Algorithmic Governance

Digital platforms play an increasingly important role in social, economic, and political life. Scholars have theorized the influence of such platforms through a variety of terms, including platformization, algorithmic power, and platform power. While this work rightly highlights the importance of automated decision-making, interface design, and commercial business models, it risks treating the power of platforms as an overly-deterministic, top-down affair, something done to users. In so doing, these theorizations downplay the role of users as “vital agents of platform politics” (Reynolds and Hallinan, 2021, p. 3268). Accordingly, this project investigates the following questions: (1) How do users currently and historically participate in platform governance? (2) What does this mean for how we understand the social and political significance of digital platforms? (3) What other forms might user political participation take in the future?

Platform politics

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Digital Values

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