On Wednesday March 3, 2021, Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy Research Director Sonja Solomun, Research Fellow Rachel Bergmann, and Director Taylor Owen will host the second series of the “Against Platform Determinism” online academic workshop in partnership with Data & Society. The workshop explores how platform governance is mediated and shaped through interactions and entanglements with users, industries, and infrastructures.
The first "Against Platform Workshop” was organized and hosted by Data & Society Researcher Robyn Caplan, Faculty Fellow Meredith D. Clark, and Research Analyst William Partin on January 14, 2021.
About the Workshop:
Over the last several years, platform companies—a broad category that may include firms as diverse as Facebook, Salesforce, Google, Patreon, AirBNB, DoorDash, etc.—have been positioned as all-encompassing omnipotent actors that can upend democracies, remake industries, and redefine employment. Increasingly, however, we have seen pushback against the technology industry. This includes shifts in public opinion represented in media (referred to as ‘the techlash’), coordinated efforts by established groups such as labor organizers, and refusals to use platform services by users and advertisers. In other cases, advocates and academics are taking opportunities to work with platforms in developing and enforcing policies and rules; through signing on to fact-checking partnerships, oversight boards and trust and safety councils, or through engaging with platforms through processes of consultation. Finally, platform companies’ imaginaries for their products often fail to materialize even without coordinated resistance due to infrastructural and cultural barriers.
This workshop invites scholars to consider how interactions with platform companies do or do not shape how technologies are designed, and deployed, and how global users are governed. Though platforms are centralized and powerful actors, this workshop is intended to explore the existing and emerging infrastructures, cultures, and organizational forms can shape decision-making and design or impede platforms’ implementation “on the ground.” These forces can include users of these platforms, industry actors, civil society organizations, and government, but it can also include how existing infrastructures—such as low connectivity areas—can mediate the impact of technology on communities.
Relevant paper topics for this workshop might include:
Methodological tools to consider interactions between stakeholder groups in platform governance
Papers on modes of engagement and interaction with platform companies (such as refusal, resistance, co-optation, cooperation, exclusion, or erasure)
Examples in which local media infrastructures act as impediments to a platform owners’ visions
Critical moments, issues, or events that impact platform policies and design
Instances of “platform collapse” in which a platform fails to achieve or loses network effects
Platforms that have widely varying impacts across geographic contexts and why
Fracturing of the sociotechnical imaginaries associated with platforms, whether by owners, dependents, or other stakeholders
The interactions between platforms, users, and intermediaries as seen via intersectional perspectives
Workshop Format:
The event will take place online on Wednesday, March 3 2021, currently scheduled from 10am ET – 5pm ET. All participants will receive a $175 Stipend. Unlike a conference, this workshop focuses on reading and offering interdisciplinary responses to in-progress draft papers.
The workshop will include a mix of deep-dive discussions, lightning talks, networking opportunities, and 2-3 slots focused on workshopping papers. Each paper session will be 75 minutes long. One paper will be workshopped in each session. Multiple sessions will run in parallel. Within each group, a discussant will open with a critique of the paper before inviting participants to contribute responses and suggestions.
Submissions for participation at this workshop are now closed