Addressing platform power: The politics of competition policy

Popiel, Pawel

doi:10.1386/jdmp_00029_1

Cited by 15 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Therefore, a critical area of research is emerging around the intersection between digital platforms, labor markets, and political-economic considerations around regulatory frameworks (Malik et al, 2021). Concerns regarding the influence of platform firms and their role as political entities have gained prominence in recent years (Culpepper & Thelen, 2020;Popiel, 2020) as they progressively engage in the policy-making processes associated with the regulation of their market across diverse contexts (Borkholder et al, 2018).…”

Section: Studying the Platform Society Beyond Social Mediamentioning

confidence: 99%

Platforms, Politics, and Policy Change: Framing A Governance Approach to TNCs in the Gig Economy

Sáenz-Leandro

2023

RIPS

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In social science, platform capitalism is becoming more analyzed as digital app-based platforms have revolutionized the global exchange of goods and services, prompting multifaceted challenges within society, economics, and politics. Platform governance emerges as this changing landscape unfolds, illuminating the intricate interplay between national and local regulatory frameworks and the burgeoning power dynamics among diverse stakeholders. This article provides a framework for examining the complex political and governance issues that have surfaced in the gig economy, mainly focused on the proliferation of ride-hailing platforms, such as Uber, also known as Transportation Network Companies (TNCs). This article examines the framework of platform governance contributing theoretically by putting into dialogue a literature primarily focused on studying social media with another branch of the platform society in which policy disruption has been evident, such as transportation and urban mobility. The analysis focuses on three fundamental dimensions of political economy: ideas, interests, and institutions. The paper also reviews how these three approaches have operated in recent scholarly literature. Finally, the article underscores the need for future research to address this complexity from a contingent approach to promote a comprehensive understanding of platform regulation.

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Section: Studying the Platform Society Beyond Social Mediamentioning

confidence: 99%

Platforms, Politics, and Policy Change: Framing A Governance Approach to TNCs in the Gig Economy

Sáenz-Leandro

2023

RIPS

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“…For example, despite growing concerns over dominant platforms' market power, US policymakers are drawn to Big Tech's scale on issues ranging from preventing copyright infringement to stopping human trafficking and on military projects (Doctorow, 2021; Poulson, 2020). Like free speech norms and the promise of innovation, benefits to scale, often rehearsed by platform representatives (Popiel, 2020), serve as a political constraint on antitrust intervention, compounding challenges related to promoting competition in sectors marked by pronounced network effects and economies of scope and scale. Aside from viewing divestitures as tools of last resort, since “market structure is best left to competitive forces” (ACCC, 2019, p. 3), the few inquiries that mention public utility regulation, oppose it (Commission ‘Competition Law 4.0’, 2019; Furman, 2019).…”

Section: Policy Silos and Tradeoffsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Regulating datafication and platformization: Policy silos and tradeoffs in international platform inquiries

Popiel

2022

Policy & Internet

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A key concern in international policy debates about articulating oversight of digital platform markets involves policy silos, arising from the scope of platformization and datafication, and the challenges in defining their policy boundaries and coordinating a comprehensive policy response. This article examines how policymakers grapple with the problem by looking at a growing number of expert inquiries on digital platforms—a proxy for the international policy debate—that focus on policy problems ranging from market dominance and privacy risks to the spread of disinformation. Specifically, the article develops a schema of related policy silos and tradeoffs that arise in these debates: (1) policy area silos, (2) market/sectoral silos, (3) temporal silos, and (4) normative tradeoffs. Then, it critically examines the implications of these silos and tradeoffs for policy interventions aimed at addressing concerns related to datafication and platformization, raising key questions about the scope of and assumptions underlying platform regulation internationally and noting the way they constrain policy design and thwart more holistic policy solutions.

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“…Even though it is a phenomenon that mainly affects the audio-visual sector, 'platformisation' and its production process have also reached audio management. As such, the prominence of platforms has already yielded a rich academic production, represented, among many others, by Ballon (2009), Ballon and Evens (2014), Helmond (2015), Plantin et al (2016), Andersson Schwarz (2017), Gillespie (2010Gillespie ( , 2017Gillespie ( , 2018, Evens and Donders (2018), Poell et al (2019), Sullivan (2019), Evens et al (2020), Popiel (2020) and Caplan and Gillespie (2020).…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Independent podcast networks in Spain: A grassroots cultural production facing cultural industry practices

Sellas

Bagant

2022

Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Med

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This article analyses the main Spanish independent podcast networks. It is a two-phase qualitative study based on direct observation of the networks, a number of secondary sources and, especially, on semi-structured in-depth interviews with the coordinators or managers of these networks. From the political economy of cultural industries, the main objectives are to determine the motivation, perspective, and dynamics of these networks, as well as to explore their financial model. As podcasting implies cultural practices and meanings, we want to analyse whether independent podcast networks are basically a grassroots cultural production that maintain their amateur philosophy, or whether, in contrast, they are evolving towards an institutionalization that moves them closer to cultural industries and their practices, and the study of Spanish independent podcast networks is a useful starting point for putting mainstream and historical definitions to the test. This study sets forth how the progressive formalisation of podcast networks has generated tensions in the grassroots-industrialization balance. Spanish independent podcasters are pro-ams entering the production process of an industry in which other industrialized actors have already been established.

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Addressing platform power: The politics of competition policy

Cited by 15 publications

References 14 publications

Platforms, Politics, and Policy Change: Framing A Governance Approach to TNCs in the Gig Economy

Platforms, Politics, and Policy Change: Framing A Governance Approach to TNCs in the Gig Economy

Regulating datafication and platformization: Policy silos and tradeoffs in international platform inquiries

Independent podcast networks in Spain: A grassroots cultural production facing cultural industry practices

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