Five Theses on the Gravity of Platforms
In 2023 and 2024, the PLATFORM group considered how “the platform” occupies both conceptual and empirical registers. Platforms seem to assemble capabilities, users, and interests and thereby set new futures in motion. Platforms are architectures for action that enable and constrain social, cultural, economic, and political possibilities, and shape how we structure, represent, and experience the world. Platforms are socio-technical infrastructures that can coordinate, consolidate, extend, and empower the activities of individuals, communities, corporations, and other actors. Members of the PLATFORM group explored the gravity of this form across humanistic and social science perspectives, advancing five theses about how platforms simultaneously attract and repulse social action.
Authors: Marc Aidinoff, Pablo Boczkowski, Lindsey Cameron, Kriti Kapila, Ann Kelly, Shiloh Krupar, Juan Llamas-Rodriguez, Lisa Nakamura, Alondra Nelson, David Nieborg, Christian Sandvig, Julia Ticona, Moira Weigel, Hannah Wohl, Malte Ziewitz
Citation: Aidinoff, M., Boczkowski P., Cameron L., Kapila K., Kelly A., Krupar, S., Llamas-Rodriguez, J., Nakamura, L., Nelson, A., Nieborg, D., Sandvig, C., Ticona, J., Weigel, M. Wohl, H., and Ziewitz, M. (2024). Five Theses on the Gravity of Platforms, School of Social Science, Institute for Advanced Study. https://doi.org/10.48706/0KXB-N725
