The Platformization of the Web: Making Web Data Platform Ready

In this article, I inquire into Facebook’s development as a platform by situating it within the transformation of social network sites into social media platforms. I explore this shift with a historical perspective on, what I refer to as, platformization, or the rise of the platform as the dominant...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Social media + society Vol. 1; no. 2
Main Author: Helmond, Anne
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01.07.2015
Sage Publications Ltd
SAGE Publishing
Subjects:
Economic models
Historical development
Mass media effects
Social media
Social networks
social network sites
Application Programming Interfaces
social media
Facebook
platforms
ISSN:2056-3051, 2056-3051
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:In this article, I inquire into Facebook’s development as a platform by situating it within the transformation of social network sites into social media platforms. I explore this shift with a historical perspective on, what I refer to as, platformization, or the rise of the platform as the dominant infrastructural and economic model of the social web and its consequences. Platformization entails the extension of social media platforms into the rest of the web and their drive to make external web data “platform ready.” The specific technological architecture and ontological distinctiveness of platforms will be examined by taking their programmability into account. I position platformization as a form of platform critique that inquires into the dynamics of the decentralization of platform features and the recentralization of “platform ready” data as a way to examine the consequences of the programmability of social media platforms for the web.
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ISSN:2056-3051
2056-3051
DOI:10.1177/2056305115603080