{"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":7,"pdf_page":17,"physical_index":17,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"13a6b2bdc6cd6a848ce9ad19c585350c438ec5646021acd360b9199ed93a6b40"},"chapter":"CURATION IN THE AGE OF PLATFORM CAPITALISM","content":"Let us however first encounter a question that one can ask vis-à-vis the project at hand: why to choose the very term “curation” and its ofshoots to speak about cultures of platform capitalism? Why to call this logic “curatorial” and not choose other adjacent concepts to describe it, such as “artistic” or “editorial”? This question has two intertwined aspects. The first is related to the question of how does the employment of a term help reveal and reconstruct aspects of the subject at hand and how is this very choice justified given that it overlaps with other concepts laying in its immediate vicinity? This aspect is elaborated in Chapter 2, where I discuss the historical, discursive, and afective conventions surrounding the concept; for now, it sufices to say that, from a critical theory perspective, theoretical concepts are constructions that help us say and see larger things about the world or participate in polemics for social formations (Held, 1980). Theoretical concepts are thus relays that allow critical reconstructions of the past, present, and future. The question of which concepts to choose (or introduce) for examining phenomena matters not only for determining scientific accuracy but for mobilizing afective, historical, linguistic, and material assemblages into paths of critical thinking. I hold that the term “curation” can efectively generalize and register issues around aspirational consumption and production, class subjectification and ideology, new regimes of labor and economies of coolness, authenticity, and inspiration, that is, of the cultures of platform capitalism I will be speaking about. This is partly so because, curation, in my reading, is a term that, as mentioned, combines the seemingly opposed tendencies between creativity and organization, which are injunctions that shape a dominant ideological horizon of neoliberal capitalism.6 Deploying the term “artistic” to speak about the cultural logics of platform capitalism, for instance, would highlight assemblages of disorganization, individual genius, and impulsive creativity, which, while present, do not suficiently account for the organizational part that this imperative encompasses, for example, to set up oneself as entrepreneur, network, set up pricing mechanisms, among others.7 In contrast, the “editorial”, which is often used by media studies theorists to refer to similar phenomena (e.g., Pitcan, Marwick and boyd, 2018), underemphasizes the fashioning of the self as a work of art or the convention of creative genius. The terms curating, curation, and the curator are more appropriate as they suggest anthropological cultures, solidified to what we can call homo curatorius, which are both inspiring and rational, fun and organized, creative and reasonable. Lastly, as noted, the practice of selecting, displaying, and authorizing content is a ubiquitous composition of value in platform capitalism. In short, I choose to speak about the distributed curatorial logics as many of these practices I describe explicitly mobilize this term, and, on the other hand, I want to highlight the rationality beyond the descriptiveness which sheds light on platform-based social interaction. The platform economy ofers the possibility for ordinary users to curate themselves in a myriad of ways, including the potential to (aesthetically) organize Airbnb experiences, to become a life coach from scratch or to come up with food storytelling on Instagram, which are some of the curation examples I will be discussing in the following chapters. This productive curation interweaves with consumptive curation, that is, to organize a life around a concept, live the best and most customized tourist experiences, self-actualize, or eat the most unique and authentic food. Productive and consumptive curation combine in platform capitalism. A good case in point here is tourist destinations that are (sometimes inadvertently) curated by everyday users who are curating themselves to their audiences via the use hashtags and location tags. The island of Santorini in Greece, a typical photogenic destination known for idyllic sunsets, for instance, gets massive hashtag curation on Instagram from everyday users striving to showcase their exceptional moments to their followers. This crowd curation has real efects as it makes the island more desirable, exclusive, and unafordable for locals while producing unsustainable touristic practices from an environmental point of view.\n\nIntroducing the Curatorial Imperative\n\n7","previous_page":6,"next_page":8}