January 10, 2025

Call for Papers: Special Issue on Global Media and China – The Internet-Outernet Interface

Introduction

The platform has been examined through various lenses: as emergent economic models (Pickren 2018; Srnicek 2017), systems of labor governance (Fuchs 2010; Wang and Tomassetti 2024), and urban planning frameworks built on the narratives of smart cities (Ash, Kitchin, and Leszczynski 2018). While these perspectives are valuable, this special issue focuses on the “internet-outernet interface” (Bratton 2015; Galloway 2012) to explore the inextricable relations between online platforms and social structures.

This issue adopts the concept of thresholds to explore interfaces as gateways that enable flows beyond digital realms into the physical world. By investigating both digital and physical interfaces, we aim to unravel their mutual constitution and impact on the platformized landscape of the global economy.

Themes and Objectives

The special issue will:

  • Investigate the structural shifts in platform economies and their impact on production, communication, and consumption.
  • Examine how platforms reconfigure social and industrial value chains.
  • Explore the “platformization tree” concept (van Dijck, 2021) and its socio-political implications.
  • Address the hidden labor and uneven power dynamics within media infrastructures (Star 1999; Plantin and Punathambekar 2019).

Key Questions

  1. How do digital and physical interfaces intersect to shape data, people, venture capital, and ideas?
  2. What new governance mechanisms emerge from these platformized structures?
  3. How do platforms channel, enact, and discipline mobilities across digital and physical domains?

Submission Details

Timeline:

  • Abstract Submission Deadline: 15 January 2025 (300 words)
  • Notification of Abstract Acceptance: 30 January 2025
  • Full Papers Submission for Internal Review: 01 June 2025
  • Final Submission to the Journal: 01 August 2025

Submit Abstracts To:

About the Editors

June Wang
City University of Hong Kong

Julia Tomassetti
Swinburne University of Technology, Australia

Conceptual Framework

The concept of platforms as gateways highlights their role in mediating flows of information, goods, and people across digital and physical spaces. Scholars such as Bratton (2015) and van Dijck (2018) emphasize the role of interfaces in shaping socio-economic structures. Key topics include:

  • Platform Economies: Vertical disintegration and fragmentation of production, explored through new organizational models (Sundararajan 2016).
  • Digital Labor: Hidden labor required for maintaining media systems and networks, and its uneven power dynamics (Star 1999).
  • Topological Patterns: Uneven control of data flows by dominant platforms, creating “platform continents” (Barabási 2002).

This issue contributes to the discourse by examining how these dynamics intersect and influence global governance structures.

Selected References

  1. Bratton, Benjamin H. (2015). The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty.
  2. van Dijck, José, Poell Thomas, and Martijn de Waal. (2018). The Platform Society: Public Values in a Connective World.
  3. Sundararajan, Arun. (2016). The Sharing Economy: The End of Employment and the Rise of Crowd-Based Capitalism.
  4. Plantin, Jean-Christophe, and Aswin Punathambekar. (2019). “Digital Media Infrastructures: Pipes, Platforms, and Politics.” Media, Culture & Society.

A full reference list is available upon request or in the full Call for Papers.

Publication Information

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