How consumer-initiated platforms shape family and consumption

Abstract

Research has recently highlighted processes of platformization through which consumer activities are shaped by socio-technical features of digital environments. Prior theorizations have focused on corporate-initiated platform dynamics and affordances, emphasizing either the managerial facets of platformization or how consumers use and interact with these platforms. Our interpretive research on Familyship.org offers a contrasting case and theorizes how ordinary consumers, thwarted by social and legal constraints in their desires to create families, leverage platformization for family creation and consumption. Our findings conceptualize consumer-initiated platforms and show how their key affordances— embeddedness, privacy, modularization, and scaling—shape one of the most sacred spheres of life, the institution of family. Our study contributes by theorizing how consumer-initiated platform affordances differ from dominant corporate-initiated ones and why the differences matter. We discuss how they can help consumers to find solutions to acute consumption problems and to reimagine dominant cultural institutions.

The platformization of consumer culture: A theoretical framework

“…Firstly, by covering various aspects of consumer culture, ranging from consumer activism (Vrikki and Lekakis, 2023, this issue) to craftwork (Scaraboto and Fischer, 2023, this issue), and featuring a wide array of actors, such as social movement organizations (Bajde et al, 2023, this issue) or gunfluencers (Drenten et al, 2023, this issue), the special issue shows how fertile and versatile the concept of platformization of consumer culture is. Embracing topics like the study of emotions (Denegri-Knott et al, 2023, this issue), family formation practices (Ottlewski et al, 2023, this issue), and fitness body culture (Schöps et al, 2023, this issue), this collection of papers paves the way for a more expansive application of the theoretical framework of platformization of consumer culture to previously underexplored areas, underscoring promising directions for future research.…”

“…Furthermore, the papers in this collection broaden our understanding of platformization by blending an interest for the platformized world with specific geographical contexts and phenomena. The special issue ranges from exploring consumer activism practices within the Greek context (Vrikki and Lekakis, 2023, this issue), to analyzing a consumer-initiated platform operating in Switzerland, Germany, and Austria (Ottlewski et al, 2023, this issue), to understanding the processes of curating a consumption ideology in the context of US gun culture (Drenten et al, 2023, this issue). Future research could further expand the analysis of the platformization of consumer culture to a global perspective that goes beyond Western scenarios.…”

“…An innovative approach to the relationship between affordances and platformization is offered by the contribution of Ottlewski et al (2023, this issue). The authors acknowledge that the existing literature focuses mostly on corporate-governed and mainstream platforms, leaving aside platforms that are instead “created by ordinary consumers using readily available (market) tools” (ibid.).…”

“…Furthermore, by focusing on the affordances of a specific consumer-initiated platform called Familyship.org, the authors highlight how the logics of platformization might affect one the most intimate spheres of our everyday lives, the family, as well as choices of family formation. Interestingly, Ottlewski et al (2023) show that despite sharing some similarities with corporate-initiated platforms, consumer-oriented platforms and their modular building block (which the authors refer to as modularity ), contribute to “ encourage and inspire users to experiment with alternative family forms, and afford a broadening and pluralization of the institution of family and of users’ identity” (ibid.). Such a perspective allows us to highlight that a certain amount of diversification can be found within processes of platformization of consumer culture, which in turn empowers consumers.…”