As part of the Platform Futures program, Digital Asia Hub invited the expert network to contribute to a ‘small book’ series in multiple ways. Some contributed case studies, others participated in an open peer review process, and many shared their insights through interviews.
While the authors finalize the “Small Books for Big Platforms”, we convened a series of conversations with the expert network and a few invited guests. We are pleased to share the full recordings of these events, which include a synthesis of learnings from and across the case studies.
The recordings are arranged thematically, under the categories:
- “Mobile Ecosystems: Opportunities and Challenges in the Asia-Pacific Region”
- “Data: Opportunities and Challenges in the Asia-Pacific Region”
We will continue to release shorter highlight videos, to shine a spotlight on our expert speakers. We are thrilled to share the first two today.
About Small Books for Big Platforms (an output of the Platform Futures program, in collaboration with the digital platforms expert network, conceptualised and delivered by the Digital Asia Hub with knowledge partner, Prof. Dr. Nishant Shah and the ArtEZ University of the Arts)
Introduction:
Small Books for Big Platforms is a ‘small book’ series that invites a comparative overview and dialogue about the role and place of platforms in the Asia Pacific region. It invites scholars studying the policies, regulations, implementation, digital cultures, and usage of emerging and existing platform structures in the region to provide a critical insight into the multiplicity, potentials, and ramifications of platform societies.
The small books are meant to be sharp, critical, located studies that help map the field as well as develop an inventory of questions that emerge from the localisation of platforms and the regional geo-political landscape within which they operate.
The books simultaneously want to foreground the specificity and difference in emerging platform societies, thus demanding for granularized and located understanding of platformization, as well as the larger shared concerns and connections that help strengthen the continued conversations around safety, security, privacy, ownership, and distribution of data driven practices on algorithm driven digital platforms.
Provocation:
“Small Books for Big Platforms” are meant to be provocations that help understand the emerging policy issues, the discourse in different regions, and the opportunities and threats of platform futures in the Asia Pacific region. It is particularly keen on provoking discussions around the ‘frictions’ of platforms, which do not necessarily follow the script and discourse of a largely North-West centred theoretical and cultural orientation.
We use ‘frictions’ as a space of provocation because it doesn’t offer easy polarisations or binaries, but instead looks at the process through which the platformed societies operate and work, and the spaces where they ‘don’t quite sit well’. ‘Frictions’ could be enablers or barriers, causes or symptoms, or points of tension that highlight pre-existing contestations or histories. Instead of platforms as blackboxes, we approach them as ‘spaces in the making’, and are interested in mapping the different actors, stakeholders, communities, and users who make the platforms and create conditions for their emergence and adoption.
Acknowledgements:
In addition to the expert network, we’d like to acknowledge and thank the following contributors:
Knowledge Partner: Nishant Shah, with Vincent Zhong
Invited Speakers: Graham Greenleaf AM, Yong Lim
Interviewees: Hong Shen, Jason Hsu, Payal Arora, Rida Qadri, Zennon Kapron
Art and Design: Angie Kang
Audiovisual Editing: Amit Palgi, RJ Mabilin (with thanks to King Catoy)
- The Platform Futures conversations are now live! - June 12, 2021