The platformisation of cultural production

Lixin Lu

My project concerns the processes and practices involved in the platformization of global cultural production. It examines how digital platforms transform cultural practices and industry organizations while considering the influence of local socioeconomic conditions on platform business models. The overall project elucidates the recursive interactions between digital platforms and diverse societal contexts and their co-evolution in the setting of cultural production.

I conducted qualitative research across various European countries, China, and Japan to sample diverse data that suits comparative purposes and illustrates global themes. The findings so far highlight how platform functionalities diverge across social contexts, yielding varied outcomes. The theoretical framework draws from Marketing and Organizational Studies fields, employing perspectives like market-as-practice and institutional work, tailored to each paper and phenomenon in question.

The project is supported by collaborative funding from the Department of Marketing and Strategy and the European Institute of Japanese Studies, with an additional scholarship from the Sasakawa Foundation for data collection in Japan.

Publications

Zander, Udo, Lixin Lu, and Gianluca Chimenti. (Forthcoming). The Platform Economy and Futures of Market Societies: Salient tensions in ecosystem evolution. Journal of Business Research.