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

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 Slides PDF available at: bit.ly/sms17-presentation Download WiP paper: bit.ly/sms17-paper 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
• f 3rd 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.

• 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)

Background and related work

facebookmarketingpartners.com

• 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
• fficial Facebook partners: adjust, App Annie, AppsFlyer,

Fiksu, and Grow Mobile.

Exploring historical partnership dynamics

• 1. Historical partner program analysis

bit.ly/2ruizlY

• 1. Historical partner program analysis

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• 2. Historical partnership analysis

Zoom: 25% bit.ly/2oYvpI5

• 2. Historical partnership analysis

bit.ly/2rbFsdi

Developing Facebook’s partner side

2009–2012

Establishing of variety of marketing partner programs.

2012–2015

Streamlining separate partner programs into a unified program.

2015–

Diversifying partner programs associated with new 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 3rd 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