How do intermediaries affect cultural production in the age of platformized gatekeeping? Cultural production increasingly depends upon digital infrastructures known as platforms (e.g., Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Google, et al.) for distribution. These infrastructures supposedly diminish the importance of conventional, non-infrastructural intermediaries, yet cultural production's platformization occurred alongside the emergence of new downstream intermediaries. Here, I show how the practices of YouTube content creators reflect direct instructions from both the platform (primary gatekeeper) and a downstream intermediary (an MCN). Producers no longer require non-platform intermediaries for access to markets, and so, rather than acting as gatekeeper, non-platform intermediaries support the platform. The MCN aids the platform by propagating platform conventions and an orientation toward metrics and algorithms among content producers. This differs markedly from conventional sociological theories of cultural production which presume intermediaries as autonomous organizations that reproduce and mediate social conventions of cultural production (i.e., genre, roles, etc.). Thus, under conditions of platformization, both intermediaries and producers appear subordinate to infrastructure.

平台化把关时代，中介如何影响文化生产？文化生产越来越依赖于称为平台（例如，Twitter、YouTube、Facebook、Instagram、Google 等）的数字基础设施进行分发。据推测，这些基础设施降低了传统的非基础设施中介的重要性，但文化生产的平台化与新的下游中介的出现同时发生。在这里，我展示了 YouTube 内容创作者的做法如何反映来自平台（主要看门人）和下游中介（MCN）的直接指令。生产者不再需要非平台中介机构进入市场，因此，非平台中介机构不是充当看门人，而是支持平台。MCN 通过在内容制作者之间传播平台惯例和对指标和算法的定位来帮助平台。这与传统的文化生产社会学理论明显不同，传统社会学理论将中介机构假定为自主组织，再生产和调解文化生产的社会习俗（即流派、角色等）。因此，在平台化的条件下，中介和生产者似乎都从属于基础设施。