Curators of Databases: Circulating Images, Managing Attention and Making Value on Social Media

Abstract

This article examines the relationships between cultural spaces, the image-making practices of smartphone users and social media platforms. I argue that social media platforms depend on the curatorial capacities of smartphone users who observe everyday life and register it online. Social media platforms use databases and analytics to continuously assemble identities, cultural practices and social spaces in relation to one another. In addition to targeted advertising, value is created by leveraging a continuous circulation of meaning and attention. Using the example of a music festival, I examine how the production of value involves channelling the productive activity of smartphone users in material cultural spaces.