Asiascape: Digital Asia 4 (2017) 184-208 brill.com/dias A Genesis of the Platform Concept: i-mode and Platform Theory in Japan Marc Steinberg Associate professor of film studies, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada
[email protected] Abstract Where does platform theory come from? What consequences does it have? This article offers one set of answers to these questions by looking at a body of platform theory that developed in Japan in the 1990s and arguably affected the rollout of internet- enabled mobile phones that were, in turn, models for the iPhone and Android phones several years later. Putting this body of theory in dialogue with managerial and eco- nomic theory of the platform from France and the United States, this article suggests an earlier genealogy of platform theory, a development that had immediate and long- lasting consequences for the contemporary media landscape. Keywords i-mode – intermediary – Japan – mobile media – platform studies – platform theory Where geographically do platforms come from? If we had only the scholarship on platforms to guide us in answering this question, we would be forgiven for thinking that platforms were an invention of Silicon Valley, born as distribution channels or financial structures to remediate global content. To some degree, this is borne out by the dominant ‘platforms’ of the day: Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Instagram, Apple, Dropbox, Microsoft – the list can go on and on before we have to leave the shores of the American West Coast. North America and Silicon Valley, in particular, are often the focal points of digital research and platform studies; they are also the site where many of the glob- ally dominant platforms originate.