Digital Platforms and the Global South

Reconfiguring Power Relations in the Cultural Industries

Philippe Bouquillion, Christine Ithurbide, Tristan Mattelart, Philippe Bouquillion, Christine Ithurbide, Tristan Mattelart

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9781032489919
• eBook ISBN: 9781003814658
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Media Studies
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

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.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figure
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 US Digital Platforms in the Global South: A Critical Review of an Emerging Research Field
• 2 The Big Five in India, Powerful Players?
• 3 Platformisation of Matchmaking: Reconfiguring Social Economies in India
• 4 Cultural Crowdfunding Platforms in Latin America: From ‘Creative’ Discourse to Entrepreneurial Strategies
• 5 Global Platforms Weaving into the Craft Industry: Lessons from Localisation Strategies in India
• 6 From Weixin to WeChat: Analysing the Expansion Strategies of a Chinese Social Media Platform
• 7 Netflix’s First Decade of Presence in Latin America
• 8 Cultural Policies for the SVoD Market in Brazil: From an Attempt at Regulation to Total Deregulation
• 9 Streaming the Middle East: From Legacy Media to Digital Platforms
• 10 Hidden in Plain Sight: YouTube and Nollywood’s Reinvention of Minor Transnational Practices
• 11 What Mobile Telephony Is Doing to West African Music. The ZikMali Project: A New Model of Music Distribution?
• 12 Chilean Fashion Influencers as Digital Labour: Unpacking the ‘Media Kit’ as a Market Device
• Index