Platform Politics and Policy

This interdisciplinary seminar series seeks to highlight cutting-edge conceptual and empirical work on the various political-economic dimensions of digital capitalism, with a focus on the platform economy and the growing (and increasingly contested!) role of multinational technology ‘platform’ companies. Topics of interest include: historical or comparative perspectives on the evolution of platform power across various sectors; the politics of European digitally-oriented public policy; critical approaches to understanding the digital economy. We seek to tackle a wide range of platform ‘types’ (from search engines, social networks, and other user-generated content platforms, to ‘locally-tethered,’ infrastructural, and industrial platforms) and maintain a global perspective as much as possible.

What: A 75-minute seminar with a presentation (approx. 30 min), followed by Q&A

When: Every six weeks or so on a Wednesday afternoon, 16:00-17:15 Berlin time

Where: Online, or at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center, Reichpietschufer 50, 10785 Berlin

Who: The researchers of the Digitalization and Societal Transformation research cluster, and other interested colleagues at the WZB.

Researchers from outside the WZB who would like to attend may email the organizer, robert.gorwa [at] wzb.eu, to be put onto the seminar series mailing list.

 

Sessions (Forthcoming)

29.01.2025
Angela García Calvo (Reading), Martin Kenney (UC Davis), and John Zysman (UC Berkeley) : 'Will Nation States Reassert Their Sovereignty over the Platform Economy?'

 

Sessions (Past)

16.10.2024
Rachel Griffin (Science Po): 'EU Platform Regulation in the Age of Neo-Illiberalism'

14.08.2024
Jamie Woodcock (Essex): 'The Fight Against Platform Capitalism: An Inquiry into the Global Struggles of the Gig Economy'

21.06.2024
Brenda Dvoskin (Georgetown): 'Big Tech Feminism'

08.05.2024
Corinne Cath (TU Delft): 'What is the Cloud Doing to the Internet?'

07.12.2023
Wendy Wong (British Columbia): 'We, the Data: Human Rights in the Digital Age'

06.09.2023
Jathan Sadowski (Monash University): 'Vital Data: Making Markets and Changing Lives with a Global Insurance Platform'

07.06.2023
Julian Posada (Yale): 'Embedded Reproduction in Platform Data Work'

26.04.2023
Timo Seidl (University of Vienna): 'Polanyi and List Meet in Brussels: Digital Sovereignty and the Future of EU Digital Policymaking'

30.03.2023
Katrin Tiidenberg (Tallinn University): 'Sex, Power, and Platform Governance'

18.01.2023
Veena Dubal (UC Hastings): 'Employee Status, Worker Perspectives, & Regulation in the Gig Economy'

01.12.2022
Jessa Lingel (Penn): 'Digital Activism, Resistance, and the Gentrification of the Internet'

19.10.2022
Tomiwa Ilori (University of Pretoria): 'Law and labour: Two emerging frontiers of social media platform governance in African countries'

07.09.2022
Jean-Marie Chenou (
Universidad de los Andes): ‘Varieties of digital capitalism: platform regulation in Latin America

27.07.2022
Ya-Wen Lei (Harvard University): ‘
Rewiring the Techno-Nation

08.06.2022
Michael Veale (University College London): ‘
Ceci n’est pas un produit: What the EU AI Act Misses, and Why

27.04.2022
Niels van Doorn, Aleksandra Piletic, Eva Mos, and Jelke Bosma (University of Amsterdam): ‘Platformization and Regulatory Embeddedness

30.03.2022
Robin Mansell (LSE): ‘Platform Futures: Contesting Technology and Governance Trajectories

16.02.2022
Elettra Bietti (Cornell Tech): ‘A Genealogy of Platform Regulation