DIGITAL INTERMEDIARIES AND CULTURAL INDUSTRIES: THE DEVELOPING INFLUENCE OF DISTRIBUTION PLATFORMS

The last few years have seen the generalization of a communicative device which is technical and organizational integration of a terminal, an operating system, a network connection, an online platform to access applications (contents and services). Indeed, smartphones, connected TVs, tablet computers and game consoles are structured by this model which develops itself thanks to the rise of computer performance and capacity telecommunication networks. Single technical interface for users, they show, for industrial actors involved, a mode of organization cannot be reduced to a commercial intermediation. So at the heart of this configuration are the "platforms " which are a new form of goods and services distribution and carry out the renewal of uses and related practices and a change in the value chain which are in the depths of effective change, hopes and fears aroused by the devices presented in our contribution. Our paper aims at exposing the evolution of these devices in several fields of cultural industries especially mobile and audiovisual sectors with a focus on smartphone and connected TV industry. It intends thereby to question the double dialectic in these sectors in reconfiguration (integration / disintegration activities on the one hand and disintermediation / re-intermediation on the other hand)