The Politics of Content Aggregation

This article deals with the streaming of online video, along a line of comparison to the music industry. Based on qualitative empirical research conducted in Sweden and other European countries, the article focuses on one particular aspect of streamed media, aggregation, since aggregation is central for how streaming is economically, technically, and socially organized. Developing its argument at the intersection of critical media industry studies and economic anthropology, the article argues that online aggregators have contributed to a process of devaluation that their services were designed to fight.