This article explores dynamics that are rooted in the broader economic and social architecture of digital platforms. Typically, platforms lower barriers to market entry by reducing transaction costs and operate as two-sided markets that mediate between creators and audiences. Beyond this economic function, platforms also generate new spaces of interaction, where thick and thin social ties are sustained through gift economies and emerging online circuits of commerce. These circuits intertwine economic transactions with symbolic meaning-making , dynamics that are particularly pronounced in the “exceptional” economy of the arts. Performing within the economic and affective structures of platform labour raises important questions about how musicians manage artistic value, self-presentation, and monetisation in digitally mediated, real-time environments. To investigate these dynamics, this paper draws on economic sociology, in particular Zelizer’s concept circuit of commerce—systems of economic activity that are organized around distinctive social relations, shared meanings, and specific media of exchange –  applied to cultural domains and online platforms. This approach is well suited to understanding contexts where monetary transactions intersect with emotionally charged and symbolically-meaningful relationships, as is often the case in the arts. In such settings, artists must navigate competing logics of artistic authenticity and economic necessity, often through rituals, value-laden exchanges, and alternative institutional arrangements.

Onderwerpen: platforms muziekwereld geven aan kunstenaars netwerken

Auteur: dr. Carolina Dalla Chiesa dr. Femke Vanderberg