The Political Economy of Social Data A Historical Analysis of - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Slides PDF available at: bit.ly/sms17-presentation Download WiP paper: bit.ly/sms17-paper The Political Economy of Social Data A Historical Analysis of Platform-Industry Partnerships Anne Helmond (University of Amsterdam, NL) - @silvertje David Nieborg (University of Toronto, CA) - @gamespacenl Fernando van der Vlist (U of Siegen, DE / U of Amsterdam, NL) - @fvandervlist Social Media & Society 2017, Toronto, ON, Canada, 28-30 July 2017 1

https://www.wsj.com/articles/cmo-today-welcome-to-cannes-the-ad-maze-special-report-twitters-new-tv-ad-1497871656

Facebook’s expanding platform 2,006,000,000 monthly active users. Deep economic and infrastructural integration in the wider ‘ecosystem of connective media’ (Van Dijck, 2013) and the digital marketing industries. Expansion through platform–industry partnerships.

Contributions 1. Develop a deeper understanding of FB–industry partnership dynamics ; 2. Track how FB & partners are catering to a growing number of 3 rd parties with distinct interests ; 3. Explore FB’s entrenchment within the wider digital marketing industry; 4. Address issues of platform power, equity, and equality in the context of platform–industry relations.

Background and related work • Media studies: privacy, surveillance, and discrimination. (e.g. Turow, 2011) • Critical political economy of communications: audience commodification & institutional analysis (e.g. Smythe, 1977; Napoli, 2014; Nieborg, 2017) • Interrelations between platform ownership, platform governance, and business models. (van Dijck, 2013) “In the venture capitalist economy of Silicon Valley, partnership deals, even with competitors, are as important as beating the competition.” (ibid.: 58)

facebookmarketingpartners.com

Exploring historical partnership dynamics 1. Digital historical methods (Rogers 2013) for reconstructing platform partnerships by looking up Facebook’s partner websites in the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. 2. Semi-structured background interviews with selected official Facebook partners: adjust, App Annie, AppsFlyer, Fiksu, and Grow Mobile.

1. Historical partner program analysis bit.ly/2ruizlY

1. Historical partner program analysis bit.ly/2rKK5M8

2. Historical partnership analysis bit.ly/2oYvpI5 Zoom: 25%

2. Historical partnership analysis bit.ly/2rbFsdi

Developing Facebook’s partner side Establishing of variety of marketing partner 2009–2012 programs. Streamlining separate partner programs into a 2012–2015 unified program. Diversifying partner programs associated with new 2015– platform features.

Platform–industry partnership dynamics 1. To examine FB’s expansion beyond its platform boundaries; 2. To understand the political economy of social data circulating between FB, their partners, and other 3 rd parties; 3. To investigate the concentration and consolidation of platform power and their effects.

Thank you! Anne Helmond < a.helmond@uva.nl > David Nieborg < david.nieborg@utoronto.ca > Fernando van der Vlist < fernando.vandervlist@uni-siegen.de > Download work-in-progress paper: bit.ly/sms17-paper 14