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...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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SAGE Publishing
2021-06-01
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| Series: | Big Data & Society |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517211025061 |
| _version_ | 1818440690924781568 |
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| author | Fernando N van der Vlist Anne Helmond |
| author_facet | Fernando N van der Vlist Anne Helmond |
| author_sort | Fernando N van der Vlist |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | 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. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-14T18:16:22Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-93db66ee122d426a881026252d3cdeb1 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2053-9517 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-14T18:16:22Z |
| publishDate | 2021-06-01 |
| publisher | SAGE Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Big Data & Society |
| spelling | doaj.art-93db66ee122d426a881026252d3cdeb12022-12-21T22:52:11ZengSAGE PublishingBig Data & Society2053-95172021-06-01810.1177/20539517211025061How partners mediate platform power: Mapping business and data partnerships in the social media ecosystemFernando N van der VlistAnne HelmondSocial 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.https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517211025061 |
| spellingShingle | Fernando N van der Vlist Anne Helmond How partners mediate platform power: Mapping business and data partnerships in the social media ecosystem Big Data & Society |
| title | How partners mediate platform power: Mapping business and data partnerships in the social media ecosystem |
| title_full | How partners mediate platform power: Mapping business and data partnerships in the social media ecosystem |
| title_fullStr | How partners mediate platform power: Mapping business and data partnerships in the social media ecosystem |
| title_full_unstemmed | How partners mediate platform power: Mapping business and data partnerships in the social media ecosystem |
| title_short | How partners mediate platform power: Mapping business and data partnerships in the social media ecosystem |
| title_sort | how partners mediate platform power mapping business and data partnerships in the social media ecosystem |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517211025061 |
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