Digital Platforms, Imperialism and Political Culture PDF
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Digital Platforms, Imperialism and Political Culture “This book is a timely and important contribution to our understanding of imperialism in an age of digital media. Advancing his theory of platform imperialism, Jin manages to eloquently illustrate the contingency of new technologies on the global inequalities of the contemporary world order. This is a very welcome and sophisticated intervention in the field.” —Lina Dencik, Cardiff University, UK In the networked twenty-first century, digital platforms have significantly influenced capital accumulation and digital culture. Platforms, such as social network sites (e.g., Facebook), search engines (e.g., Google), and smartphones (e.g., iPhone), are increasingly crucial because they function as major digital media intermediaries. Emerging companies in non-Western countries have created unique platforms, controlling their own national markets and competing with Western-based platform empires in the global markets. The reality though is that only a handful of Western countries, primarily the U.S., have dominated the global platform markets, resulting in capital accumulation in the hands of a few mega platform owners. This book contributes to the platform imperialism discourse by mapping out sev- eral core areas of platform imperialism, such as intellectual property, the global digital divide, and free labor, focusing on the role of the nation-state alongside transnational capital. Dal Yong Jin is Associate Professor in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University, Canada. He is also Visiting Associate Professor at Yonsei University, Korea. Routledge New Developments in Communication and Society Research Series Editor: James Curran, Goldsmiths, University of London 1 How Media Inform Democracy A Comparative Approach Toril Aalberg and James Curran 2 Communicating Climate Change and Energy Security New Methods in Understanding Audiences Greg Philo and Catherine Happer 3 Digital Platforms, Imperialism and Political Culture Dal Yong Jin Digital Platforms, Imperialism and Political Culture Dal Yong Jin First published 2015 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2015 Taylor & Francis The right of Dal Yong Jin to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Jin, Dal Yong, 1964– Digital platforms, imperialism and political culture / by Dal Yong Jin. pages cm. — (Routledge New Developments in Communication and Society ; 3) Includes index. 1. Digital electronics—Social aspects. 2. Technological innovations—Social aspects. 3. Political culture. 4. Mass media and globalization. 5. Imperialism. I. Title. HM851.J56 2015 303.48’33—dc23 2014040954 ISBN: 978-1-138-85956-2(hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-71712-8(ebk) Typeset in Sabon by codeMantra For my family, Kyung Won, Yu Sun, and Yu Young This page intentionally left blank Contents Acknowledgments ix PaRt I Imperialism Is Back 1 1 Platform technologies and Political Culture 3 2 the Evolution of Imperialism in the 21st Century 22 PaRt II Platform Politics 47 3 Construction of Platform Imperialism 49 4 Platform Politics in Nation-States 76 5 Intellectual Properties in the Digital Economy 100 PaRt III Political Economy of Platform technologies 127 6 User Commodities as Free Labor in the Social Media Era 129 7 Challenge to the Global Digital Divide 153 8 the Future of Digital Platforms 178 Index 189 This page intentionally left blank acknowledgments The ideas and arguments in this book were conceived in 2011 when digital platforms, such as social networking sites, search engines, and smartphones, started to fundamentally change our daily activities. During my days in both Korea and Canada between 2009 and 2011, I experienced undeniable influ- ences formed by these digital platforms, and I started to perceive their role in our modern society. My interactions with people over the next several years, including students at both Simon Fraser University in Canada and KAIST in Korea, presenters and discussants at several conferences, and colleagues in my academic discipline, all provided valuable opinions that shaped and advanced my ideas and discussion topics. It is impossible to thank everyone who helped me to produce this book. I would like to single out a few graduate students at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign who invited me to talk about my preliminary ideas on digital imperialism in the era of globalization. As the co-organizers of the Focal-Point Speaker Series, Robert Mejia, Erin Crocodile, and Jungmin Kwon gave me a wonderful opportunity to test my arguments. They are now emerging scholars and good colleagues of mine. Several faculty mem- bers, including Dan Schiller who was my dissertation advisor, John Nerone, Kent Ono, and James Hay provided their insightful views and conveyed some feedbacks to develop my ideas. When I visited Champaign, Illinois, Clifford Christians personally picked me up at the airport to have dinner with him and his wife and encouraged me to think deeply and thoroughly. This book certainly benefited from their thoughtful and warm comments and provocative questions. Selections of this book were presented in preliminary form at several conferences and symposia organized by several institutions, such as Simon Fraser University and Seoul National University of Science and Technology, as well as a couple of international conferences. Several scholars that I met in these venues, including Kaarle Nordenstreng, Jack Qiu, and Kwang Suk Lee provided important comments. I also would like to thank Christian Fuchs and Dwayne Winseck who offered very kind critiques and observations on my first piece of work that was later published in triple-c: Communica- tion, Capitalism & Critique. Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society. Their suggestions were highly instructive and valuable to my later analysis of digital platforms.
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