rituals of public and private life” in the health and fitness domain, and proceeds to consider the strains they place on data protection law. It will be argued that technological innovation and data protection rules played a part in setting the conditions for the mediated construction of meaning from bodies of information in the platform economy. If data protection rules are to provide a democratic and sustainable system not just for corporate elites, there is an urgent need to reassess how best a just and democratic society can benefit from the lexicon of classification, standardization and reification of persons by the algorithmic hand driving the platform economy - l'esprit algorithmes.

Deadline Constrained based Workflow Scheduling for Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is the emerging trend in distributing computing that facilitates software applications, platform, and hardware infrastructures as a service. Cloud service providers offer these services based on Service Level Agreements (SLAs) which defines user's required Quality of Service (QoS) parameters. Workflow scheduling is one of the major problems in cloud systems. A good scheduling algorithm must minimize the completion time and cost of workflow application along with QoS requirements of the user. Deadline constrained workflow scheduling model is proposed in this paper to execute workflows with manageable cost and priority while meeting the deadline constraint. Deadline is defined as the latest time by which all the tasks should be completed. The proposed model uses Earliest Finish (EF) to find the deadline and job schedule assignment algorithm to define the paths which is used to schedule the tasks. The proposed model reduces the execution cost and completes the application workflows within the available deadline. This paper extends our earlier work on Artificial Bee Colony algorithm to schedule workflow jobs within the deadline while optimizing the cost and the completion time. The proposed model has been simulated using CloudSim toolkit, and the experimental results show that the proposed algorithm meets the deadline constraint while minimising exhibits less completion time, and also within manageable cost.

A Study of Mashup as a Software Application Development Technique with Examples from an End-User Programming Perspective

The purpose of this study is to present, introduce and explain the principles, concepts and techniques of mashups through an analysis of mashup tools from End-user Development (EuD) software engineering perspectives, since it is a new program ming paradigm. Problem statement: Although mashup tools supporting the creation of mashups rel y heavily on data integration, they still require users to have reasonable programming skills, rather than simply enabling the integration of content in a template approach. Mashup tools also have their lif espan in a fast moving technology-driven world which requires meta-application handling. Some developers have discontinued their mashup tools but others are still available in the mashup space. It has been noted that there is a steady increase of n ew mashups on a daily basis with a concomitant increas e of new Application Programming Interface (APIs) to support meta-mashup application EuD. Approach: Both qualitative and quantitative research methods have been utilized. After introducing the b asic principles, concepts and techniques of mashups, we develop and present a categorization of mashups and mashup tools and summarize the ten most popular currently used mashup tools against se ven indictors from end-user software engineering perspectives ranging from programming skill require ment, prompt suggestion of features use, operability, 'share-ability' and reuse, service, ty pe and target user, in order to evaluate how these mashup tools support end-user development. To perform the evaluation and produce the final results, the selected indicators' features have been horizon tally compared and comprehensively analyzed. Results: The philosophy of mashup is aimed at providing simple rapid program development by end- users with minimum programming skills. However, we observe that mashup tools typically follow four data processing styles: Webpage customization, wire paradigm, spreadsheet and programming by demonstration. These mashup tools are supposed to seamlessly and effortlessly assist end-users programming but this is not the case. Conclusion: From our research we concluded that some mashup tools are not really simple enough to handle and st ill require end-users to have a computer programmin g background to learn and understand its platform inf rastructures and mechanisms. These might all change in the near future. There are some companies that are now involved with mashup development which provide huge opportunities to both individual and organizational customers. Mashup have now become a commercial opportunity rather than a simple way of integrating data from Web 2.0 platforms.

Coordinating decentralized research and development laboratories: A survey analysis

Abstract The growing internationalization and strategic diversity of research and development (R&D) activities create important managerial challenges for the globally competing multinational enterprise (MNE). Driven by recent theoretical considerations and empirical studies, we provide complementary insights to the international management literature by investigating the impact of strategic variables (roles of decentralized R&D units) and some commonly studied FDI characteristics (industry, size and country of origin) on the coordination patterns used in the context of international R&D. As a conceptual background, five categories of coordination mechanisms are generated (structural, formal hierarchical, people-based, social and information technology platform infrastructures). Our findings, based on a quantitative inductive analysis, reveal that laboratory-related characteristics (roles, age and size) stand out as the most influential determinants of coordination mechanisms and instruments. The study also highlights that MNEs are moving towards a more complicated and multifaceted integration pattern of their decentralized technology strategies. Implications for international managers, academic researches and decision makers are discussed.