Intermediaries in the age of platformized gatekeeping: The case of YouTube “creators” and MCNs in the U.S.

How do intermediaries affect cultural production in the age of platformized gatekeeping? Cultural production increasingly depends upon digital infrastructures known as platforms (e.g., Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Google, et al.) for distribution. These infrastructures supposedly diminish the importance of conventional, non-infrastructural intermediaries, yet cultural production's platformization occurred alongside the emergence of new downstream intermediaries. Here, I show how the practices of YouTube content creators reflect direct instructions from both the platform (primary gatekeeper) and a downstream intermediary (an MCN). Producers no longer require non-platform intermediaries for access to markets, and so, rather than acting as gatekeeper, non-platform intermediaries support the platform. The MCN aids the platform by propagating platform conventions and an orientation toward metrics and algorithms among content producers. This differs markedly from conventional sociological theories of cultural production which presume intermediaries as autonomous organizations that reproduce and mediate social conventions of cultural production (i.e., genre, roles, etc.). Thus, under conditions of platformization, both intermediaries and producers appear subordinate to infrastructure.