Let’s talk about money, data, and platform-dependent cultural production
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22115341 |
|---|---|
| Authors | D B Nieborg (0000-0002-3498-789X, University of Toronto, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue | 24 |
| Pages | raeic122401 |
| Publication date | 2025-10-31 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Revista de la Asociación Española de Investigación de la Comunicación (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2341-2690 • E-ISSN: 2341-2690 |
| Publisher | Asociacion Espanola de Investigacion de la Comunicacion (AE-IC) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.24137/raeic.12.24.1 |
| OpenAlex | W4415656522 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 28 |
This essay investigates the political economy of platform-dependent cultural production, focusing on music streaming, mobile games, and short-form video. While platforms still present themselves as democratizing tools, access to the means of production is decoupled from equitable opportunities for distribution, marketing, and monetization. The essay walks through studies that discuss this dynamic such as researchers counting songs on Spotify playlists, app store revenues, or using large-scale datasets of views on TikTok. The old blockbuster logic is alive and well, whether in 30-second TikTok clips or mobile games that rake in millions. To conceptualize these examples, the essay advances the heuristic of ‘platform dependency.’ By situating these patterns within longer histories of digitization, the essay underscores continuities alongside novel platform-specific asymmetries. It ends with a call for renewed scholarly attention to the flow of money and data across geographies and media industry sectors
Game studies · Heuristic · Mobile device · Politics · Production model · Cultural Studies · Digital Games and Media · Digital Media and Philosophy · Digital Platforms and Economics
The Culture of Connectivity
YouTube channels, uploads and views
Platformisation
Global Entertainment Media
(Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love
The broadcasting trap
Game Production Studies
The value of sound
Platforms as audio discovery ecosystems
Visibility in the shadows
Wikinomics and its discontents
Is music streaming bad for musicians? Problems of evidence and argument
Playlisting the periphery
Global perspectives on platforms and cultural production
On super apps and app stores
A Pedagogue's Progress, the Cunningham Turn, and the Birth of Creator Studies
Crushing Candy
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |