This article examines the roles of platform-based distribution and user data in the digital music economy. Drawing on trade press, newspaper coverage, and a consumer privacy complaint, we offer a critical analysis of tech-music partnerships forged between Samsung and Jay-Z (2013), Apple iTunes Store and U2 (2014), Tidal and Kanye West (2016), and Apple Music and Drake (2017). In these cases, information technology (IT) companies supported album releases, and music was used to generate user data and attention: logics of data and attention capture were interwoven. The IT and music industries have adapted their business strategies to what we conceptualize as platform-based capital accumulation or ‘platform accumulation’, and models centred on controlling access and extracting rent have enabled the emergence of new monopolies and IT gatekeepers.

This paper argues that the systemic nature of contemporary consumer surveillance undermines the most fundamental principle of free market economics: consumer sovereignty. Specifically, this paper argues that the rise of an ‘information’ or ‘knowledge’ society in conjunction with neoliberal capitalism has entrenched routine forms of surveillance within commercial strategies by employing networked databases as a primary medium for the articulation of consumer sovereignty (choice/demand). The communicative relationship between consumers and producers within the market involves effectively ‘listening’ (and then responding) to consumer needs and wants in a timely manner. Surveillance is therefore not only necessary for the operation of globalized consumer capitalism, it is also the primary means by which consumer communicate their sovereignty within the marketplace. By turning to the work of Harold Innis and the intellectual tradition known as medium theory, this paper will theorize how in linking the actions of individual consumers to the decision-making capacities of trans-national corporations (TNC), the prevalence of consumer databases violates the fundamental neutrality of the market, and thus sovereignty, of individual consumers. In sum, by treating the database as a distinct communication medium, this paper will highlight how the commercial mediation of identity under neoliberalism can conceal the potential for the uneven geographic development, the marginalization of ‘less valuable’ consumer segments, and the exploitation of individual vulnerabilities through behavior and profile modeling.

Ubiquitous connectivity to networked information-communication technologies increasingly mediates social experiences of markets and retail environments. These conditions lead some marketing scholars to conclude that digital media are reaching their inevitable culmination: an omnipresent marketplace. They call this “ubiquitous commerce” (u-commerce). U-commerce annihilates constraints over markets; borders, cultural differences, and geography cease to impose friction on exchange. As part of a broader understanding of new media and marketing, u-commerce deserves attention from critical communication studies. In foregrounding concerns of space, time, and consciousness, u-commerce exemplifies a commercial theory of media and invites critique at the nexus of medium theory and political economy. The work of Harold Innis is uniquely suited to this task. This article contextualizes and identifies biases in the conceptual systems and infrastructures of u-commerce.

This paper traces linkages between the commoditization of the Web and what we call "app-centric media." By this we mean a media environment composed of a multitude of discrete-but-connected software applications and their associated protocols, platforms, frameworks, and institutions. The rapid growth of app-centric media, we argue, is directly dependent on the development and commercialization of the (mobile) Internet, as well as on the business models embedded in the development of key native app platforms such as iOS and Android.The emergence of app-centric media, particularly in relation to mobile media, is having a marked effect on conceptualizations of the Web. The prevailing rhetoric concerning the development of the mobile Internet and app-centric media employs imagery of autonomy, empowerment, and independence for both the users and producers of apps. We argue that the commoditization central to the commercial development of the mobile Internet evidences a fusion of neoliberal rhetoric valorizing worker autonomy, individual empowerment, and entrepreneurial independence, with a mode of production consonant with "cognitive capitalism" (Dyer-Witheford, 2014;Vercellone, 2007).Our analysis is divided into three sections. The first looks at the early development of the mobile Internet in relation to the accumulation strategies of cognitive capitalism including the structural importance of "value networks" and the "putting-out system"; the second deals with the commercialization models underpinning the two dominant app platforms, Apple's iOS and Android; the third addresses the development of HTML as a means of production and describes how HTML5 is framed as a prospectively

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This paper contextualizes and critically examines the incorporation of transactional features into two popular mobile social media apps: Instagram and Snapchat. It examines how mobile social media acts as an interface between culture and commerce. We situate this interface within a larger political economic context in which tech companies are embracing ‘fintech’ to drive growth. We argue that mobile social media platforms play a unique role in monetising personal data and context awareness through their development of ‘transactional affordance’ – a term we develop to understand new features allowing users to connect content to forms of payment. We argue that the success of these affordances is tied to labour associated with the ‘performative authenticity’ of social-media influencers. Our first case study examines the recent development of ‘shopping’ and ‘checkout’ features on Instagram, and the significance of this feature for the economic growth of parent company Facebook. We then look at how the specific development of augmented reality features on Snapchat serve as the basis for new transactional affordances in everyday contexts. We conclude the paper by arguing that the contextual commerce these phenomena entail signals a shift to a transactional culture in which everyday interactions become opportunities for consumption.

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