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Cited by 205Digital Platforms and EconomicsMedia and Digital CommunicationTechnology's Impact on Media

Computing the everyday: Social media as data platforms

Open access
Alaimo, Cristina, Kallinikos, Jannis·2017·The Information Society
DOI 10.1080/01972243.2017.1318327
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Abstract

We conceive social media platforms as sociotechnical entities that variously shape user platform involvement and participation. Such shaping develops along three fundamental data operations that we subsume under the terms of encoding, aggregation, and computation. Encoding entails the engineering of user platform participation along narrow and standardized activity types (e.g., tagging, liking, sharing, following). This heavily scripted platform participation serves as the basis for the procurement of discrete and calculable data tokens that are possible to aggregate and, subsequently, compute in a variety of ways. We expose these operations by investigating a social media platform for shopping. We contribute to the current debate on social media and digital platforms by describing social media as posttransactional spaces that are predominantly concerned with charting and profiling the online predispositions, habits, and opinions of their user base. Such an orientation sets social media platforms apart from other forms of mediating online interaction. In social media, we claim, platform participation is driven toward an endless online conversation that delivers the data footprint through which a computed sociality is made the source of value creation and monetization.

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  • Data doubles are the building blocks for new social objects: data-rich constructs arranged in complex categories which corporations can target and influence.

    “Management theorists Alaimo and Kallinikos (2017) note, in an analysis of retail fashion platforms, that data doubles are the building blocks for new 'social objects': data-rich constructs arranged in complex categories which corporations can target and influence.”

    From Data colonialism: rethinking big data’s relation to the contemporary subject (2019) · cites this paper as Alaimo and Kallinikos (2017)

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Cited by

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Authors
Alaimo, C., & Kallinikos, J.
Affiliations
  • University of Surrey (GB)
  • London School of Economics and Political Science (GB)
Corresponding author
Kallinikos, Jannis
ORCID
Venue
The Information Society
Publisher
Informa UK Limited
Published
2017-06-02
Volume
33
Issue
4
Pages
175-191
ISSN
  • 0197-2243 (ISSN-L)
  • 1087-6537
DOI
10.1080/01972243.2017.1318327
OpenAlex
W2621140031
Cited by
205
References
7
Citations by year
2026: 27 · 2025: 24 · 2024: 20 · 2023: 24 · 2022: 26 · 2021: 25 · 2020: 22 · 2019: 23 · 2018: 11 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 1
FWCI
31.54
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • The Information Society (publishedVersion)
  • London School of Economics and Political Science Research Online (London School of Economics and Political Science) (submittedVersion)
  • Surrey Research Insight Open Access (The University of Surrey) (submittedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • IRIS - Institutional Research Information System (Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali Guido Carli) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Strategy and Management › Digital Platforms and Economics
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Networks and Communications › Media and Digital Communication
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Information Systems and Management › Technology's Impact on Media
Keywords
social networking sites, data platform, socio-technical systems, data aggregation, social commerce, user profiling, monetization, value creation

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