Socioeconomics of cultural platforms

The project aims to explore the contours and strategies at work in the field of cultural content distributed by platforms. The cultural contents studied are of various forms (audiovisual, books, music, video games, podcasts, ticketing of shows…). The platforms are both Internet giants and alternative projects, public or private.

This research focuses on cultural content access platforms and the central role they have played since the beginning of the 2010s. Our work shows that, in each sector studied, a small number of large international players (Netflix, Amazon, Live Nation, Spotify, Sony, etc.) form an oligopoly around which there is a fringe of hundreds of smaller platforms. Some of the latter are positioning themselves as alternatives to the large dominant players. Public authorities, at the international, national or local level, are adapting their cultural policies to these profound upheavals. Our investigations have allowed us to focus on the study of the video-on-demand, online bookstore, concert ticketing, music and podcast sectors. Our work aims at describing and analyzing the strategy of platform owners but also their relations with the upstream (content producers and rights holders) and downstream (users) of platforms. This research is funded by the Dicen-IdF laboratory and the Labex Industries Culturelles et Création Artistique (ICCA).

Key Concepts

Capitalisme de plateforme, plateformes alternatives, plateformisation de l’accès aux contenus culturels, Courtage informationnel, Coopérativisme de plateforme

Studied medias

audiovisual, books, music, video game, podcast, show ticketing

Delivrables

Communication in a scientific conference, article in a scientific journal, scientific book, professional book, conference for the general public

Methodology

The methodology of this research is based first of all on a broad exploration of the web and the professional press in order to describe the platforms’ strategies. Once the corpus was stabilized, we identified and extracted the elements that allowed us to characterize the projects under various aspects: the nature of the cultural product supported, the services offered, the modes of cooperation between the actors of the sector, the forms of intervention of the public authorities, etc. A lot of information is indeed directly available on the websites and provides a first way to enter our object of study. We then conducted nearly a hundred interviews with the platform managers and the producers and distributors of cultural content.

Expected results

• Deepen the understanding of the platforms’ strategies according to a triple orientation:
• technical, organizational and economic aspects;
• the role of each of the actors upstream and downstream of the platforms, in particular the role played by the technical service providers ;
• links with rights holders and downstream of the platform.

Key dates

• Participation in the SFSIC colloquium at the MSH Paris-Nord on June 14, 2018: “Alternative cultural platforms: what perspectives for the valorisation of cultural diversity and territories?”, in Création, créativité et médiations, Actes du Congrès de la SFSIC, Vol. 2, Paris, 2018, p.259-271.
• Participation in the study day on “Les contenus culturels à l’ère du numérique : acteurs, normes et politiques”, organized on October 18, 2018 at the University of Liege: “Quelles politiques publiques pour le soutien aux plateformes culturelles alternatives ?” in Antonios Vlassis, Michèle Rioux, Destiny Tchéhouali (dir.), La culture à l’ère du numérique : Plateformes, normes et politiques, Liege, Presses Universitaires de Liege, 2020.
• Participation in the international study days on access and discoverability of francophone cultural content in the digital age in Montreal on October 23 and 24, 2019: “Alternative platforms and cultural diversity: what logics of catalog construction?”
Article in 2019: “Alternative platforms and cooperation of actors: what models of access to cultural content?”, tic&society, Vol. 13, N° 1-2 | -1, 2019, 13-41.
• Article in 2019 : ” Les plateformes de VOD cinéphiliques : des stratégies de niche en questions “,Les Enjeux de l’Information et de la Communication, n°20/1,2019, p.39 à 56.
• Article in 2020 : ” Amazon : What else ? État des lieux des plateformes alternatives de librairie en ligne “, Études digitales n°8, Paris, Éditions Classiques Garnier, 2020.
• Article in 2020 : ” Une stratégie collective européenne : l’exemple d’EuroVod dans la vidéo à la demande “, Communication&Organisation, n°57, 2020.

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