Towards Non-linear Cultural Production and systems of machinic agency: in the case of TikTok value generation

Abstract: The rise of TikTok has brought forth novel ways to create and consume media content, accelerated by technologies such as hyper-individualised algorithms and easy-to-use video production tools. Despite its popularity, scholars and politicians alike have raised many concerns on the legitimacy and ethics of TikTok regarding its services, and its collected data. However, much of these discussions take the premise of user-generated content for granted, attributing them to human expression without critically evaluating how the making of on-platform content production have changed. With a grounded theory approach, in conjunction with a platform-aware walkthrough that pays special attention to the material and immaterial premises of platform value generation, my findings suggest that the intensification of datafication have proliferated from consumption behaviours to the process of content production, whereas content production no longer solely produce media content. As platforms become the active recruiter, mobiliser and co-producer of media production, I argue that it is no longer feasible to distinguish human and machine contribution in the ways they are consumed to facilitate platform valorisation. I propose that the technical arrangements of TikTok, in relation to its users has fostered a non-linear mode of platform cultural production capable of generating economic value through a system of machinic agency that incorporates human and machines in an indistinguishable manner. As content, the premises of platform valorisation has become an inseparable effort of human-machines, I urge that the relationship between technology and humans be reassessed as a system of machinic agency that mutually shapes our mediated reality, rather than singular, differentiable actors that contribute to platforms.