A digital business or communication platform offers a method to recombine technology in novel and transformational ways to create new business functionalities and competences. It offers a logical boundary that divides the technological applications driving digital transformation and technological change from the organizational logic behind those applications. For instance, the Amazon corporation elaborates and designs its digital media, business, and communication platforms as marketplaces and communication channels for clients and colleagues. The implications of platformization for communication and business industries are positive, but can encompass negative aspects related to ethical and privacy issues.
Any online communications technology, including desktop, mobile, interpersonal, and email applications, is referred to as a “digital platform.” This notion, in fact, encompasses social networks, media, and websites. Particularly in the media and entertainment sectors, digital platforms have frequently been identified as the key participants in a wide range of marketplaces (Dal Zotto & Omidi, 2020). Corporate and governmental players in contemporary society are enthusiastically embracing digital platforms as they construct a visual foundation for more effective economic growth (Dal Zotto & Omidi, 2020). Furthermore, they are employed for ongoing advances in product commerce, idea sharing, and the commercialization of new spheres of human existence (Dal Zotto & Omidi, 2020). Platforms for social networking use have gained additional importance when examining online communication, internet activities, and self-presentation (Jaidka, 2022). Individuals who cultivate their online personas endeavor to overstate their emotions of happiness in order to appeal to their fictitious audiences (Jaidka, 2022). Hence, a feedback cycle of persistently pursuing and upholding social approbation emerges, with consequences for a person’s mental adjustment or self-esteem level (Jaidka, 2022). Thus, digital platforms can be described as necessary in current media and entrepreneurial activities.
Platformization affects a number of areas, such as institutionalized alterations in markets, networks, and management, as well as modifications to labor, creative, and democratic behaviors. Platformization is a sophisticated paradigm that has the innate ability to establish the basis for comprehending how digital platforms advance the media business by promoting entrepreneurial activity (Dal Zotto & Omidi, 2020). Platforms provide cultural practitioners access to new communities and visibility channels (Poell et al., 2021). However, precarity and inequities are additionally assessed as features of platform markets’ labor, particularly as they are in conventional labor markets in the creative sectors (Poell et al., 2021). Furthermore, while platforms frequently produce unique genres and diversified business structures, they can further limit the creative output in a number of ways (Poell et al., 2021). For instance, it can be accomplished by prioritizing specific cultural expressions and content filtering control. Platformization offers new opportunities for debate and cultural variety; nevertheless, this conception can escalate issues with prejudice, offensive speech, and misinformation that threaten progressive policies (Poell et al., 2021). Consequently, it is recognized that digital platforms have a major impact on the growth of media entrepreneurial industries.
In the process of discussing the peculiarities of platformization and digital platforms, it is feasible to highlight the presence of related spheres that are interconnected, for instance, platform strategies. A method to penetrate a market that centers on the objective of enabling platform users to profit from the participation of others is known as a platform strategy. In classic strategic planning, it is typically considered that consumers can autonomously decide how much they are prepared to pay for the item or service. This presumption can be assessed as contradictory when platforms are analyzed since users’ decisions influence platform participants’ engagement. Due to this factor, developing a platform strategy demands certain unique tools to assist platform entrepreneurs and executives in overcoming the difficulties of value generation and digital audience retention. Within the context of the technological age, there is a lack of sufficient research on organizations utilizing the open platform approach (Hsieh & Wu, 2019). Thus, the significance of comprehending the concept of platformization as a set of interrelated sub-segments is recognized by the need for additional evaluations.
Concerning a real-life example of platforms and platformization used by communication professionals and business organizations, it is feasible to emphasize the case of the Amazon corporation. A global technology organization headquartered in the United States of America, Amazon.com, Inc., specializes in e-commerce, data storage, digital media and streaming, as well as virtual reality and artificial intelligence. In this case, the Amazon company was able to create a separate category of digital platforms, which can be referred to as marketplaces. A marketplace-style digital platform’s primary objective is to attract, form a partnership, and connect buyers and sellers of goods and services who seek to sell their offerings to one another (Dal Zotto & Omidi, 2020). Moreover, since the business and operational activities of the Amazon corporation are considered to be diversified and specialized, it is possible to underline another type of digital platforms that it incorporates. The concept of social and informational networks is applied, allowing users to interact with one another by exchanging data, remarks, messages, and graphics, and connecting users with outside parties including marketers, manufacturers, and content producers.
The example of Amazon digital platform can be linked to the spheres of creation of apps and platforms and use of artificial intelligence. Platformization processes in Amazon corporation are fundamentally related to the development of new platforms, applications, and software programs due to the orientation of the firm on electronic commerce and digital communication. In general, regardless of the fact that Amazon is mainly a marketplace, the organization seeks to improve its digital presence and external communications via digital media platforms. For instance, regarding artificial intelligence, Amazon is described as the company that created a personalized voice assistant Alexa, which can be embedded into the form’s digital platforms, both business and communication ones (Zwakman et al., 2021). In this case, the Amazon company is concentrated on enhancing the technology enabling the gadgets with the goal of providing improved speech recognition, the capacity to comprehend numerous languages, and integrating emotions to the products (Zwakman et al., 2021). Thus, it is feasible to note that Amazon is concentrated on the elaboration of platforms, software, and communication systems, as well as the design on advanced artificial intelligence devices.
Concerning the generation of an argument, it can be stated that platformization, particularly regarding digital platforms, firstly, is strongly correlated with the question of digitalization. Information is transformed into a digital medium by the digitization procedure, which produces a depiction of an object or message composed of a sequence of numbers that characterize a distinct collection of points or fragments. Digitalization, as the approach of creatin electronic versions and computerized forms of items that are accessible for everyone through the means of information and communication technologies or the internet, incorporates the use of electronic devices. At the same time, machines and computers cannot be documented as the exclusive parties in the business communication process since real users, sellers and customer, in other terms, people, participate in the interaction. Hence, issues that are related to the human nature and interpersonal relationships, for example, ethical dilemmas or security problems, can occur in the digital setting respectively. Thus, forming the argument, specifically in Amazon, communication professionals should shape communication practices in their industry by paying attention to the interpersonal communication and ethical aspects among individuals in digital platforms to avoid unnecessary confrontation.
Digitalization, platformization, and digital platforms can be considered as beneficial phenomena since they provide communicators and business executives with new marketplaces and communication programs that eventually will positively influence public relations, media image, and sales. In contrast, underlining the critical reflection part, platformization and digitalization in Amazon and other companies can include serious drawbacks and can lead to negative public repercussions and diminished brand image. Six reoccurring ethical topics, such as privacy, autonomy, confidentiality, human dignity, fairness, and balance of power, are believed to be at conflict with many advancements in the modernizing society and digital platforms (Royakkers et al., 2018). In other words, it is essential to recognize the potential threats and current weaknesses that the digital platforms possess since they can transform into crucial obstacles for the organization and its communication strategy. Therefore, it is obligatory to state that security problems have to be solved and various scenarios that can appear in the digital communication setting should be properly analyzed and discussed to prevent further complications.
At the same time, in case confidentiality, privacy, and security difficulties can be to a certain extent technically and technologically avoided, ethical concerns can happen between individuals under various conditions, including platformization settings. In sociology, ethical dilemmas, additionally known as ethical ambiguities or moral dilemmas, arise when an actor must select between two competing moral obligations, none of which takes precedence. A definition that is similarly comparable describes ethical circumstances as ones where there is no right decision to be made. Transmitting the term on the digital media platforms case, it is reasonable to state that ethical issues can occur among individuals that communicate or interact due to the decreased level of attitude, respect, or awareness. The digital platform moderators may keep track of all activities and transactions that occur on the system, many of which include sensitive data (Royakkers et al., 2018). The amounts of sensitive and private information, as well as probable conflicts, should be resolved with direct assistance of an authorized official that will be able to interrupt id required.
To summarize, digital platforms might be considered essential for current media and business endeavors. Platformization has an impact on several aspects, including institutionalized changes in markets, networks, and management, as well as adjustments to labor, creative, and democratic behaviors. Marketplaces are a distinct class of digital platforms that the Amazon corporation was able to establish. The usage of artificial intelligence and the development of applications and platforms may both be connected to the Amazon digital platform as an example. Due to the company’s focus on electronic commerce and digital communication, platformization activities at Amazon Corporation are integrally linked to the creation of new platforms, apps, and software programs.
References
Dal Zotto, C., & Omidi, A. (2020). Platformization of media entrepreneurship: A conceptual development. Nordic Journal of Media Management, 1(2), 209-233. Web.
Hsieh, Y. J., & Wu, Y. J. (2019). Entrepreneurship through the platform strategy in the digital era: Insights and research opportunities. Computers in Human Behavior, 95, 315-323. Web.
Jaidka, K. (2022). Cross-platform- and subgroup-differences in the well-being effects of Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook in the United States. Scientific Reports, 12, 3271. Web.
Poell, T., Nieborg, D. B., & Duffy, B. E. (2021). Platforms and cultural production. Wiley.
Royakkers, L., Timmer, J., Kool, L., & van Est, R. (2018). Societal and ethical issues of digitization. Ethics and Information Technology, 20(2), 127-142. Web.
Zwakman, D. S., Pal, D., & Arpnikanondt, C. (2021). Usability evaluation of artificial intelligence-based voice assistants: the case of Amazon Alexa. SN Computer Science, 2(1), 1-16. Web.