ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a critical review of the literature examining the challenges raised by the transnationalisation of the major US digital platforms in the Global South, focussing more specifically on the cultural issues that are at stake. Based on the study of some of the main texts that have given shape to this emergent research field, this contribution reconnects the contemporary debates on digital platforms with previous discussions on the investments of Western media and cultural industries in the countries of the South and highlights many continuities, but also significant discontinuities, between past and present controversies in this domain. The chapter seeks to demonstrate that, in order to understand the issues posed by the transnationalisation of these platforms in the Global South in all their complexity, it is necessary to link together the macro-level perspectives analysing the different structures of domination within which these platforms operate with more fine-grained studies that investigate not only the strategies implemented locally by these global firms, but also the active role performed by local actors in these processes. By combining these different levels, it is possible to better apprehend how the power of these Big Tech companies is exerted, accepted, negotiated or contested in these countries.
