In recent discussions of capitalist transformation, the notion of the ‘platform’ has come to play a prominent role in conceptualising our present circumstances and imagining our potential futures. There are many criticisms which can be raised of the platform metaphor, however we believe it provides a useful hook through which to make sense of how social, economic, political, cultural and technological factors are collectively contributing to systemic transformation.
This intensive five week reading group explores platform capitalism, the growing focus on the platform and its implications for sociological and educational research. Each session will be an informal discussion of two papers, chapters, essays or talks:
- May 2nd, 4pm to 6pm
Platform Capitalism by Nick Srnicek, Chapter 2
Keynote at Digital Capitalism: Revolution or Hype? by Evgeny Morozov
- May 9th, 4pm to 6pm
Engineering the Public: Big Data, Surveillance and Computational Politics by Zeynep Tufekci
The Anxieties of Big Data by Kate Crawford - May 16th, 4pm to 6pm
Social Media Platforms and Education by José Van Dijck and Thomas Poell
Evaluative infrastructures: Accounting for Platform Organizationby Martin Kornberger, Dane Pflueger and Jan Mouritsens - May 23rd, 4pm to 6pm
Two Narratives of Platform Capitalism by Frank Pasquale
The Radicalization of Utopian Dreams by danah boyd - May 30th, 4pm to 6pm
The Politics of Platforms by Tarleton Gillespie
Democracy is dead: long live democracy! by Helen Margetts
The meetings will take place from 4pm to 6pm in DMB 2S5 in The Donald McIntyre Building in the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge. This is a fifteen minutes walk from Cambridge train station and we welcome all attendees. We would appreciate if you could e-mail your intention to attend to mac228@cam.ac.uk so we can update you with further details.
Mark Carrigan 