Platform capture: a review of the state of the art of research on platforms and a research agenda

Platforms are polysemic market objects that structure – and are structured by – markets. In this article, I provide an overview of research on platforms in the field of marketing and elsewhere. First, I discuss how infrastructures, governance, and institutional logics make up and sustain platforms in a synergetic fashion. Then, I identify five key domains that platforms have captured: human-object relationships, interpersonal relationships, money, labour, and public goods. Building on these categorisations, I provide an analytical grid for scholars to bring clarity to the polysemic nature of platforms and reorient how they ask questions about platforms. I conclude with a discussion on how we should rethink the boundaries of marketing and consumption studies as platforms increasingly engulf everyday life.