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Digital Platforms: Producing and Infrastructuring Users in the Age of Airbnb

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Digitalization in Industry

Abstract

How do digital platforms relate to processes of domination and emancipation? To answer this question, the authors focus on Airbnb, a platform-based company and current leader at the global level in the online hospitality industry, highlighting the relation that it builds with their users, together with the ways in which users give shape to this relation. Adopting an actor-network approach, the authors begin with the assumption that platforms are not merely intermediaries, but they configure, produce and infrastructure their users. This helps to problematize the domination/emancipation dichotomy through which platforms are often interpreted, showing an apparently contradictory dynamic: Platform-organizations produce and depend on the very subjects they dominate.

This article is the result of a collaborative effort by the two authors, whose names appear in alphabetical order. If, however, for academic reasons, individual responsibility must be assigned, Attila Bruni wrote the “Introduction”, sections “Digital Platforms, Infrastructures and the New Production of Users” and “Hosting: Preparing the Scene, Keeping in Order and Performing the Platform” and the “Conclusions”; Fabio M. Esposito wrote sections “Zooming In: The Debate About Airbnb”, “Methodology and Empirical Context”, “Airbnb: Producing Users, Performing the Platform” and “Becoming Host: Configuring and Producing Users”.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Trento, Trento, Italy

    Attila Bruni

  2. University of Naples “Federico II”, Naples, Italy

    Fabio M. Esposito

Authors
  1. Attila Bruni
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  2. Fabio M. Esposito
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Correspondence to Attila Bruni .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Technical University of Munich, Munich, Bayern, Germany

    Uli Meyer

  2. Technical University of Munich, Munich, Bayern, Germany

    Simon Schaupp

  3. Technical University of Munich, Munich, Bayern, Germany

    David Seibt

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Bruni, A., Esposito, F.M. (2019). Digital Platforms: Producing and Infrastructuring Users in the Age of Airbnb. In: Meyer, U., Schaupp, S., Seibt, D. (eds) Digitalization in Industry. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28258-5_9

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