Digital Platforms and Cultural Production
AMST S365E (CRN: 30135)
Instructors: Julian Posada
Dates: Session B, June 30 - August 1, 2025
Course Mode: Online
Meeting Times: TTh 9.00-12.15
Distributional Requirements: Humanities, Social Sciences
Online Course. This seminar explores the phenomenon of digital platforms – intermediary infrastructures that connect end-users and complementors. These platforms have emerged in diverse socio-economic contexts, including social media (e.g., Instagram), video streaming (e.g., Twitch), digital labor (e.g., Uber), and e-commerce (e.g., Amazon). The course offers a multidisciplinary perspective on studying these platforms, viewed as an amalgamation of firms and multi-sided markets, each with their own distinctive history, governance, and infrastructures. Throughout this course, we will delve into the transformative role of these platforms in areas such as culture, labor, creativity, and democracy. Our discussions will draw upon comparative cases from the United States and abroad. In addition, the seminar aims to facilitate an in-depth dialogue on contemporary capitalism and the process of cultural production. We will engage with pertinent topics like inequality, surveillance, decentralization, and ethics in the digital age. Students are invited to contribute to these discussions by bringing examples and case studies from their personal experiences. 1 Credit. Session B: June 30 – August 1. Tuition: $5270. Technology Fee: $85.