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A number of popular commentaries in recent years have contended that the emergence of an advanced, platform-oriented digital economy marks the end of capitalism as such. This paper evaluates these claims from theorists such as Mckenzie Wark and Yannis Varoufakis. Ultimately the paper suggests that a more useful and plausible alternative to them is to be found in the Regulation School assertion that 'platform capitalism' constitutes a new 'regime of accumulation': a successor to 'Fordism' and 'post-Fordism'. The paper explains the historical origins of this approach, arguing for its continued usefulness and its compatibility with important recent developments in institutional, technological and media sociology. It explains the compatibility of an approach characterising 'platform capitalism' as a new regime of accumulation with a range of other perspectives on both 'platformization' and contemporary capitalism, and discusses both recent changes to popular music culture and broad trends in populist politics in recent decades as exemplifying cultural, social and political features of platform capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on voluntariness as a mode of restructuring work in 21st century digitalized capitalism. What can be observed is a blurring of the boundaries between work, reproduction, leisure and engagement. We pursue the thesis that this transformation in the ‘nature’ of work corresponds to a (newly emerging) ‘mixed-activity economy’ in which people, on the one hand, create economic value in the sphere of consumption or leisure. On the other hand, reproductive requirements and economic necessities in everyday work and life can be flexibly linked through time-flexible platform work. In any case, the forms of corporate value creation and access to human productivity are changing radically insofar as they are no longer limited to classic wage labor alone. The invocation of voluntarism plays a key legitimizing role in this transformation. Based on a theoretical reconstruction of the concept of voluntariness, we bring together new forms of value creation through appropriation of resources outside of wage labor and the systematic analysis of voluntariness as a currently significant mode of action and governance in the digital economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ownership has been a core research theme in parts of media and communication science since its establishment as a distinct research field. In particular, scholars in the field of political economy of the media, media sociology and media industry studies typically pay close attention to the role ownership has on various media and communication processes. In this article, we argue, however, that media ownership has been treated largely as a black box ignoring the inner workings and dynamics of it. Filling this void, we reach out to research on ownership from the field of political economy, sociology as well as social and legal philosophy to discuss two options to conceptually grasp the 'inner workings of property'. To showcase the importance of this conceptual redefinition, the article discusses the implications of unpacking property in the realm of digital capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article develops the concept of signaling hinterlands to explain how digital social networks extend and shift the interconnections between a metropolis and its hinterlands. The relationship between metropolis and hinterlands—the multiple, overlapping, networked geographies on which cities rely—is a long-standing area of geographical inquiry. This dynamic reflects networks of densely and more sparsely populated places connected by asymmetric relations, thus far primarily envisioned as physical goods-related production activities. How do these relationships change in a geographical political economy centered around digital technologies? We argue that digital technologies expand the productive capacity of the hinterlands, reshaping the dynamics between places within and beyond the metropolis. With digital social networks and digital platforms, places can gain value through their potential to signal and amass social, cultural, and economic capital. Signaling hinterlands reflect the simultaneously cultural, symbolic, technological, political, and economic relations involved in networking places under digital capitalism. We leverage Google Maps visitor posts to document the interconnections between the San Francisco Bay Area metropolis and Calla Lily Valley, a rural locale that we argue has become a digitally induced hinterland. Mapping postings from users who recorded visits to Calla Lily Valley, we examine how digital traces re-create and alter the asymmetric relations between rural and urban, metropolis and hinterlands in the digital economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Hangzhou Normal University (Social Sciences Edition) / Hang Zhou Shi Fan Da Xue Xue Bao She Hui Ke Xue Ban is the property of Editorial Office of Journal of Hangzhou Normal University (Humanities & Social Sciences Edition) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Berliner Journal für Soziologie is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In recent years, critical studies on digital platforms have emphasized that contemporary capitalism increasingly exploits the relational and cognitive faculties of human beings as sources of value. At the same time, activist projects are emerging in order to challenge the logics of commodification, individualization and accumulation that govern digital capitalism, being grounded in values that aim to promote visibility of labor and cooperation. This article contributes the notion of "caring technologies" where care is employed as a critical lens able to uncover the kinds of productive work made invisible by capitalist logics governing mainstream digital platforms and as a value for designing digital technologies aiming at challenging these very logics. By drawing on feminist theories about domestic work, we stress the analytical and interventionist character of care insofar as it sheds light on the forms of invisible work that allows the productive system to function and a politics that values social and economic relations usually neglected in the capitalist system. Ultimately, the article elaborates on a politics of caring to confront digital capitalism, transforming care into a logic that informs activist interventions which value agential and inalienable aspects characterizing the diverse forms of labor mediated by digital technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the interplay between Airbnb and gentrification in Thessaloniki and Greece, focusing on their economic and social impacts on urban neighborhoods. Utilizing data from 110 online publications and qualitative insights from ten semi-structured interviews with real estate agents, Airbnb stakeholders, residents, and experts, the research provides a nuanced view of these dynamics. The findings suggest that Airbnb influences housing markets by driving up rental and home prices, potentially exacerbating housing scarcity and displacing vulnerable populations in gentrifying areas. While this aligns with the existing literature, the results remain tentative due to the complexities involved. The trend toward corporate-hosted short-term rentals appears to shift Airbnb away from its original community-focused model, though this shift is still evolving. The COVID-19 pandemic introduced changes, such as a move from short-term to long-term rentals and the conversion of commercial spaces to residential use, impacting neighborhood dynamics. However, these effects may be temporary and do not fully address broader housing issues. While an oversupply of Airbnb accommodations might stabilize rental prices to some extent, its impact on the overall housing crisis remains uncertain. Future research should investigate the long-term effects on housing affordability and social equity, considering the limitations of current findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a rejoinder to Christian Fuchs’ “Democracy, the Internet, and Capitalism,” published in tripleC as a reply to our essay “On a Potential Paradox of Public Service Media” (2024), which was part of tripleC’s special issue “Critical Perspectives on Digital Capitalism: Theories and Praxis”. In this rejoinder, we will critically engage with open questions and unsolved contradictions of three points of discussion: the ideal of deliberative democracy in relation to the Internet, the broadcast model applied to ICTs, and the neutrality of (digital) technology.

Land ownership, occupancy, and use are enduringly central components of economies and societies across the world. Even in a capitalist economy increasingly mediated through digital technologies, land remains foundational to wide-ranging aspects of social life. However, conceptualizations of land fundamentally transform through virtual environments like the Metaverse, where digital or virtual land is a core feature. This article examines the construction and use of land under digital capitalism, specifically in the online virtual reality environment Metaverse. Studying virtual land markets in this environment, we show how land exists in continuous material and conceptual transformation via myriad landmaking technologies. Virtual landmaking offers new capital accumulation possibilities while simultaneously reifying existing market logics and creating new fictions around land. We emphasize how, despite its newness, virtual landmaking in the Metaverse relates to landmaking efforts that predate digital capitalism, from state-led large-scale engineering projects to land grabs and colonial expansion. Simultaneously, land reconceptualization in the Metaverse reflects new economic dynamics germane to digital capitalism, including commodification and assetization, and the rise of digital platforms as both market creators, through digital renderings, and rentier intermediaries. Throughout, we highlight the distributional and political stakes of reconfiguring land via new technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The era of digital capitalism poses conundrums for communication for development and social change scholarship and practice. On one hand, mainstream social media platforms are an increasingly ubiquitous element of the everyday media practices of growing portions of the global population. On the other, the profit-driven architectures can make these hostile spaces for progressive social change dialogues. While a burgeoning literature exists on the uses of social media as part of hashtag-activism and social movements, much less critical consideration has been given to NGOs' and civil society organizations' uses of capitalist-driven social media platforms in their development and social change efforts, and the challenges and compromises they navigate in this, consciously or not. This paper argues that meaningful uses of social media platforms for social change requires cultivating a hacker mindset in order to find tactics to subvert, resist, and appropriate platform logics, combined with an ecological sensibility to understanding media and communication. This paper analyzes how metaphors, specifically of a recipe, can offer a productive, praxis-oriented framework for fostering these sensibilities. The paper draws on insights from workshops with IT for Change, a civil society organization in India, which is both a leader in critiquing the political and economic power of Big Tech especially in the Global South, and beginning to use Instagram for its work on adolescent empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ibn Khaldûn (1332–1406) was a philosopher, historian and sociologist. This paper asks: What elements of the Political Economy of Communication are there in Ibn Khaldûn's work and how do they matter in digital capitalism? It presents relevant passages from Khaldûn's main work Muqaddimah and points out parallels between the Muqaddimah and works in Political Economy, especially Karl Marx's approach of the Critique of Political Economy. The comparison of Khaldûn to Marx is not an arbitrary choice. Several scholars have pointed out parallels between the two's works with respect to general Political Economy. It, therefore, makes sense to, also, compare Khaldûn and Marx in the context of the Political Economy of Communication. The paper analyses the relevance of Khaldûn's ideas in digital capitalism. Khaldûn's works are situated in the context of media and communication theory, digital automation, Facebook, Google, labour in informational and digital capitalism, Amazon, the tabloid press, fake news and post-truth culture. The analysis shows that Khaldûn's Muqaddimah is an early work in Political Economy that can and should inform our contemporary critical analysis of communication in society, communication in capitalism and class society, ideology and digital capitalism. What connects Marx and Khaldûn is that they were critical scholars who although living at different times in different parts of the world saw the importance of the analysis of class and communication. Their works can and should inform the Political Economy of Communication and the analysis of digital capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Lusofona de Educacao is the property of Universidade Lusofona de Humanidades e Tecnologias, CEIEF and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article is a reflection and comment on Toni Negri’s essay “The Appropriation of Fixed Capital: A Metaphor?”. The comment first points out aspects of Negri’s reception of Marx. It stresses the continuities of the Grundrisse and Capital. In both, we can find a dialectical concept of technology. Second, this paper points out that Negri’s notion of the appropriation of technology/fixed capital should best be read as a critique of techno-optimism à la Marshall McLuhan and of techno-pessimism à la Martin Heidegger. Negri advances a dialectical concept of appropriation that is focused on the appropriation, and therefore transformation, of technology and society. Third, this reflection asks: What does it mean to appropriate digital machines? Concrete strategies of digital appropriation are outlined. The author argues that commons-public partnerships can be powerful political means of struggle against digital capitalism. Acknowledgement: This article was first published as a book chapter. It is reproduced based on a Creative Commons licence. Original source: Fuchs, Christian. 2019. Appropriation of Digital Machines and Appropriation of Fixed Capital as the Real Appropriation of Social Being: Reflections on Toni Negri’s Chapter. In Digital Objects, Digital Subjects: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Capitalism, Labour and Politics in the Age of Big Data, 215-221. London: University of Westminster Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.16997/book29.s

Recent literature has argued that digital technologies reinforce existent inequalities along race, class and gender. However, the relationship between digital capitalism and racism is yet to be explored in depth. How does digitalisation rework social relations and social cooperation to produce new forms of racialised hierarchisation and differentiation? The article is based on an international project on platform labour spanning seven European cities. It focuses on the sector of ride-hailing in Berlin and analyses the interactions between processes of platformisation and (de-)racialisation. Finally, it shows how racism becomes infrastructural when platforms organise its circulation.

The global economic downturn due to the pandemic has resulted in shrinking the digital market in big economies such as the US and China. After the pandemic, many of the major tech and internet-based companies had to take action to reverse their the declining balance sheets and look for ways to financially rebound. Illustrated in this paper is how these digital giants in China could further advance their economy by minimising their paid manpower by working with/under the education system and inventing new temporary intern positions as semi-(im)material labour to expand their workforce. Based on our ethnographic work and interviews with interns, we elucidate the case of a Chinese tech intern, which exemplifies what we refer to as involution. Involution is a process by which the new generation is induced to accept a much more precarious economy as a result of nominal pay, yet is able to nevertheless survive, meet their daily needs and dwell in big cities, rather than engaging a radical change or revolution.

This article explores the rapidly developing field of Critical AI Studies and its relation to issues of class and capitalism through a hybrid approach based on distant reading of a newly collected corpus of 300 full-text scientific articles, the creation of which is itself a first attempt at properly delineating the field. We find that words related to issues of class are predominantly but not exclusively confined to a set of studies that make up their own distinct subfield of Critical AI Studies, in contrast to, e.g., issues of race and gender, which are more broadly present in the corpus.

The overall task of this paper is to outline some foundations of a critical theory of digital capitalism. The approach of the Critique of Political Economy is taken as the starting point for theorising (digital) capitalism. First, the paper discusses selected classical definitions of capitalism. Theories of digital capitalism must build on definitions and theories of capitalism. If capitalism is not only an economic order but a societal formation, the analysis of capitalism is the analysis of economic exploitation and non-economic domination phenomena and their interaction. Theories of digital capitalism should also address the question of how class, racism, and patriarchy are related in the context of digitalisation. Second, the author introduces a notion of digital capitalism that is based on Marx’s approach of the Critique of Political Economy. Third, the paper engages with one influential contemporary approach to theorising capitalism, Nancy Fraser’s Cannibal Capitalism. The author discusses what we can learn from Fraser’s approach to theorising digital capitalism. Fourth, the author discusses existing understandings of digital capitalism that can be found in the academic literature. These definitions are compared to the understanding advanced in this article. Fifth, the paper discusses the relationship of the notion of digital capitalism from a Critical Political Economy perspective in comparison to the notions of the network society/informational capitalism (Manuel Castells), surveillance capitalism (Shoshana Zuboff), and platform capitalism (Nick Srnicek). Sixth, the paper reflects on the relationship between digital capitalism and violence as we live in a (digital) age where a new World War is all but uncertain. Finally, some conclusions are drawn.

Recent social movement scholarship has highlighted the instrumental and material roles played by digital technologies in supporting collective action and new cultures of organizing. This research seldom considers the symbolic role of digital technologies and data. However, the extraction and exploitation of data, described as data colonialism, facilitate novel opportunities for capitalist expansion in the everyday. Extensive data appropriation and commodification have led to a growing interest in data activism which challenges dominant data politics. Focusing on the intersection of data activism and local organising of collective action, this article examines two cases of how Big Tech disrupts everyday life and becomes a grievance used for mobilisation. With these cases, we illustrate how protest campaigns react to Google's aim to colonise both digital and physical spheres of life. The first case concerns the creation of a Google Campus in Berlin, while the second focuses on the Sidewalk Toronto urban development project led by the Google subsidiary, SideWalk Labs. Both projects were met with resistance comprising elements of data activism, mobilised as the Fuck Off Google and #blocksidewalk campaigns. Beyond rallying local discontent around impending gentrification and increased housing prices, the campaigns raised awareness about digital giants' unethical data practices and underscored alternative human-centric technologies and data politics. Employing frame analysis, we elaborate on the intersecting dynamics of traditional, community-based grassroots mobilisation and data activism against Googlization and explore the potentialities and limitations toward contextualising collective action for (rather than in) the digital age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital technologies are rapidly transforming economies and societies. Scholars have approached this rise of digital capitalism from various angles. However, relatively little attention has been paid to digital capitalism's cultural underpinnings and the beliefs of those who develop most digital technologies. In this paper, we argue that a solutionist order of worth – in which value derives from solving social problems through technology – has become central to an emerging spirit of digital capitalism. We use supervised learning to trace the relative importance of different orders of worth in three novel text corpora. We find that solutionism is indeed central to the normative beliefs of digital elites and the broader digital milieu, but not to capitalist discourse at large. We illustrate the importance of these findings by discussing how the spirit of digital capitalism motivates, legitimates, and orients the actions of digital capitalists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines crowdsourced translation on TED.com – an initiative to disseminate general knowledge by producing TED Talks. Drawing on the Autonomist concept of immaterial labour and the theoretical model of Communities of Practice, it presents a critical analysis of participatory translation practices in the digital age, focusing on the relations between corporate actors and individual translation agents. By examining dynamics within communities of practice composed of translators on the TED platform, this study found that TED Translators provide immaterial labour as they help push forward both their individual goals and TED's overall agenda, and both the practice of translation and communication processes among translators become sources of meaning making for translators to negotiate their identities. More importantly, this study identifies tensions caused by the top-down approach taken by TED to manage the self-organised translator communities. While the translators provide immaterial labour for intellectual enrichment, pleasure and meaning making instead of monetary rewards, the corporate approach taken by TED treats translation as a source of add-on value and undermines group dynamics in translator collectivities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the interplay between Airbnb and gentrification in Thessaloniki and Greece, focusing on their economic and social impacts on urban neighborhoods. Utilizing data from 110 online publications and qualitative insights from ten semi-structured interviews with real estate agents, Airbnb stakeholders, residents, and experts, the research provides a nuanced view of these dynamics. The findings suggest that Airbnb influences housing markets by driving up rental and home prices, potentially exacerbating housing scarcity and displacing vulnerable populations in gentrifying areas. While this aligns with the existing literature, the results remain tentative due to the complexities involved. The trend toward corporate-hosted short-term rentals appears to shift Airbnb away from its original community-focused model, though this shift is still evolving. The COVID-19 pandemic introduced changes, such as a move from short-term to long-term rentals and the conversion of commercial spaces to residential use, impacting neighborhood dynamics. However, these effects may be temporary and do not fully address broader housing issues. While an oversupply of Airbnb accommodations might stabilize rental prices to some extent, its impact on the overall housing crisis remains uncertain. Future research should investigate the long-term effects on housing affordability and social equity, considering the limitations of current findings.

The home is an ever-changing assemblage of technologies that shapes the organisation and division of housework and supports certain models of what that work entails, who does it and for what purposes. This paper analyses core tensions arising through the ways smart homes are embedding logics of digital capitalism into home life and labour. As a critical way of understanding these techno-political shifts in the means of social reproduction, we advance the concept of Big Mother – a system that, under the guise of maternal care, seeks to manage, monitor and marketise domestic spaces and practices. We identify three tensions arising in the relationships between care and control as they are mediated through the Big Mother system: (a) outsourcing autonomy through enhanced control and choice, (b) increased monitoring for efficient management and (c) revaluation of care through optimisation of housework. For each area, we explore how emerging technological capacities promise to enhance our abilities to care for our homes, families and selves. Yet, at the same time, these innovations also empower Big Mother to enrol people into new techniques of surveillance, new forms of automation and new markets of data. Our purpose in this paper is to push back against the influential ideas of smart homes based on luxury surveillance and caring systems by showing that they exist in constant relation with a supposedly antithetical version of the smart home represented by Big Mother. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From a socio-theoretical and media-theoretical perspective, this article analyses exemplary practices and structural characteristics of contemporary digital political campaigning to illustrate a transformation of the public sphere through the platform economy. The article first examines Cambridge Analytica and reconstructs its operational procedure, which, far from involving exceptionally new digital campaign practices, turns out to be quite standard. It then evaluates the role of Facebook as an enabling 'affective infrastructure', technologically orchestrating processes of political opinion-formation. Of special concern are various tactics of 'feedback propaganda' and algorithmic-based user engagement that reflect, at a more theoretical level, the merging of surveillance-capitalist commercialization with a cybernetic logic of communication. The article proposes that this techno-economic dynamic reflects a continuation of the structural transformation of the public sphere. What Jürgen Habermas had analysed in terms of an economic fabrication of the public sphere in the 1960s is now advancing in a more radical form, and on a more programmatic basis, through the algorithmic architecture of social media. As the authors argue, this process will eventually lead to a new form of 'infrastructural power'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author is interested in the canonical visual forms that accompany labour in digital capitalism - that is, an economic-information-cognitive order based on screens, information and attention. He therefore analyses what labour looks like today where screens are necessary to perform it; what are the visual dimensions of that labour; how labour is represented by artists and popular culture. In the article, he discusses the liberalisation of the aesthetics of the remote working environment as a place that does not belong to the employer; the fetishisation of the aesthetics of the workstation and office space in marketing discourses; the simulation of physical presence through visual effects; the compulsion of visualisation in work communication; 'Zoom fatigue' and corporate worker fatigue; and the visual dimensions of waiting. He illustrates her discussion of these issues with examples from cultural texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of O Social em Questão is the property of Faculdades Catolicas - Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Rio de Janeiro and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of E-Beratungsjournal is the property of E-beratungsjournal.net and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This research examines the work organisation of the Foodpanda food delivery firm and the experiences of the bicycle couriers who work for it, particularly their attitudes to the algorithmic management of their work. The focus of the inquiry is the gamification of work, both from-above and from below. Gamification from-above is constructed by the management. Taking part in the games can be a source of pride and satisfaction, but also of addiction and self-exploitation. Gamification from-below includes all kinds of "games" that the couriers initiate. These can be different strategies to earn more money, save energy or sabotage the labour process. The study shows the connection between games and the formation of consent and resistance among the couriers. The analysis differentiates between the games of making do and making out. Games of making do usually bring about consent, as they stay within the boundaries set by the management. In contrast, making out goes against managerial interest and gives agency to the couriers, thus it has the potential to foster resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Mülkiye Dergisi is the property of Mulkiye Dergisi and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article sheds new light on Karl Marx's theoretical legacy to promote educational philosophy and theory in science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) education. Accordingly, this article selects Marxian thought as an exemplar case to elaborate critical pedagogy and aesthetics and culminate with an overview of the Marxian approach to the theoretical underpinnings of STEAM education. Hence, the article critically reviews Marx's original works and earlier Marxian scholars' contributions to extending critical pedagogy and its applications to the STEAM paradigm and informational and communication technology (ICT) development. This article critiques notable structural problems of STEAM education that produce power differentials such as educational gaps and digital divides in the current age of digital capitalism. Given the context, this article refines art and communication theories through the lens of his biography and writings. Additionally, this article incorporates the Marxian viewpoints about reproduction and aesthetic literacy into STEAM education. Overall, this article reviews the theoretical legacy of Marx and his essential critical and pedagogical theory, calling on scholars to pay close attention to re-orienting STEAM pedagogy as an emerging multidisciplinary field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking the critical political economy approach, this paper continues Dallas Smythe's and Yuezhi Zhao's inquiries into technological development in contemporary China. It examines the trends and struggles of the "BAT" model—named after the three most influential Internet companies in the country, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent—in China's digital expansion, which has been intimately connected to transnational financial capitalism in the past decade. Reflecting on this expansion's all-encompassing socio-political consequences, a blind spot in the successful BAT story, the paper examines whether the BAT model is sustainable for China's social development and, if not, the opportunities and alternatives lie ahead. The paper argues, in view of BAT's financial and infrastructural turn, that how China's ICT sector could move beyond a capital-driven mode of growth and reorient technologies for public and social development is a critical epistemological question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Have digital tools and methods accelerated the rate of scholarly production over the last 20 years? If so, has this acceleration been beneficial for scholarship? This article considers examples of accelerated historical scholarship as well as calls for a "slow history." Through an analysis of the author's own experiences with the digital humanities, it examines the advantages and disadvantages of digital technologies in the field of history. It concludes that online resources and digital technologies have expanded the archive for the historian and created new ways to reach other specialists and the general public. Nevertheless, historical scholarship must still rely on carefully crafted, well-argued prose whose production cannot be accelerated by new digital technologies, although recent developments in the field of artificial intelligence may ultimately challenge this situation. In recent decades, the field (or, at times, discipline) of digital humanities (DH) has revolutionized the scholarly profession and beyond—and with good reason. Seen at times as a democratizing force, DH has led to the creation of an increasing number of open- access databases and scholarly publications, the launching of massive archival digitization initiatives, and the development of numerous digital tools that help streamline the work of the academic researcher, student, and educator. In many ways, then, its benefits are manifest. Yet, recent years have also begun to reveal numerous problems that could influence various aspects of our trade as well as what—and how—information will be available in the future. This article discusses some of the advantages and disadvantages of DH and invites the reader to reflect on what we can do to help mitigate these problems. Exciting new modes of digital scholarship have emerged in recent years, providing us with expanded windows onto the past. This process has been accelerated by somewhat democratized ways of digitizing and analyzing source material. A main issue of contemporary knowledge production using digitized sources is how power can so easily be reinscribed into access to archives. The choice to digitize collections, even the existence of collections themselves, creates a great opportunity for research but also runs the risk of reinforcing the privilege and worldviews that have shaped and continue to shape the very processes of digitization and digitalization. Drawing on examples of Western and non-Western digital scholarship, this article argues that, although the digital facilitates greater public knowledge of collections, when it comes to decolonizing our research subjects, it also introduces significant layers of complexity. This article advances an analysis of the development and state of critical digital humanities. It posits two modalities for this approach to digital humanities (DH). The first is a modality of inward-looking, functional self-critique that comprises a rethinking of computational genesis stories, logics and methods, institutions and infrastructures, and digital capitalism, and the second is an outward-looking critique best understood as a form of situated sociopolitical engagement that embraces epistemic and social justice projects that are decolonial, anti-racist, inclusive, collaborative, and multilingual. Through these analyses, the article offers a vision of critical digital humanities in its mission to critique the ideologies, social inequities, and epistemological hierarchies that are built into technological products and computational logics and that are concomitantly fostered by knowledge- creation industries of universities, corporations, governments, and the GLAM[R] sector. In this way, the article shows how critical digital humanities helps us to envision the role that DH can play in processes of recovery, reparations, emancipation, and community-building. Drawing upon over 20 years as Editor-in-Chief of H-France, I argue that the scholarly profession, established in Cold War era, pre-digital institutions, has only begun to adapt to the transformations introduced by the global digital humanities. A generational shift is currently underway as younger scholars more natively adept with digital technologies use their skills and forms of new media to press for changes in hiring and tenure practices, to demand greater progress on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) issues, and to insist that the academy confront the collapse of academic positions in the humanities and provide training for and recognition of alternative career paths. I call upon professional organizations to undertake difficult conversations and take leadership in reshaping professional organizations for a post–Cold War, digital age, especially in terms of funding priorities. Scholarly organizations will best gain influence through collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Startup entrepreneurship, understood as innovative venture creation and development, has gained a strong momentum under current capitalism, and startup cultures are being developed all over the globe. In this article, I examine startup culture as a global form and investigate the relationship between Silicon Valley – often seen as the cradle of current technology and startup entrepreneurship – and local manifestations of startup culture. I argue that Silicon Valley is an ambivalent, emblematic schema for the global construction of startup cultures. Therefore, I draw attention to the shared features of startup cultures by conceptualizing the notion in a threefold manner. Firstly, I conceive startup culture as a form of governance, which I dub startup entrepreneurialism. Secondly, I discuss startup culture as the cultural circuit of digital capitalism. Thirdly, I explore startup culture as a distinct form of economic activity that is characterized by a symbiosis between venture capital and growth companies. Drawing together, I find that startup cultures are best understood as an instantiation of a privileged form of contemporary capitalist production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The era of digital capitalism poses conundrums for communication for development and social change scholarship and practice. On one hand, mainstream social media platforms are an increasingly ubiquitous element of the everyday media practices of growing portions of the global population. On the other, the profit-driven architectures can make these hostile spaces for progressive social change dialogues. While a burgeoning literature exists on the uses of social media as part of hashtag-activism and social movements, much less critical consideration has been given to NGOs’ and civil society organizations’ uses of capitalist-driven social media platforms in their development and social change efforts, and the challenges and compromises they navigate in this, consciously or not. This paper argues that meaningful uses of social media platforms for social change requires cultivating a hacker mindset in order to find tactics to subvert, resist, and appropriate platform logics, combined with an ecological sensibility to understanding media and communication. This paper analyzes how metaphors, specifically of a recipe, can offer a productive, praxis-oriented framework for fostering these sensibilities. The paper draws on insights from workshops with IT for Change, a civil society organization in India, which is both a leader in critiquing the political and economic power of Big Tech especially in the Global South, and beginning to use Instagram for its work on adolescent empowerment.

This paper focuses on analyzing and studying digital capitalism using a textual analysis model in the context of Marxist political economy. The magnitude of the angle between text vectors can be used to measure the similarity between digital capitalism and political economy. An iterative computational approach is employed to address the issue of overfitting in text. Constructing a BERT model involves formulating a self-attentive mechanism and setting up an embedding layer. The direction of digital capitalism’s ideology in the political economy context is examined about its characteristics. The results show that digital labor is more secretive regarding office location than traditional labor, with a secrecy rate of 60%. Unpaidness, large quantity, and potential value dominate data characteristics, with 90% unpaid data.

The term “digital ecosystem” has become ubiquitous through a seemingly endless stream of scholarship, punditry and hyperbole around digitalization, to the point that the metaphor is becoming dead. Considering “ecosystem” as a traveling concept straddling natural, social and technical systems, this article traces the extension of “digital ecosystem,” along with the adjacent “business ecosystem” and “entrepreneurial ecosystem,” in the fields of computer science, economy, governance and environmental policy. The origins of the concept as a form of circuitry applied to nature are outlined as a background against which to trace its role as a socio-technical metaphor for digital capitalism. Since the 1990s, various formulations of “ecosystem” have offered a naturalistic interpretation to phenomena ranging from economic interactions to digital infrastructure and the urban everyday. I conclude that by representing the internet and the market as complex, self-organizing processes, the metaphor prioritizes the imperative of adapting to—and downplays the possibility of challenging—our erratic digital capitalism. The article contributes by illuminating the ideological work of naturalistic models in the digital political economy. Evidence on using digital ecosystems in environmental policy is still emerging but points to a form of legitimacy exchange that reduces environmental problems to technical issues.

At the end of his life, Stuart Hall called for the reengagement of Cultural Studies and Marxism. This paper contributes to this task. It analyses Stuart Hall's works on communication and the media. The goal of the paper is to read Stuart Hall in a manner that can inform the renewal of Marxist Humanism and the development of a Marxist-Humanist theory of communication. This involves reconstructing elements of Hall's approach, criticising certain aspects of his work, and through this engagement developing new theory elements. The article's analysis of Stuart Hall's theory of communication and the media is conducted in four steps. First, the paper reengages and re-evaluates what Hall called the two paradigms of Cultural Studies: Structuralism and "Culturalism"/Humanism. It discusses the role of human agency in society. Second, the paper engages with Hall's and Althusser's notions of articulation and sets the notion of articulation in relation to the concept of communication. Third, it discusses the relationship between communication and work in the context of Hall's works. Fourth, the article revisits and engages with Hall's encoding/decoding-model in the context of digitalisation. This paper grounds a dialectical concept of communication that is based on the dialectic of articulating and articulatedness, the dialectic of work and communication, as well as the dialectic of communication in the public sphere and society's power forcefields. It shows how a critical, dialectical theory of communication benefits from engagement with Stuart Hall's works. The present work argues with, for, against, and beyond Stuart Hall in order or productively draw on ideas that emerge from this engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can board games be part of challenging the dangerous tide of reactionary cultural politics presently washing over the United States and many other countries? The authors frame this threat to progressive social movements and democracy as entangled with a cultural politics of reenchantment. Thanks in part to the rise of ubiquitous digital media, capitalism is gamified as never before, yet most people feel trapped in an unwinnable game. Here, a gamified reactionary cultural politics easily takes hold, and the authors turn to the example of the QAnon conspiracy fantasy as a "dangerous game" of creative collective fabulation. They explore how critical scholars and activists might develop forms of "enchanted inquiry" that seek to take seriously the power of games and enchantment. And they share their experience designing Clue‐Anon, a board game for three to four players that aims to let players explore why conspiracy theories are so much fun... and so dangerous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cryptocurrencies have fuelled an ideological bifurcation between utopian imaginaries of borderless individual economic sovereignty and egalitarianism among libertarian sympathizers since Hayek and more recent dystopian admonitions against financial disruption and inequality by state actors. Providing a state-of-the-art sociological account of this debate, this article conducts the first empirical study on the links between cryptocurrency adoption, individual economic sovereignty and wealth inequality using a novel 2020 cross-societal database of the population-level adoption of the six largest cryptocurrencies. Analyses show that cryptocurrency adoption neither ameliorates nor worsens wealth inequality, but that the geographical expansion of cryptocurrencies is dependent on the very political economic conditions and state permissions that their libertarian enthusiasts spurn. This article concludes by invigorating a programmatic call and agenda for the empirical, sociological study of cryptocurrencies and the methodological designs required to sustain it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses the author's play of Pokémon GO while conducting dissertation research on mobilities and masculinities in postwar Jaffna, Sri Lanka as a starting point for a wider consideration of ludic geographies and their increasing entanglement with digital capitalism. While new advancements in mobile and digital technologies present exciting new possibilities for occupying and moving through public spaces, we should not forget that the driving force of capitalism is to produce profits nor should we ignore the continuing social inequalities of race, gender, and caste, which also impact access to the possibilities these new technological developments represent.

This paper examines a new form of philanthropic fundraising as pioneered by the YouTuber MrBeast. We argue that MrBeast, by harnessing the advertising revenue sharing model of YouTube's Partner Program, has created an innovative model of philanthropic giving funded by mobilising what Marxist communication theorists refer to as the 'audience' or 'prosumer commodity'. Through this method, MrBeast has been able to use the algorithmically managed, revenue sharing model of YouTube, and the spectacle of philanthropy, to draw in ever larger audiences and thus create large amounts of advertising and sponsorship revenue to fund philanthropic activities. This revenue in turn funds even larger philanthropic acts in subsequent videos, drawing more audiences and revenue. Unlike previous media-based fundraising, which would ask audience members to contribute their own money or time to a cause, MrBeast positions his audiences as a knowing audience commodity whose viewership funds direct contributions of other peop le's money to good causes, merely by watching and being entertained. We assess the implications of this both for current debates around the 'work', labour', and 'exploitation' of audience and prosumer commodities, and their monetisation for philanthropic giving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The platform is emerging as a key organizational form and operational logic of contemporary capitalism, intimately tied to financialization and assetization. However, discussions to date have focused on platforms and platformization in the context of the private, corporate, and technology sectors. In this paper, we develop an analysis of how platformization operates in the context of public policy. Using the UK's National Health Service as a case study, we explore how platformization is altering the form and function of the state. The platformization of the NHS has its roots in the UK government's strategic interest in the development of the bioeconomy. This led to the creation of a research infrastructure within the health service. Subsequently, the NHS has leveraged various assets into a range of data- and technology-focused initiatives. We argue that platformization has been a major form of neoliberalization within the NHS. The paper concludes with a discussion of what an analysis of public platformization can teach us about ongoing transformations of the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]