1st Edition
Digital Platforms and the Global South Reconfiguring Power Relations in the Cultural Industries
This book addresses the issues raised by digital platforms in the Global South, with an emphasis on the cultural stakes involved.
It brings together an interdisciplinary team of researchers – including political economists, socio-economists, geographers, media sociologists or anthropologists – who each explore these issues through an insightful case study at a local, national, regional or international scale. While studying the strategies of some of the main US-based Big Tech platforms or video streaming platforms towards the Global South, the chapters also consider the often-neglected active role local or regional actors play in the expansion of those Western digital players, and highlight the existence of a constellation of local or regional platforms that have emerged in Africa, Asia, Latin America or the Middle East. In addition to analysing the complex relationships of competition, collaboration or dependence between these diverse actors, this volume examines the ways in which the rise of these digital platforms has generated new forms of cultural entrepreneurship and participated in the reconfiguring of the conditions in which cultural contents are produced and circulated in the Global South.
This volume will appeal to readers interested in the transnationalisation of cultural industries or in the social, political, economic, cultural and geopolitical dimensions of digital transformations and will be an important resource for students, teachers and researchers in media, communication, cultural studies, international relations and area studies programmes.
Introduction
Philippe Bouquillion, Christine Ithurbide and Tristan Mattelart
Chapter 1 - US Digital Platforms in the Global South: A Critical Review of an Emerging Research Field
Tristan Mattelart
Chapter 2 - The Big Five in India, Powerful Players?
Philippe Bouquillion
Chapter 3 - Platformisation of Matchmaking: Reconfiguring Social Economies in India
Vibodh Parthasarathi and Simran Agarwal
Chapter 4 - Cultural Crowdfunding Platforms in Latin America: From ‘Creative’ Discourse to Entrepreneurial Strategies
Alix Bénistant and Jeremy Vachet
Chapter 5 - Global Platforms Weaving into the Craft Industry: Lessons from Localisation Strategies in India
Christine Ithurbide
Chapter 6 - From Weixin to WeChat: Analysing the Expansion Strategies of a Chinese Social Media Platform
Yuwen Zhang
Chapter 7 - Netflix’s First Decade of Presence in Latin America
Luis Albornoz and Fernando Krakowiak
Chapter 8 - Cultural Policies for the SVoD Market in Brazil: From an Attempt at Regulation to Total Deregulation
Leonardo De Marchi and Ana Atem Diamante
Chapter 9 - Streaming the Middle East: From Legacy Media to Digital Platforms
Joe F. Khalil and Mohamed Zayani
Chapter 10 - Hidden in Plain Sight: YouTube and Nollywood’s Reinvention of Minor Transnational Practices
Alessandro Jedlowski
Chapter 11 - What Mobile Telephony is Doing to West African Music. The ZikMali Project: A New Model of Music Distribution?
Emmanuelle Olivier
Chapter 12 - Chilean Fashion Influencers as Digital Labour: Unpacking the ‘Media Kit’ as a Market Device
Arturo Arriagada
Biography
Philippe Bouquillion is Professor of Communication at the University Sorbonne Paris Nord and Director of the LabSIC and of the Laboratory of Excellence ‘Cultural Industries and Artistic Creation’ (LabEx ICCA).
Christine Ithurbide is a Research Fellow at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) with UMR 5319 Passages.
Tristan Mattelart is Professor at the French Institute of the Press, Paris-Panthéon-Assas University, and Researcher at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Analysis and Research of the Media (CARISM).
