Platform/Structure

In their discussion of Platform Studies, Bogost and Montfort reveal new academic insight into “the underlying computer systems that support creative work” rather than the creative media that is meant to be played by the user. They break down their discussion by highlighting common misconceptions about what Platform Studies is or might be. As someone who has never considered that there could or should be an area of studies devoted to the technology that allows digital creative work to function, here is what I learned and found interesting.

Platform Studies is less interested in determining whether something is or isn’t a platform, though the criteria they give is “Is it programmable?,” but rather it asks the question “Is it an important platform? Is it significant? What is its significance?” Then you connect the social impact of the platform with its function as a platform. As I was reading through this, I thought of the website Neopets, where there is a feature where you can create a guild and a guild webpage using HTML. Using this website as a kid taught me HTML, and I have come to find that many of my peers have had the same experience. Neopets, specifically this guild feature, is not just a platform, but it is a platform worthy of study because of its potential wide impact on my generation. The way Neopets is designed and set up has not changed much from 2004 when I was playing it, and the set up requires the user to explore, learn, and even program some. Though technically there might be some noteworthy things happening with Neopets, what Platform Studies seems to be more concerned with is the cultural impact with a supporting focus on hardware/software. While this phenomena that I have identified could be studied outside the scope of understanding it as a “platform” what using this framework allows us to do is essentially marry social impact and technology in what Bogost and Montfort refer to as “soft” technological determinism, meaning that technology and social reception influence each other, rather than technology being the sole driving force of social change. My taking this technological humanities view, it is important to understand both the tech/digital stuff (though you don’t necessarily have to be a programmer as they point out) and connect these digital platforms with particular cultural trends and occurrences, as I have briefly illustrated with my Neopets example.