The Platformization of Everything: From the End of the Like Button to AI Infrastructure in Space

IF 4.9 1区文学 Q1 COMMUNICATION

Social Media + Society Pub Date : 2026-04-16 DOI:10.1177/20563051261436101

Anne Helmond

引用次数: 0

Abstract

A decade after the term was coined, “platformization” has evolved from describing the infrastructural expansion of platforms into other domains to capturing a broader transformation in how platforms organize (digital) life. This article traces this shift from the early social web to today’s AI-centered platform models. The retirement of Facebook’s Like button and Google’s “Suncatcher” space-based AI initiative are used as illustrative examples to demonstrate how platforms continually adapt their expansion strategies. Although the concept has been productively adopted across disciplines, its frequent conflation with the term “digitization” has led to conceptual erosion, weakening its analytical precision. To reclaim its explanatory power, this article redefines platformization as a form of platform-specific “transcoding”: a situated process whereby practices and domains are made “platform-ready.”

查看原文本刊更多论文

一切的平台化：从点赞按钮的终结到太空中的AI基础设施

在这个词被创造出来十年之后，“平台化”已经从描述平台向其他领域的基础设施扩展演变为捕捉平台如何组织（数字）生活的更广泛的转变。本文追溯了从早期的社交网络到今天以人工智能为中心的平台模式的转变。Facebook的“喜欢”按钮的退出和b谷歌的“Suncatcher”太空人工智能计划被用作说明性例子，以展示平台如何不断调整其扩张战略。尽管这一概念在各个学科都得到了有效的应用，但它与“数字化”一词的频繁混淆导致了概念上的侵蚀，削弱了其分析的准确性。为了重新说明它的解释力，本文将平台化重新定义为一种特定于平台的“转码”形式：一种使实践和领域“为平台准备”的定位过程。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Social Media + Society COMMUNICATION-

CiteScore

9.20

自引率

3.80%

发文量

111

审稿时长

12 weeks

期刊介绍： Social Media + Society is an open access, peer-reviewed scholarly journal that focuses on the socio-cultural, political, psychological, historical, economic, legal and policy dimensions of social media in societies past, contemporary and future. We publish interdisciplinary work that draws from the social sciences, humanities and computational social sciences, reaches out to the arts and natural sciences, and we endorse mixed methods and methodologies. The journal is open to a diversity of theoretic paradigms and methodologies. The editorial vision of Social Media + Society draws inspiration from research on social media to outline a field of study poised to reflexively grow as social technologies evolve. We foster the open access of sharing of research on the social properties of media, as they manifest themselves through the uses people make of networked platforms past and present, digital and non. The journal presents a collaborative, open, and shared space, dedicated exclusively to the study of social media and their implications for societies. It facilitates state-of-the-art research on cutting-edge trends and allows scholars to focus and track trends specific to this field of study.