Red territory: forging infrastructural power

Munn, Luke

doi:10.1080/21622671.2020.1805353

Cited by 16 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…The multiple levels of analysis that we distinguished illustrate the complexity of APIs as technical objects with respect to the technicity of platform governance. Many of the different features and mechanisms of governance and coordination that we found across these levels are subtle: they are “powerful precisely because it is not a grand and spectacular strategy but a functional and often invisible reality” (Munn, 2020, p. 15). They shape the material conditions and evolution of apps and services connected to Facebook Platform in specific ways.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We focus specifically on the technicity of Facebook’s platform governance as enforced through APIs, which, as scholars note, “are an important source of infrastructural power in the platform society” (Busch, 2021; cf. Blanke & Pybus, 2020; Munn, 2020). In fact, “infrastructural power” is one of the identified “blindspots” in the European policy debate on “platform power” (Busch et al, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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API Governance: The Case of Facebook’s Evolution

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Helmond

Burkhardt

et al. 2022

Social Media + Society

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Researchers, policymakers, and competition and regulation authorities worldwide recognize the utility of application programming interfaces (APIs) in powering the digital economy and driving datafication and platformization processes. However, it remains unclear how the APIs of leading social media relate to platform governance and how this relationship evolved. This article traces the evolution of Facebook’s APIs, which evolved from a relatively simple programming interface for data access into a complex layered and interconnected governance arrangement. The study draws on a large corpus of (archived) developer pages and API reference documentation to examine the history of Facebook’s API governance; that is, the governance of and by Facebook through its APIs. This historical analysis emphasizes the technical dimensions and dynamics of what, how, and whom powerful platforms seek to govern, thus highlighting the technicity of platform governance and how it evolved. Because APIs facilitate and govern the material conditions of app development and the social and economic processes they sustain, powerful platforms influence the evolution of their larger ecosystems. As such, the technicity of Facebook’s API governance represents a major source of the platform’s “infrastructural power.”

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

API Governance: The Case of Facebook’s Evolution

Vlist

Helmond

Burkhardt

et al. 2022

Social Media + Society

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“…Bowker and Star, 1999;Star and Griesemer, 1989). In the case of digital platforms, this 'functional and often invisible reality' is ensured by technical specifications, standards, and API-based integrations between systems that mediate governance and 'infrastructural' features of platform power (e.g., Blanke and Pybus, 2020;Busch, 2021;Busch et al, 2021;Munn, 2020), as discussed in subsequent chapters.…”

Section: Digital Platforms Are Multi-faceted Relational Constructsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…I focus specifically on the technicity of Facebook's platform governance as enforced through APIs, which, as scholars note, 'are an important source of infrastructural power in the platform society' (Busch, 2021;cf. Blanke and Pybus, 2020;Munn, 2020). In fact, this 'infrastructural power' is one of the identified 'blindspots' in the European policy debate on 'platform power' (Busch et al, 2021).…”

Section: Introduction To the Case Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

The platform as ecosystem

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Lists of tables and figures List of tables1.1. Overview of the leading research (sub)questions per chapter. 52 5.1. Number of unique Android and iOS apps per social media-related source set. 174 5.2. Number of relations between apps and social media per source set. 183 6.1. Search queries for Google Play and Apple's App Store. 217 6.2. Number of unique Android and iOS apps retrieved per method per source. 218 Appendices B 2.1. Table of references to original 'live' and archived Web sources.

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“…A primeira se refere ao conceito da posse de infraestrutura de comunicação como uma manifestação do poder estrutural (Strange, 1975), que por sua natureza é híbrida. A segunda literatura, por sua vez, imputa a posse de infraestruturas como elementos demarcadores de territorialidade (Munn, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionunclassified

Mensurando forças no ciberespaço: uma aplicação de Social Network Analysis para mensurar a influência de Estados Unidos e China na rede do backbone da Internet (2011-2017)

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Red territory: forging infrastructural power

Cited by 16 publications

References 30 publications

API Governance: The Case of Facebook’s Evolution

API Governance: The Case of Facebook’s Evolution

The platform as ecosystem

Mensurando forças no ciberespaço: uma aplicação de Social Network Analysis para mensurar a influência de Estados Unidos e China na rede do backbone da Internet (2011-2017)

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