In this paper, I look at the relationship between human olfaction, digital platforms, and everyday media practices in contemporary capitalist contexts. In the first section, I map what I describe as interfaced anosmia, or the absence of smell from mundane media devices. This absence is especially glaring given how olfaction uniquely lends itself to certain mediated forms of affective modulation. In the second section, I look at the platformization of the luxury fragrance industry, across three sites of analysis to reveal how, despite the conditions of interfaced anosmia, smell has already been shaped on and by platforms.
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Malcolm Ogden (2024) studied this question.
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