Digital Platforms and the Global South

This book addresses the issues raised by digital platforms in the Global South, with an emphasis on the cultural stakes involved. It brings together an interdisciplinary team of researchers - including political economists, socio-economists, geographers, media sociologists or anthropologists - who each explore these issues through an insightful case study at a local, national, regional or international scale. While studying the strategies of some of the main US-based Big Tech platforms or video streaming platforms towards the Global South, the chapters also consider the often-neglected active role local or regional actors play in the expansion of those Western digital players, and highlight the existence of a constellation of local or regional platforms that have emerged in Africa, Asia, Latin America or the Middle East. In addition to analysing the complex relationships of competition, collaboration or dependence between these diverse actors, this volume examines the ways in which the rise of these digital platforms has generated new forms of cultural entrepreneurship and participated in the reconfiguring of the conditions in which cultural contents are produced and circulated in the Global South. This volume will appeal to readers interested in the transnationalisation of cultural industries or in the social, political, economic, cultural and geopolitical dimensions of digital transformations and will be an important resource for students, teachers and researchers in media, communication, cultural studies, international relations and area studies programmes. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license.

Philippe Bouquillion is Professor of Communication at the University Sorbonne Paris Nord and Director of the LabSIC and of the Laboratory of Excellence 'Cultural Industries and Artistic Creation' (LabEx ICCA). Christine Ithurbide is a Research Fellow at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) with UMR 5319 Passages. Tristan Mattelart is Professor at the French Institute of the Press, Paris-Panthéon-Assas University, and Researcher at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Analysis and Research of the Media (CARISM).

Introduction Chapter 1 - US Digital Platforms in the Global South: A Critical Review of an Emerging Research Field Chapter 2 - The Big Five in India, Powerful Players? Chapter 3 - Platformisation of Matchmaking: Reconfiguring Social Economies in India Chapter 4 - Cultural Crowdfunding Platforms in Latin America: From 'Creative' Discourse to Entrepreneurial Strategies Chapter 5 - Global Platforms Weaving into the Craft Industry: Lessons from Localisation Strategies in India Chapter 6 - From Weixin to WeChat: Analysing the Expansion Strategies of a Chinese Social Media Platform Chapter 7 - Netflix's First Decade of Presence in Latin America Chapter 8 - Cultural Policies for the SVoD Market in Brazil: From an Attempt at Regulation to Total Deregulation Chapter 9 - Streaming the Middle East: From Legacy Media to Digital Platforms Chapter 10 - Hidden in Plain Sight: YouTube and Nollywood's Reinvention of Minor Transnational Practices Chapter 11 - What Mobile Telephony is Doing to West African Music. The ZikMali Project: A New Model of Music Distribution? Chapter 12 - Chilean Fashion Influencers as Digital Labour: Unpacking the 'Media Kit' as a Market Device