Deriving a tangible promotional calculus: platform monopolies and political advertising

Abstract

This article describes how the monopolistic capitalism of platform economies gets appropriated by political campaigners by highlighting the critical role of derivative valuations in the market without any ‘fundamentals’. I argue that platform economies help generate both the rhetorical flourish and dubious metadata, which provides an unreliable yet vital anchorage towards political campaigns. In this cross-promotional bidding for statistics, the value of these campaigns is staked upon bold claims, affective fluctuations and popularity metrics. This article argues that we must therefore pay attention to the advertorial overlap of interests which makes a particular state form strategically reliant upon the derivative impulse of monopoly capital. It is via the public transcripts of such overlapping tendencies – which make it difficult to distinguish between the product and the advertisement – that derivative valuations emerge, converting intangible assets into tangible gains. © The Author(s) 2020.