Platform Power and Policy in Transforming Television Markets

摘要

This book is a welcome and timely contribution to the field of media industries research. As I myself have done in my own writings focusing on the implications for public service media, Evens and Donders look into (infra) structural matters and the emerging television value chain. Their starting point is that'the rise of the platform [that is, digital intermediaries] as the dominant infrastructural and/or economic model'- what they call 'platformization'- has transformed the television industry (1).They argue that the television market is populated by platforms and platform wannabes, but warn that only a few will end up dominating it. They borrow Susan Strange's notion of 'structural' power, which broadly speaking draws attention to the wider context within which power relations play out, and adapt it to the platformization of the television industry. Their objective is to assess and locate the sources of platform power by examining the increasingly private and global television value chain. In terms of geographical scope, the book discusses developments in the United States and western Europe. In discussing the transformation of the television industry, the authors rightly point out that at the same time many elements of the industry have not changed, such as the popularity of live viewing. They also stress the country and context specificity of the power and institutional relations in television industries, as these have historically evolved.