Dr. Claire Parnell: Platform Publishing and Cultural Inclusion in Digital Book Culture

This talk explores the platformisation of book publishing and the entertainment ecosystem. It focuses on some of the ways that publishing platforms like Amazon and Wattpad reinforce systems of cultural marginalisation through their techno-cultural and socioeconomic structures, and how these sites fit within a broader sphere of cultural production. Drawing on a qualitative multimethod approach, it examines publishing platforms’ interfaces and affordances, commercial structures, governance systems and classification algorithms, as well as how authors navigate these spaces to carve out economically and creatively rewarding careers.