Article:
Facebook’s evolution: development of a platformas- infrastructure

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dc.creatorHelmond, Anne
dc.creatorNieborg, David B.
dc.creatorvan der Vlist, Fernando N.
dc.date.accessioned2020-07-31T09:52:40Z
dc.date.available2020-07-31T09:52:40Z
dc.date.issued2019-05-01
dc.description.abstractThe purpose of this article is to operationalise an evolutionary perspective on the history of social media and to trace Facebook’s evolution from a social networking site to a “platform-as-infrastructure”. Social media platforms such as Facebook change constantly on the level of their platform architectures, interfaces, governance frameworks, and control mechanisms, all while responding to their larger environments. By examining the evolution of Facebook’s programmability and corporate partnerships, we develop an empirical historical analysis of the platform’s boundary dynamics that ultimately determine its operational scale and scope. Based on our analysis of a unique set of archived primary sources, we discern four main stages in Facebook’s long-term evolution and discuss the interplay between ongoing processes of “platformisation” and “infrastructuralisation”. We argue that these terms foreground complementary aspects of the platform’s efforts in balancing its expansion and adaptability to changing user needs and other “environmental dynamics” without risking its integrations and embedding in other domains, such as advertising, marketing, and publishing. Ultimately, our contribution illustrates how empirical platform histories can denaturalise the current dominant position of social media platforms, such as Facebook, revealing over a decade of incremental evolution rather than revolution.en
dc.identifier.doi10.1080/24701475.2019.1593667
dc.identifier.doihttp://dx.doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/14025
dc.identifier.urihttps://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/24701475.2019.1593667
dc.identifier.urihttps://mediarep.org/handle/doc/14981
dc.languageeng
dc.publisherRoutledge
dc.publisher.placeLondon
dc.relation.isPartOfissn:2470-1483
dc.relation.ispartofseriesInternet Histories. Digital Technology, Culture and Society
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
dc.subjectInfrastrukturde
dc.subjectPlattformde
dc.subjectSoziale Mediende
dc.subjectInternetde
dc.subjectevolutionen
dc.subjectplatform historyen
dc.subjectprogrammabilityen
dc.subjectinfrastructureen
dc.subjectpolitical economyen
dc.subject.ddcddc:302.23
dc.titleFacebook’s evolution: development of a platformas- infrastructureen
dc.typearticle
dc.type.statuspublishedVersion
dspace.entity.typeArticleen
local.coverpage2021-05-29T01:00:33
local.identifier.firstpublishedhttps://doi.org/10.1080/24701475.2019.1593667
local.source.epage146
local.source.issue2
local.source.spage123
local.source.volume3

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