Advertising as governance: the digital commodity audience and platform advertising dependency

Joseph, Daniel ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4628-7417 and Bishop, Sophie (2024) Advertising as governance: the digital commodity audience and platform advertising dependency. Media, Culture and Society. ISSN 0163-4437

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Abstract

This article draws from an ethnographic investigation of YouTube to argue the significant and specific role of advertising in the governance of platformized cultural production. We pursue this investigation in a critical dialog with theoretical approaches drawn from platform governance, platformization and political economy communications, foregrounding the concept of the audience commodity. In our analysis of official and unofficial YouTube content, the role and desires of advertisers were discussed in depth. Community commentary videos publicly argued that YouTube cared about advertisers more than a content creating community; marketing-orientated entrepreneurial growth content advised creators to pursue a ‘buying audience’; and YouTube’s official communications painstakingly reminded creators to ‘put themselves in advertisers’ shoes’. Each of these perspectives contributes an understanding of the ways advertising structurally shapes the governance of cultural production in practice.