Browsing by Subject "Platform capitalism"

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Open Access
Futures of algorithms and choices: structuration of algorithmic imaginaries and digital platforms in Europe
(Polish Communication Association, 2024-07) Hroch, Milos; Kompatsiaris, Panos; Grassmuck, Volker; Moreno, Jose; Peschke, Lutz; Jirak, Jan; Poddar, Debashmita
The increasing impact of algorithmically driven processes on human societies, which can exacerbate political, economic, and cultural asymmetries, raises questions about reducing human agency by constraining platform structures. We draw on the theoretical concept of algo-rithmic imaginary, which captures users' appropriations and ideas of these processes. In this paper, we focus on the dynamics between agency and structure in algorithmic imaginaries regarding the future of digital media platforms in Europe. The paper takes structuration theory as a theoretical starting point and employs methods of futures studies to analyze how the future is constructed in scenarios developed by a diversity of experts participating in a series of workshops. The future scenarios analysis is mapped around four actors, namely platform users, platform corporations, algorithms and institutions. By considering the role of various actors, particularly institutions, and their interdependencies this paper contributes to more balanced conceptualizations of algo-rithmic imaginaries, which tend to be centered around users' perspectives.
Open Access
On streaming-media platforms, their audiences, and public life
(Routledge, 2021-05-10) Özgün, A.; Treske, Andreas
Over the past decade, streaming-media platforms have emerged as new and natively digital forms of content delivery. For the audience, streaming-media platforms appear as the new way of watching TV or a new kind of film distribution at the outset. Yet they radically transform the spatial and temporal settings of audience activity, introducing an algorithmically modulated logic of programming that we provisionally call microcasting and changing the way we relate to entertainment content in general. This essay critically evaluates how streaming-media platforms restructure the temporal, spatial, and relational dynamics of audience activity and strip off its collective essence. It discusses this new technological form’s actual and potential effects on public life by referring to certain foundational concepts from television, audience, and film studies.
Open Access
Süreğen medya platformları: izleyici etkinliğinin dönüşümü ve toplumsal etkileri
(Ankara Universitesi Iletisim Fakultesi, 2021) Özgün, A.; Treske, Andreas
Süreğen medya platformları, günümüzde anlatısal metinler için televizyon ve sinemayı ikame edecek yeni bir dolaşım/dağıtım biçimi olarak ortaya çıkıyor. Fakat bu dolaşım biçimine has izleme etkinliğinin zamansal ve mekânsal koşulları ve ön plana çıkardığı anlatısal aygıtlar, onu geçmişteki sinema ve televizyon izleyiciliğinden farklı şekilde yapılandırıyor. Süreğen medya platformları, taşınabilir medya teknolojilerinin de yardımıyla, izleyici etkinliğini zamansal ve mekânsal kısıtlarından kurtarıp sürekli, her yerde ve her zaman ulaşılabilir hale getiriyor. Bu pratik, sadece sinema ve televizyon izleyiciliğinin kurucu niteliği olan kamusallığın uzağında, yalıtılmış, sterilize bir iletişim tecrübesi yaratmakla kalmıyor; ilk bakışta kişisel ve kişiye özel gibi görünen bu yeni iletişim süreci esasında algoritmik süreçler aracılığıyla düzenlenerek platform kapitalizminin kontrol aygıtlarından birine dönüşüyor. Bu yazıda amacımız süreğen medya platformlarının dayattığı bu yeni izleyici etkinliğinin içinde kurulduğu koşulları kuramsal düzeyde analiz etmek ve bu koşulların kamusal yaşama etkisini sorgulamaya girişmek. Streaming media platforms are increasingly replacing cinema and television as the dominant means of narrative-content distribution, yet viewing media on these platforms differs in important ways from cinema and television spectatorship, both through the narrative and interactive possibilities they allow, but also through the temporal and spatial conditions they impose on audiences. With the help of the mobile media technologies they are delivered through, streaming media platforms free audiences from the temporal and spatial limitations of cinema and television and offer a continuous yet isolated viewing experience. Algorithmically regulated and customized program flow and the accompanying illusion of interactivity create a “privatized” viewing experience which contrasts with the “publicness” and “collectiveness” of that of cinema and television. In this article, we discuss the novel conditions imposed on viewers by streaming media platforms at a conceptual and theoretical level and interrogate their impact on public life.