From Instagram and Uber to Alibaba and ChatGPT, platforms shape nearly every aspect of contemporary life. They influence how we communicate, work, study, shop, vote, and connect. But what exactly are platforms? How do they operate, and how did they become so powerful?
In Platforms: A Critical Introduction, Anne Helmond and Fernando van der Vlist offer a critical introduction to platforms and platformisation. The book explains how platforms operate as companies, services, and technologies, and how they shape economies, cultures, institutions, and everyday life.
Book launch and panel discussion
Rather than setting up the event as a traditional book presentation, we will use the book as a starting point for a broader conversation with colleagues about how platforms are and can be studied, conceptualised, and governed.
Featuring many UU colleagues and community members, the event will bring together different perspectives on platforms as social, cultural, economic, technical, and regulatory objects through two panels: one on studying platforms through different methods, materials, and approaches, and one on platform goverance in relation to questions about accountability, institutional change, and public values.
We hope you will join us to celebrate the launch and to discuss the impact of platforms on society, the ways we can study them, and the future of platform studies.
The book launch is followed by drinks. The book will be available at the event at a discounted rate of 15 euros.
Programme
15:00 Welcome (with coffee and tea) and an introduction to the book by Anne & Fernando
15:30–16:10 | Panel 1: Studying platforms: methods, materials, and approaches. With: Niels Kerssens, Joris Veerbeek, Sandra Becker, Thales Costa Bertaglia
16:10–16:50 | Panel 2: Platforms in society: governance, institutions, work, and public values. With: Rébecca Franco, Mirte van Hout, Charis Papaevangelou, Donya Alinejad
16:50 Closing reflection by José van Dijck
17:00–18:00 Book sale + drinks