“Planet Digital” Maps Power, Culture, and Connectivity in Global Media

In Planet Digital: A Global Media Cultures Reader, published by NYU Press, Professor Aswin Punathambekar, Director of the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication, and co-editors, including Annenberg alum Adrienne Shaw, challenge popular assumptions about globalization, digital platforms, and cultural participation. They argue that today’s media landscape is shaped by uneven histories, infrastructures, economic systems, and power relations.

We spoke with Punathambekar about the book, available to order now here.

In Planet Digital, you confront the idea of a “global village.” How does our current media infrastructure challenge this concept?

One of the central arguments of Planet Digital is that the “global village” has always been more myth than reality. Far from leading to a “flat” and homogenous media world, we show that digital media production, circulation, and consumption are shaped by varied cultural and linguistic affinities, regional networks, state policies, and economic arrangements.

Take South Korea’s rise as a cultural powerhouse. The global success of K-pop cannot be attributed to media texts “going viral.” It was built on decades of government investment, the development and expansion of broadband infrastructure, powerful entertainment industries, and transnational cultural exchanges shaped by top-down distribution as well as fan-driven circulation.

Indeed, given the emergence of Seoul, Lagos, Istanbul, and Hyderabad as major nodes in global media production and distribution, it is clear that our digital world is multipolar and not centered exclusively in the U.S. or some other Western nation. The strategies of companies like Tencent, Reliance, or Transsion, which dominates the African smartphone market, are rewriting the rules of digital infrastructure and entertainment across the Global South and postcolonial non-West.

Finally, the book also underscores the fact that digital media depend on physical infrastructures and material resources. Data centers, undersea cables, smartphones, energy systems, and mining operations all shape who can participate in the digital world and on what terms.

How do some of the case studies discussed in the book — Bluey, Spotify, and WhatsApp, for instance — speak to the current state of global and digital media?

The current state of global and digital media cultures is defined by a deep tension: while digital platforms and infrastructures enable unprecedented transnational connectivity, they also introduce severe economic imbalances, labor precarity, and resource extraction. Bluey, Spotify, and WhatsApp are perfect entry points for how contemporary media operates across regional, corporate, and postcolonial lines.

The global success of the Australian children’s animated series Bluey speaks directly to the complexities of public service media and international licensing in a platform-dominated landscape. The circulation of content across transnational networks often relies on distribution arrangements that fail to adequately support or reinvest in the local public service institutions that originally funded the creative project. Bluey highlights the structural challenge of maintaining national cultural sovereignty and public value when global platforms control the pipelines of visibility.

In a similar vein, Spotify has led to a system where algorithmic curation dictates visibility, and the vast majority of artists gain only a fraction of the revenue generated by their work.

The case study of WhatsApp, on the other hand, reveals how Indigenous youth and communities leverage everyday digital interfaces to work around Western tech circuits as well as state control. By using the platform for digital storytelling, localized activism, and creative expression, these users demonstrate that our digital world is fundamentally multiple, regional, and capable of fostering safe spaces for cultural preservation and resistance.

Overall, these and other case studies in the book show that Planet Digital is neither “flat” nor free of friction. It is best understood as a profoundly asymmetric and multipolar system wherein top-down corporate extraction and platform dominance continually collide with regional cultural dynamics and varied user practices.

Many people think of digital platforms as democratizing culture, yet the book also emphasizes systems of control and power. Where do you see the biggest tensions today between creativity, visibility, and corporate/platform dominance in media?

The biggest tension is that platforms have dramatically expanded opportunities for cultural participation while simultaneously centralizing control over the conditions of visibility. Today, creators can reach audiences on a scale that would have been unimaginable in earlier eras. Fans can organize globally. Independent artists can find niche audiences. Social movements can circulate ideas rapidly across borders.

Yet all of this activity increasingly depends on a handful of powerful platforms whose algorithms determine what gets seen, amplified, monetized, or suppressed. Creative labor increasingly takes place inside privately governed ecosystems. In examining a range of cases from across sports, film, television, music, gaming, and other sectors, Planet Digital reveals that platforms are not neutral intermediaries. Their recommendation systems, moderation policies, data practices, and business models actively shape culture. So, the question is no longer whether people can participate but rather, who governs the terms of participation.

How has the rise of streaming, influencer culture, and algorithm-driven recommendation systems changed the way audiences participate in shaping “popular culture” compared to earlier media eras?

Put simply, audiences have moved from being primarily consumers of media to becoming active participants in its circulation, interpretation, promotion, and even production.

Streaming platforms have also changed the dynamics of cultural discovery. Rather than relying on a small number of broadcasters, critics, or programmers, audiences increasingly encounter media through recommendation systems. Algorithms influence what content travels, who finds it, and how quickly it gains momentum. The global success of phenomena like Squid Game or “Gangnam Style” cannot be understood apart from the infrastructures and recommendation systems that enabled their circulation. At the same time, participation itself has become a form of labor and value creation.

Looking ahead, what emerging trends in global digital entertainment do you think scholars and audiences should be paying closest attention to over the next decade?

Several developments deserve sustained attention. First, we need to pay closer attention to the growing concentration of power among platform, cloud-computing, and AI companies. The future of media entertainment increasingly depends not only on media firms but also on the companies that own the underlying infrastructures of computation, data storage, and algorithmic systems.

Second, the continued rise of cultural production from outside established Western media capitals will reshape global media. The success of Korean, African, Indian, Turkish, and Latin American media industries makes it clear that we are in a multipolar cultural era.

Third, scholars have to pay greater attention to the environmental consequences of digital entertainment. Streaming, cloud computing, and AI often appear immaterial, yet they depend on energy-intensive infrastructures whose ecological impacts are becoming impossible to ignore.

Finally, we need to focus on the relationship between algorithmic systems and cultural life. As recommendation engines, generative AI, and platform governance become increasingly influential, the central question will be how creativity, diversity, and democratic participation can flourish in environments that are increasingly shaped by automated systems and corporate infrastructures.