On super apps and app stores: digital media logics in China's app economy. (November 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Jia, Lianrui; Nieborg, David B.; Poell, Thomas
• Other Names: Steinberg Marc guest-editor.; Mukherjee Rahul guest-editor.; Punathambekar Aswin guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Media, culture, and society. Volume 44:Number 8(2022)
• Page Start: 1437
• Page End: 1453
• Publication Date: 2022-11
• Subjects: apps -- platforms -- Tencent -- WeChat -- political economy -- app stores -- Asia as method; Mass media and culture -- Periodicals; Mass media -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; Wireless communication systems -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; 302.2305
• DOI: 10.1177/01634437221128937
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0163-4437

Abstract

Aiming to enrich the conceptual vocabulary of platform and app studies, this article provides a critical political economic perspective on the media industry to understand how platform power is operationalized in the app economy. Using the China-based tech conglomerate Tencent as a case study, four mechanisms are discussed: conglomeration, financialization, platformization, and infrastructuralization. These mechanisms show how Tencent leveraged both a conglomerated corporate structure and access to finance capital. This was combined with the infrastructuralization of the MyApp app store and the WeChat platform by providing vertically integrated app development and distribution services, which are nested in Tencent's holdings and investments. Taking Tencent as the starting point for theory building, this article attempts to "provincialize" US-based platform companies by charting Tencent's corporate evolution and its path to mobile dominance.