This project attempts to understand how digital platforms, especially messaging apps, function as unavoidable infrastructure in our social lives and become new modes of national governance. It focuses on messaging apps that are based in East Asia – WeChat from China and Kakaotalk from South Korea – and asks questions about how they have become infrastructures by combining various features other than simple messaging. It also argues for a comparative and contextualized perspective to platform studies that has previously focused heavily on the global expansion of “Western-based” apps.

In collaboration with CEAPS

"Global Platforms and Infrastructures," April 30, 2021

Digital platforms are so pervasive in our everyday life to the point that it becomes no longer meaningful to separate our lives from them. How do they shape our everyday life, cultural industry, labor relations, and identity? How do digital platforms operate their power—economically, materially, and politically? In this Webinar, we invite three experts in Media and Communications Studies to discuss the global impacts of digital platforms and infrastructures.

Zoom Recording: