- Philadelphia, PA
- The University of Texas at Austin, Media Studies, Graduate Studentadd
Since the 1990s, friction has pervaded Silicon Valley discourses as a metaphor for obstacles to the flow of capital, and its eradication has become a mission statement of platform capitalists. However, despite their aspirations of endless... more
Since the 1990s, friction has pervaded Silicon Valley discourses as a metaphor for obstacles to the flow of capital, and its eradication has become a mission statement of platform capitalists. However, despite their aspirations of endless growth, friction persists because the process of platformization, through which platforms scale, is never seamless. In this introduction to a Special Issue on friction and platform capitalism, we locate friction in the encounter between the standardizing, scaling forces of platformization—and by extension platform capitalism—and the diverse and often stubborn localities in which platformization becomes instantiated. Friction is not resistance to platform power; it is the site where platform power and the contours of platformization are negotiated. We trace platform frictions across three contexts: policy, design and labor, and market relations. We argue, aided by the contributions to the Special Issue, that examining platform frictions reveals the contingencies of platform power and actually existing platformization, frustrating their claims of universality and inevitability.
Research Interests:
Following the Snowden revelations, Cambridge Analytica, and a policy vacuum created by technological convergence and neoliberal reforms, policy efforts to articulate oversight of digital platform markets gathered policymaker support and... more
Following the Snowden revelations, Cambridge Analytica, and a policy vacuum created by technological convergence and neoliberal reforms, policy efforts to articulate oversight of digital platform markets gathered policymaker support and public attention internationally. In the U.S., examined here as a case study of these international policy efforts, competition policy emerged as a prominent governance mechanism over digital platforms, resulting in the current antitrust scrutiny of tech giants like Google and Meta. Drawing on policy documents, fieldwork, and expert interviews, I trace how antitrust reform proposals, pitched as reclaiming democratic governance over private markets, came to dominate platform policy discussions. I examine how policy efforts to address platform power via competition grappled with non-competitive harms arising in digital markets, such as threats to user privacy and disinformation flows. Finally, I show how these debates began to converge on the contours of an emergent governance paradigm for digital platform oversight. I argue that this governance framework, which seeks to optimize market mechanisms to discipline platform markets, has significant limitations, notably in addressing issues associated with big data commodification and quantification.
Research Interests:
In the past few years, efforts to regulate digital platform services have grown in analytical sophistication, acquired political momentum, and started to produce legislative and regulatory interventions. The emerging policy... more
In the past few years, efforts to regulate digital platform services have grown in analytical sophistication, acquired political momentum, and started to produce legislative and regulatory interventions. The emerging policy frameworks—which tend to focus on content, data, and market power concerns—show degrees of variation, by region and by policy domain, and reflect various normative and policy goals. This essay examines their underlying policy goals, normative commitments, and the tensions and trade-offs they present.
Research Interests:
This study builds a multi-dimensional framework for assessing local media systems to identify potential gaps in news provision, especially among socioeconomically marginalized communities. We gather data on income, education, and age of... more
This study builds a multi-dimensional framework for assessing local media systems to identify potential gaps in news provision, especially among socioeconomically marginalized communities. We gather data on income, education, and age of audiences and coverage areas for 38 news outlets in Philadelphia and conduct a content analysis to gauge how these outlets meet critical information needs related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings indicate that multiple dimensions of Philadelphia’s news media system—audience size and socioeconomics, staffing levels, forms of ownership, and platform effects—work together to underserve communities with lower levels of income and education and that this structural gap generates a measurable gap in the provision of news content meeting the critical information needs of these communities. Policy interventions such as public funding and subsidies can enhance the capacity for Philadelphia news organizations to meet the critical information needs of marginalized communities.
Research Interests:
A key discourse underpinning US antitrust law is that it protects competition, not competitors. However, what this means in practice both has changed over time and betrays the politics underlying antitrust enforcement. This article... more
A key discourse underpinning US antitrust law is that it protects competition, not competitors. However, what this means in practice both has changed over time and betrays the politics underlying antitrust enforcement. This article interrogates this discourse and its contradictions in the context of the AT&T-Time Warner merger lawsuit through a critical discourse analysis of legal documents related to the case. The case represents a conflict over incentivizing competition in digital advertising markets at the expense of competition, particularly smaller competitors, in video markets. The analysis reveals how the discourse obscures the strategic choices made by courts to protect incumbent companies: by approving the merger, the court circumscribed the video programming and distribution market for consolidation to strengthen the competitive position of the merging parties in the digital advertising market dominated by Facebook and Google. Thus, this discourse masks not just the deference to dominant merging companies, but also the role of courts in shaping market competition at their behest.
Research Interests:
The COVID-19 pandemic precipitated attention to the public consequences of digital exclusion and to local, state, and federal emergency digital inclusion efforts. In this case study, we examine private sector, municipal government, and... more
The COVID-19 pandemic precipitated attention to the public consequences of digital exclusion and to local, state, and federal emergency digital inclusion efforts. In this case study, we examine private sector, municipal government, and nonprofit efforts to close the divide during the pandemic in Philadelphia, which has one of the worst urban connectivity rates in the United States. Drawing on news accounts, policy documents, and interviews with city staff, we assess Philadelphia’s digital inclusion efforts during the pandemic. Our findings show that inclusion efforts faced challenging logistics, limited data on the unconnected, funding concerns, and sometimes pushback from Internet service providers (ISPs). The latter were by necessity crucial partners in connectivity efforts but failed to address basic digital access gaps without significant public and governmental pressure, signaling the need for public alternatives. Our analysis foregrounds the disconnect among well-resourced ISPs, connectivity gaps marked by digital redlining in the poorest communities, and political constraints on robust public broadband policy.
Research Interests:
This chapter traces how dominant U.S. platform companies attempt to influence policy debates, focusing on (a) the policy issues they engage, (b) the policy preferences they communicate, and (c) what these communications reveal about their... more
This chapter traces how dominant U.S. platform companies attempt to influence policy debates, focusing on (a) the policy issues they engage, (b) the policy preferences they communicate, and (c) what these communications reveal about their regulatory and platform governance philosophies. Amid calls for private–public platform oversight frameworks, these policy communications provide insight into what such co-governance regimes might look like in practice. Specifically, platforms seek partnerships extending beyond nation-state boundaries, reflecting the transnational scope of their business operations. Domestically, they call for a form of “frictionless regulation”: light and narrow regulatory oversight confined to baseline standard-setting, receptive to the private sector's ongoing feedback, and prioritizing fast responsiveness to market needs over the slow and deliberative responsiveness to the public, typical of democratic governance.
Research Interests:
A key concern in international policy debates about articulating oversight of digital platform markets involves policy silos, arising from the scope of platformization and datafication, and the challenges in defining their policy... more
A key concern in international policy debates about articulating oversight of digital platform markets involves policy silos, arising from the scope of platformization and datafication, and the challenges in defining their policy boundaries and coordinating a comprehensive policy response. This article examines how policymakers grapple with the problem by looking at a growing number of expert inquiries on digital platforms—a proxy for the international policy debate—that focus on policy problems ranging from market dominance and privacy risks to the spread of disinformation. Specifically, the article develops a schema of related policy silos and tradeoffs that arise in these debates: (1) policy area silos, (2) market/sectoral silos, (3) temporal silos, and (4) normative tradeoffs. Then, it critically examines the implications of these silos and tradeoffs for policy interventions aimed at addressing concerns related to datafication and platformization, raising key questions about the scope of and assumptions underlying platform regulation internationally and noting the way they constrain policy design and thwart more holistic policy solutions.
Research Interests:
Digital platforms elude legal and regulatory frameworks traditionally used to address market power, speech and disinformation issues. One of the dominant policy responses to addressing these issues involves reforming competition policy to... more
Digital platforms elude legal and regulatory frameworks traditionally used to address market power, speech and disinformation issues. One of the dominant policy responses to addressing these issues involves reforming competition policy to better manage digital platform markets. This case study examines how stakeholders, including tech giants, their competitors, regulators and advocacy groups, deploy competition policy to address platform power in a series of 2019–20 US congressional hearings on the subject, with implications for the wider global debate. The article traces the politics underlying these debates, which manifests in variations in stakeholders’ definitions of platform power and their proposed solutions, reflecting tensions over the role of the state in managing markets and in addressing non-economic concerns associated with digital platforms. The article concludes with a consideration of what this politics implies for policy interventions aimed at addressing platform power.
Research Interests:
Growing political distrust in digital platforms has galvanized policy debates about how to best address issues associated with their market power and ad-run business models—including the proliferation of misinformation, privacy threats,... more
Growing political distrust in digital platforms has galvanized policy debates about how to best address issues associated with their market power and ad-run business models—including the proliferation of misinformation, privacy threats, and electoral interference. The range of proposed solutions includes growing calls for public-private policy regimes, such as co-regulation. Such proposals envision a role for digital platforms in addressing platform-related problems, whose contours need to be defined. In this article, we examine how platform companies attempt to influence these debates and define this role, focusing on the biggest U.S. digital platform companies: Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft. We conduct a content analysis of a sample of 2019 public policy blogs, statements, and testimonies by key personnel at these companies to gain insight into (a) the policy issues they engage, (b) the policy preferences they communicate, and (c) what these communications reveal about their regulatory philosophies and visions of platform governance. The findings shed light on the politics underlying the debates over platform governance and provide insight into what co-regulatory approaches might look like in practice. We call these policy paradigms “frictionless regulation”: light and narrow regulatory oversight confined to baseline standard-setting, receptive to the private sector’s ongoing feedback, and prioritizing fast responsiveness to market needs over the slow and deliberative responsiveness to the public that is typical of democratic governance.
Research Interests:
The content of political communication of independent regulatory agencies (IRAs) is understudied. Combining computational text analysis and qualitative document analysis, this study analyzes over 7,500 speeches and statements of Federal... more
The content of political communication of independent regulatory agencies (IRAs) is understudied. Combining computational text analysis and qualitative document analysis, this study analyzes over 7,500 speeches and statements of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) commissioners, given over two decades, to examine how political and industry influence on policymaking manifest themselves discursively. The results shed light on how external factors, such as regulator party affiliation and passage through the revolving door, exert influence on IRAs by impacting agenda-setting processes and occasionally the content of regulators’ political communication. However, the findings also reveal the contingency of this influence in selected contexts as well.
Research Interests:
This article examines the role of the public in media policymaking through the lens of the 2018 U.S. net neutrality repeal. I begin by outlining a framework for conceptualizing public influence on policymaking. First, I identify... more
This article examines the role of the public in media policymaking through the lens of the 2018 U.S. net neutrality repeal. I begin by outlining a framework for conceptualizing public influence on policymaking. First, I identify constraints on the potential public impact on the policymaking process. Second, I theorize opportunities for policy reform. Third, I invoke the concept of “translation,” a discursive practice by policy actors that amplifies public opinion in the policy arena, as the mechanism by which the public can influence policy outcomes. Finally, drawing on news accounts, government documents related to the repeal, and participant observation, I apply this framework to the case study of the repeal proceedings to explore the interaction between the translation processes and constraints on public participation. The case demonstrates that translation is a fragile process, subject to co-optation, and reliant on the very structures that constrain it. By revealing how power operates through the policymaking process, the study traces the limits of public influence on communications policymaking against the oppositional public-making work of translation.
Research Interests:
This paper traces the contours of media elite power via tech industry lobbying of the U.S. government. Tech companies wield considerable influence over digital communications, and the success of their lobbies in accomplishing policy goals... more
This paper traces the contours of media elite power via tech industry lobbying of the U.S. government. Tech companies wield considerable influence over digital communications, and the success of their lobbies in accomplishing policy goals reflects their ability to maintain and expand that power. The analysis reveals the depth and pervasiveness of its political influence; a proxy for media elite power. Exploring the ideological framing of the issues on which these companies lobby offers insights into how this power operates, subsuming the public interest under corporate priorities. Finally, analyzing tensions between state and lobby interests reveals both the implications of its political activity and the contours of lobbying as an instrument of media elite power.
Research Interests:
Engaging normative theories of the press and research examining the evolution of privacy coverage, this study examines press coverage of mobile app privacy issues between 2013 and 2016. The research sheds light on how the press frames... more
Engaging normative theories of the press and research examining the evolution of privacy coverage, this study examines press coverage of mobile app privacy issues between 2013 and 2016. The research sheds light on how the press frames privacy concerns within the mobile app context. Since such coverage can define the norms circumscribing the flows of users’ personal information, this study contributes to the debate about the role of the press in alerting the public to privacy issues that carry significant public interest implications. Ultimately, mobile privacy coverage favors certain solutions over others, emphasizes privacy tradeoffs over privacy rights, and balances user powerlessness with mobile app convenience and innovation, with implications for privacy discourses in public and policy arenas.
Research Interests:
This paper engages discourses about the nature of creative work through a case study of creative worker freelancing on Upwork, an online marketplace. The analysis begins by contextualizing the growth of freelancing in a transformation of... more
This paper engages discourses about the nature of creative work through a case study of creative worker freelancing on Upwork, an online marketplace. The analysis begins by contextualizing the growth of freelancing in a transformation of capitalism to a mode of flexible accumulation. It is framed against neoliberal narratives about the creative economy, including promises of financial success and freedom from rigid Fordism. An exploration of the characteristics of technology-mediated work on Upwork, including
contract structure, wages, consistency of work, risk-management strategies, and profiles of clients and freelancers follows. The findings suggest that despite the company’s emphases on efficiency, flexibility, and freedom from the physical office, freelancers face significant trade-offs in undertaking such work, notably its infrequency, barriers to high wages, and intense global competition. The discussion addresses structural drivers of
precarity in the marketplace and of its ongoing success.
contract structure, wages, consistency of work, risk-management strategies, and profiles of clients and freelancers follows. The findings suggest that despite the company’s emphases on efficiency, flexibility, and freedom from the physical office, freelancers face significant trade-offs in undertaking such work, notably its infrequency, barriers to high wages, and intense global competition. The discussion addresses structural drivers of
precarity in the marketplace and of its ongoing success.