{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406","title":"Curation in the Age of Platform Capitalism  The Value of Selection, Narration, and Expertise in New Media Cultures","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781032023007","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406","id":"d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406","uuid":"d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406","title":"Curation in the Age of Platform Capitalism  The Value of Selection, Narration, and Expertise in New Media Cultures","normalized_title":"curationintheageofplatformcapitalismthevalueofselectionnarrationandexpertiseinnewmediacultures","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781032023007","isbns":["9781032023007","9781032023014","9781003182801"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":177,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Curation%20in%20the%20Age%20of%20Platform%20Capitalism%20%20The%20Value%20of%20Selection%2C%20Narration%2C%20and%20Expertise%20in%20New%20Media%20Cultures","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406/search"},"page":{"printed_page":56,"pdf_page":66,"physical_index":66,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"c4117974c81355e9317b4d3465ac1d390f896fca3cf6c0df17f4f29c700e1542"},"chapter":"CURATION IN THE AGE OF PLATFORM CAPITALISM","content":"The nuances and degrees of reflexivity vary according to the geographical and political contexts. For example, the compulsion for reflexivity in terms of lifestyle choices, opinions, and styles is much higher for the middle class in big cities like Shanghai and New York, and much less obvious in, say, a village in Yakutia. The anthropological type of communicative capitalism can then be shaped not only by political, social, and economic contexts, but also by the urban/rural divide, with reflexivity being easier to adapt in networks of greater complexity (more on this in Chapter 4). In matters pertaining to Russian politics and wars, VKontakte, the largest Russian social network, allows for less reflexivity than Facebook. Consumptive reflexivity is virtually non-existent on Mount Athos in Greece, a peninsula run by the Orthodox Church, where monks do not even get to choose the color of their clothes. We could go on and on with examples, but we must acknowledge the grounded limitations of platform-based socialities. For Dean and others (Andrejevic, 2013; 2019; Morozov, 2011; Fuchs, 2021), a key function of the technoliberal imaginary of platforms is capture: not only do platform owners capture the reflexivity loop as data, but reflexivity also becomes an ideological pilar of neoliberalism, the “endless loop of reflexivity becomes the very form of capture and absorption” (2013: 13). The reflexivity loop is thus a materialideological efect of communicative capitalism, as it is based on the profit imperative, which “pushes firms to maximize profits”, rather than being a natural process of social development (Sadowski, 2020b: 9). For instance, while the enlightened act of self-doubt is supposedly fostering a more democratic public sphere in liberal societies, à la Habermas, in communicative capitalism antagonistic actors end up frequently leveraging irrational or outright conspiratorial discourses (take for instance, Pizzagate and QAnon theories in post-2015 United States). This is because the drive to extract data results in an outpouring of communications that emotionalizes public debate and paralyzes rational decision-making by creating a chaotic environment for individuals to navigate, what Andrejevich calls “infoglut” (2013: 38).\n\nThe curation apparatus, as we shall see, promises a way out, it “comes to the rescue”, to refer again to Rosenbaum; however, as its scope expands and its entrepreneurial mandate grows, it fragments the social space into blocks of micro-expertise, at best creating new hierarchies of class and status and, at worst, deteriorating knowledge and critical thought even more dramatically.\n\n3.3 Platform Capitalism as a Productive Model\n\nOne of the primary functions of platforms is to extract data and in efect to release an outpouring of communications; this realm of unbound communications creates a new and complex anthropological terrain for users to navigate—at work, in romantic relationships, friendships, performances of personhood, and so on. Platforms provide users with the technical means to navigate this terrain in all these diferent roles—as workers, partners, friends, and, more broadly, citizen-users. Platforms also provide the technical means for curation strategies to potentially anyone with a computer and an internet connection for accumulating, to a lesser or greater extent, symbolic or economic capital. In other words, they are more than just a means for their owners to generate capital; they broaden the terrain of neoliberal subjectification for the general population by encouraging everyone to exercise and capitalize on their curatorial-entrepreneurial abilities. In this context, I employ the neologism “platform capitalism”: an accumulation and capitalization model that hails everyone with some access to basic digital infrastructure to develop and invest in, either as producers or consumers, a plethora of curated selves for the promise of future symbolic and economic capital.\n\n56\n\nHomo Curatorius","previous_page":55,"next_page":57}