Platforms are technological objects and managerial constructs shaping ever more aspects of our lives. As they proliferate, they continue to transform and mediate the relations we enter into with other people, media, objects, and organizations.
This research group is dedicated to the critical study of platforms in their various forms and geographies, as well as their cultural impacts, economics, and politics.
Super Apps
A Platform Lab Report edited by Jake Pitre
This Platform Lab Report looks at super apps to help us understand how tech companies of all sizes have sought to turn their products into essential intermediaries, developing and expanding apps to provide a vast suite of services — to the point that everyday life has become unimaginable without them. Offering an overview of the global multiplicity of super apps, this Report addresses how the super app has become the experiential infrastructure of platform capitalism. Read a preview here.
Anime Streaming Platform Wars
A Platform Lab Report edited by Aurélie Petit
Our first Lab Report tackles streaming platforms from the angle of anime, one of the prime contents used to gather viewers and subscribers, and their dollars and data. Focused on the circulation of anime on transnational platforms, this Report addresses the rush, over the past decade, for streaming platforms to invest in anime and its audience, up to the point where anime has become a necessary market to take into account when discussing the global streaming ecology. Read a preview here.
New Open Access Collection In/Convenience, edited Marc Steinberg & Joshua Neves
“Convenience is the feeling and aspiration that animates our platformed present. As such, it poses urgent techno-political questions about the everyday digital habitus. From next-day delivery, gig work, and tele-health to cashless payment systems, data centers, and policing – convenience is an affordance and an enclosure; our logistical surround.”
Emerging out of a media theory reading group and intimate conference held in 2022, this open access collection, edited by Platform Lab director Marc Steinberg and Global Emergent Media Lab director Joshua Neves, features a range of contributions on the theme of media in/conveniences, from convenience stores, to sleep apps, sex media, cloud infrastructures and “convenient-for-the-people” state surveillance. Read more, and order or download a copy from the publisher, The Institute of Network Cultures here!
New Article from Platform Lab Coordinator Colin Crawford on Protocol Power
Check out Platform Lab Coordinator Colin Crawford’s new article Protocol power: Matter, IoT interoperability, and a critique of industry self-regulation in a recent special issue of the Internet Policy Review “Locating and Theorising Platform Power,” guest-edited by David Nieborg, Thomas Poell, Robyn Caplan, and Jose van Dijck.
Platform lab director Marc Steinberg begins 2024 with an article on “Platform capitalisms and platform cultures”, co-authoured with Lin Zhang and lab affiliate Rahul Murkherjee for the International Journal of Cultural Studies.
Dal Yong Jin on Streaming and the Korean Wave in 2023
Platform Lab Affiliate Faculty member Dal Yon Jin is a leading scholar on the topic of the Korean Wave in critical industry studies of streaming, publishing a number of fantastic articles in 2023. Read Jin’s recent work on the relationships between Korean media industries, local, regional, and global streaming platforms, and the rising transnational popularity of Korean content in the links below.
- “Critical Cultural Industries Studies: A New Approach to the Korean Wave in the Netflix Era.” International Journal of Communication (2023)
- Platformization of the Korean Wave: a critical perspective.” Communication Research and Practice. (Jin, Yoon, & Han, 2023)
- “Platformization of Korean Internet portals toward mega-platforms: A historical approach.” First Monday. (2023)
Dr Akiko Sugawa-Shimada’s work on anime, manga and cultural studies explores the 2.5-dimensional
Check out what Dr Akiko Sugawa-Shimada has published on anime, manga, fandom and cultural practices in 2023. Dr Sugawa-Shimada recent work focuses on the 2.5-dimensional (2.5D) culture, which she defines as performances that generate interrelations between the real, fictional, and cyber worlds. This includes theatrical performances of anime, manga, and games, cosplay, voice actor/character concerts, Vtubers, contents tourism, etc.
Our Platform Lab’s Affiliate Faculty was guest editor of the Mechademia journal, which you will find here:
Mechademia: Second Arc "2.5D Culture''
(Spring, 2023)
She also published an article in the subsequent edition of Mechademia, edited by Platform Lab’s director Dr Marc Steinberg, which you will find here:
“A 2.5D Approach to the Media Mix: The Potentialities of Fans’ Produsage”
Mechademia: Second Arc "Media Mix" (Winter, 2023)
Dr Sugawa-Shimada was also co editor of the book Cultural Approaches to Studio Ghibli Animation, published in 2022 in Japanese by 七月社.
Theo Stojanov, a friend of the Platform Lab, recently published this brilliant article in the Canadian Journal of Communication.
Special Issue of Media, Culture & Society on Super Apps
Co-edited by Lab Director Marc Steinberg with Rahul Mukherjee and Aswin Punathambekar, this special issue, “Media power in digital Asia: Super apps and megacorps,” looks at the conditions for the platforms & super apps in translocal Asia, offering a critical look at the megacorps behind it. Check out their introduction here, and the full issue here.
Platform Lab Director Marc Steinberg featured on Pause and Select:
“Japan: The Platform Superpower.”
Concordia news item on The Platform Lab’s “Anime Streaming Platform Wars” report and interview with the report’s editor & Lab coordinator Aurélie Petit.
