Ngai Keung Chan
Biographic Data
| ID | 316612 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ngai Keung Chan |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ngai Keung |
| FAMILY NAME | Chan |
| SIGNATURE | CHAN N K |
| AFFILIATIONS | Chinese University of Hong Kong |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5848-3098 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 118 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 28 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Imagining and Enacting Futures: The Anticipatory Politics of Algorithmic Governance
This review article synthesizes social science scholarship on algorithmic governance through the lens of anticipation. Building on research in the sociology of expectations, Science and Technology Studies, and futures studies, we lean on the concept of anticipatory assemblages to conceptualize algorithmic governance as a politics of the future. Constituted through representational and socio‐material practices, algorithmic governance provisionally…
Demystifying big data in China: Infrastructure, labour and social change
To date, much of the discussion of big data in China remains caught between fears of authoritarian threats and dreams of developmental alternatives. Such mythifications reduce China's techno-development to a monolithic, state-led master plan, and conceal the labour, frictions and relations of power these data infrastructures depend on. Drawing on infrastructure studies, this Special Theme approaches data infrastructures as relational, contingent …
Governing by Ambiguity: Sociotechnical Imaginaries of Platforms in China
Besides clear policy directives, the unresolved and open‐ended elements in policy communication also create discursive politics. This article argues that ambiguity in policy communication reflects the state's exercise of power within a fractured sociocultural landscape. Examining state policies around the platform economy, we demonstrate how China's techno‐politics are constructed upon visions of the future and their ambiguous articulations—ambig…
Assembling platform governance as private ordering in the age of generative AI: Platform interdependence in policy evolution
The rise of generative AI, such as ChatGPT, has transformed platform governance, affecting not only their own frameworks but also those of interconnected platforms like Twitter/X, TikTok, and Facebook. This study explores the evolution, interdependence, and assembling of platform governance through a comparative analysis of policy documents, including Community Guidelines, Privacy Policies, and Terms of Service. By examining OpenAI’s policies alo…
Data, human subjects, and research ethics in transformative contexts
Contesting data power at the margins: Contentious data imaginaries and social movement mobilization
This article highlights the role of data imaginaries in shaping narratives about social movement mobilization. Weaving together critical data studies and social movement studies, it examines how activists imagine, negotiate, and resist the politics of datafication, which may further construct collective understandings of political opportunity structures and shape their repertoires of action. Empirically, we analyzed discussions about digital data…
Communicating About and Through Platform Values: Legitimizing Public Expression Regulation on X and Weibo 2007–2024
In this article, we argue that social media platforms communicate their governance strategies both about and through values across diverse sites of communication— about values in presenting normative ideals and through values to justify their content moderation practices. Moreover, we highlight the significance of analyzing platform values across temporal and regional contexts, especially beyond the Western sphere. Focusing on X and Weibo, we emp…
Dynamics of Platform Architecture and Labor Unrest: Mobilizing and Contesting Solidarity in the 2021-2022 Foodpanda Delivery Rider Strikes in Hong Kong
Weaving together relational approaches to collective action as well as the concepts of platform architecture and social media affordances, this qualitative study examines the manifestation and contestation of worker solidarity in the platform-mediated gig economy. Based on semi-structured interviews with 30 participants-including riders and labor rights group members involved in the 2021-2022 Foodpanda delivery rider strikes-this article offers a…
State-led embeddedness: Analyzing the discursive construction of platforms and social good in Beijing, Hangzhou, Shanghai, and Shenzhen
Drawing on Polanyi’s concept of embeddedness, this article introduces the concept of “state-led embeddedness” to theorize non-competitive and subordinating state-platform relations in China. Under state-led embeddedness, platforms are not conceived first and foremost as private economic actors but as instruments for providing social good and resolving social problems. This article presents a qualitative thematic analysis of the official discourse…
Human-automated collectives: Automating communication for social movement mobilization
Central to algorithmically mediated activism is the politics of algorithmic (in)visibility. Activists must consider how they can increase the visibility of their claims. Bringing together critical data studies and social movement studies, this study introduces the concept of human-automated collectives to capture how activists strategically make collective claims about and through algorithms and mobilize algorithmic tactics on social media. Using…
Datafication and implicated networks of demobilization: Social Movement Demobilization in Datafied Societies
An increasing number of social movements have taken the form of connective action achieved through datafication structures in the absence of central coordinating social movement organizations. Social movement demobilization in digitally-mediated connective action remains a relatively understudied area. Drawing together social movement studies and communication studies, we introduce the theoretical framework of ‘implicated networks of demobilizati…
Communication about sensors and communication through sensors: Localizing the Internet of Things in rural communities
Internet of Things (IoT) sensor networks are an emerging technology at the center of the datafication and optimization of far-reaching environmental infrastructures—from “smart cities” to workplace efficiencies. However, this low-power, low-cost technology is also well suited to local deployments in rural communities, which are often overlooked by digital development initiatives. Therefore, we used a social construction of technology approach to …
Shifting platform values in community guidelines: Examining the evolution of TikTok’s governance frameworks
Social media can establish governance frameworks for their users through public-facing documents and policies. Such governance frameworks are value-laden and embody platform values. As a newly dominant platform in the United States, TikTok serves as an exemplary medium to study the evolution of platform values. Based on the iterations of TikTok’s Community Guidelines from 2018 to 2022 ( N = 25,641), we conducted longitudinal lexical analyses to d…
Community Internet of Things as Mobile Infrastructure: Methodological Challenges and Opportunities
From smart devices to homes to cities, Internet of Things (IoT) technologies have become embedded within everyday objects on a global scale. We understand IoT technologies as a form of infrastructure that bridges the gaps between offline spaces and online networks as they track, transmit, and construct digital data from and of the physical world. We examine the social construction of IoT network technologies through their technological design and…
The politics of platform power in surveillance capitalism: A comparative case study of ride-hailing platforms in China and the United States
This article uses a comparative case study of two ride-hailing platforms—DiDi Chuxing in China and Uber in the United States—to explore the comparative politics of platform power in surveillance capitalism. Surveillance capitalism is an emerging economic system that translates human experiences into surveillance assets for behavioral predictions and modifications. Through this comparative study, we demonstrate how DiDi and Uber articulate their o…
Gamification and work games: Examining consent and resistance among Uber drivers
In 2018, Uber released an overhauled mobile application for its independent contractor workforce, who had become increasingly dissatisfied by the lack of autonomy, transparency, and flexibility while working on the platform. Based on the gamification of work, the application linked individualized rewards with Uber’s need to maintain a frictionless marketplace. However, as recent studies of gig economy have revealed, workers resist gamified algori…
Algorithmic precarity and metric power: Managing the affective measures and customers in the gig economy
Drawing on a qualitative, multi-case study of three kinds of geographically tethered gig work-ride-hailing, delivery, and domestic services platforms-in the United States, I examine how workers anticipate the influences of metrics, live with metrics, and cope with algorithmic precarity. Data for this project include in-depth interviews with 50 gig workers about their efforts to interpret and manage metrics as part of their everyday work practices…
Towards a Multi-Dimensional Theory of Temporal Control in the Gig Economy
This paper proposes a multi-dimensional theory of temporal control in the gig economy. Specifically, we focus on different types of platform-based temporal control and their respective effects on (a) workers’ autonomy, (b) value of free time, and (c) their social and political connectedness. Theoretically, we draw on the sociology of time and normative time literature in political theory. Empirically, the framework is informed by the synthesis of…
Guerilla capitalism and the platform economy: Governing Uber in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong
Platforms play an increasingly important role in organizing our economic and political systems globally. Drawing on the varieties of capitalism (VoC) approach and the notion of regulatory entrepreneurship, this article introduces the concept of guerilla capitalism to describe an emerging politically led and economic operative logic of platforms: their profitability relies on the active exploitation of legal gray zones and their ability to harness…
Legal and Ethical Perspectives on (Big) Data, Platforms, Ai and Algorithms
AoIR and the Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society (JICES) share common interests in critical reflection on the ethical and social dimensions of the internet and internet-facilitated communication, and have begun a collaboration aimed at collecting ethically-focused AoIR conference submissions for presentation and critique at AoIR, with a view towards subsequent publication in a special issue of JICES. This panel collects fo…
Guerilla Capitalism and the Platform Economy: Governing Uber in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong
Platform firms, such as Uber and Airbnb, are emerging economic actors that aim at re-organizing the economic sectors they enter through challenging existing regulatory frameworks politically. While most studies focus on how platform firms’ political playbooks operate in European and North American democratic contexts, we know less about the regulatory and contestatory stories in non-Western and non-democratic contexts. This study aims to fill thi…
Anticipatory Futures: Framing the Socio-technical Visions of Online Ratings and Reviews in Wired
Drawing insights from the sociology of expectations and recent studies on future visions in communication studies, this article traces and analyzes how Wired—a technology news provider and socio-technical vanguard whose vision is to uncover technological innovations—anticipated socio-technical visions of online ratings and reviews over two decades (1998–2018). The qualitative textual analysis of Wired’s coverage revealed two socio-technical visio…
The Making of Contentious Political Space: The Transformation of Hong Kong’s Victoria Park
Space plays a vital role in structuring and forming social movements into particular shapes—especially via its physical settings, the representation constructed through dominant and alternative discourses, and protesters’ spatial practices therein. Geographers and urban theorists have long argued that public space is of paramount significance to collective actions. Yet we know less about how a sustainable, manageable, and iconic public space for …
The Rating Game: The Discipline of Uber’s User-Generated Ratings
On-demand labor platforms are built around user-generated rating systems that entail consumers’ monitoring of workers as a tool for algorithmic labor management. The user-generated ratings can directly determine workers’ employability. Workers are thus under pressure to score well, though they may lack knowledge about the performance metrics. Using in-depth interviews with Uber drivers, this article examines how Uber’s rating system as an engine …
Becoming an expert in driving for Uber”: Uber driver/bloggers’ performance of expertise and self-presentation on YouTube
There is a new cast of self-proclaimed experts offering “how-to-succeed” resources aimed at coaching and inspiring gig workers. The emergence of such resources raises questions about the performance of expertise regarding the workings of algorithmic labor platforms. This article examines how Uber driver/bloggers—workers who are driving for Uber, while also creating Uber-related video content—perform expertise in driving for Uber on YouTube. I con…
You never really know who’s looking”: Imagined surveillance across social media platforms
Social media users are routinely counseled to cultivate their online personae with acumen and diligence. But universal prescriptions for impression management may prove for vexing for college students, who confront oft-conflicting codes of normative self-presentation in digital contexts. Against this backdrop, our research sought to examine the online self-presentation activities of emerging adults (18–24) across an expansive social media ecology…
Gamification and work games: Examining consent and resistance among Uber drivers
In 2018, Uber released an overhauled mobile application for its independent contractor workforce, who had become increasingly dissatisfied by the lack of autonomy, transparency, and flexibility while working on the platform. Based on the gamification of work, the application linked individualized rewards with Uber’s need to maintain a frictionless marketplace. However, as recent studies of gig economy have revealed, workers resist gamified algori…
The Rating Game: The Discipline of Uber’s User-Generated Ratings
On-demand labor platforms are built around user-generated rating systems that entail consumers’ monitoring of workers as a tool for algorithmic labor management. The user-generated ratings can directly determine workers’ employability. Workers are thus under pressure to score well, though they may lack knowledge about the performance metrics. Using in-depth interviews with Uber drivers, this article examines how Uber’s rating system as an engine …
Becoming an expert in driving for Uber”: Uber driver/bloggers’ performance of expertise and self-presentation on YouTube
There is a new cast of self-proclaimed experts offering “how-to-succeed” resources aimed at coaching and inspiring gig workers. The emergence of such resources raises questions about the performance of expertise regarding the workings of algorithmic labor platforms. This article examines how Uber driver/bloggers—workers who are driving for Uber, while also creating Uber-related video content—perform expertise in driving for Uber on YouTube. I con…
Shifting platform values in community guidelines: Examining the evolution of TikTok’s governance frameworks
Social media can establish governance frameworks for their users through public-facing documents and policies. Such governance frameworks are value-laden and embody platform values. As a newly dominant platform in the United States, TikTok serves as an exemplary medium to study the evolution of platform values. Based on the iterations of TikTok’s Community Guidelines from 2018 to 2022 ( N = 25,641), we conducted longitudinal lexical analyses to d…
Algorithmic precarity and metric power: Managing the affective measures and customers in the gig economy
Drawing on a qualitative, multi-case study of three kinds of geographically tethered gig work-ride-hailing, delivery, and domestic services platforms-in the United States, I examine how workers anticipate the influences of metrics, live with metrics, and cope with algorithmic precarity. Data for this project include in-depth interviews with 50 gig workers about their efforts to interpret and manage metrics as part of their everyday work practices…
Place-Making and Communication Practice: Everyday Precarity in a Night Market in Hong Kong
Drawing insights from the literature around cultural discourse theory, urban informality, and precarity, this article explores how a group of unlicensed hawkers in Hong Kong engage in a place-making process of precarity. Existing research on precarity has examined the structural change in the labor market in advanced economies and labor unions’ collective resistance. Few empirical studies, however, have explicated how informal workers experience …
Datafication and implicated networks of demobilization: Social Movement Demobilization in Datafied Societies
An increasing number of social movements have taken the form of connective action achieved through datafication structures in the absence of central coordinating social movement organizations. Social movement demobilization in digitally-mediated connective action remains a relatively understudied area. Drawing together social movement studies and communication studies, we introduce the theoretical framework of ‘implicated networks of demobilizati…
The Making of Contentious Political Space: The Transformation of Hong Kong’s Victoria Park
Space plays a vital role in structuring and forming social movements into particular shapes—especially via its physical settings, the representation constructed through dominant and alternative discourses, and protesters’ spatial practices therein. Geographers and urban theorists have long argued that public space is of paramount significance to collective actions. Yet we know less about how a sustainable, manageable, and iconic public space for …
Dynamics of Platform Architecture and Labor Unrest: Mobilizing and Contesting Solidarity in the 2021-2022 Foodpanda Delivery Rider Strikes in Hong Kong
Weaving together relational approaches to collective action as well as the concepts of platform architecture and social media affordances, this qualitative study examines the manifestation and contestation of worker solidarity in the platform-mediated gig economy. Based on semi-structured interviews with 30 participants-including riders and labor rights group members involved in the 2021-2022 Foodpanda delivery rider strikes-this article offers a…
Human-automated collectives: Automating communication for social movement mobilization
Central to algorithmically mediated activism is the politics of algorithmic (in)visibility. Activists must consider how they can increase the visibility of their claims. Bringing together critical data studies and social movement studies, this study introduces the concept of human-automated collectives to capture how activists strategically make collective claims about and through algorithms and mobilize algorithmic tactics on social media. Using…
Place-Making and Communication Practice: Everyday Precarity in a Night Market in Hong Kong
Drawing insights from the literature around cultural discourse theory, urban informality, and precarity, this article explores how a group of unlicensed hawkers in Hong Kong engage in a place-making process of precarity. Existing research on precarity has examined the structural change in the labor market in advanced economies and labor unions’ collective resistance. Few empirical studies, however, have explicated how informal workers experience …
Mediatization of Social Space and the Case of Uber Drivers
Digital data have become a form of “objectivation”, which affect how we construct social knowledge and organize social space (Couldry & Hepp, 2017). The workplace is one sphere that is increasingly datafied. This study explores how Uber drivers, a form of digitally-enabled service workers, contribute to the normalization of the social production of space through their interpretative practices of digital data in an online forum. Drawing on Uber’s …
You never really know who’s looking”: Imagined surveillance across social media platforms
Social media users are routinely counseled to cultivate their online personae with acumen and diligence. But universal prescriptions for impression management may prove for vexing for college students, who confront oft-conflicting codes of normative self-presentation in digital contexts. Against this backdrop, our research sought to examine the online self-presentation activities of emerging adults (18–24) across an expansive social media ecology…
The Rating Game: The Discipline of Uber’s User-Generated Ratings
On-demand labor platforms are built around user-generated rating systems that entail consumers’ monitoring of workers as a tool for algorithmic labor management. The user-generated ratings can directly determine workers’ employability. Workers are thus under pressure to score well, though they may lack knowledge about the performance metrics. Using in-depth interviews with Uber drivers, this article examines how Uber’s rating system as an engine …
Becoming an expert in driving for Uber”: Uber driver/bloggers’ performance of expertise and self-presentation on YouTube
There is a new cast of self-proclaimed experts offering “how-to-succeed” resources aimed at coaching and inspiring gig workers. The emergence of such resources raises questions about the performance of expertise regarding the workings of algorithmic labor platforms. This article examines how Uber driver/bloggers—workers who are driving for Uber, while also creating Uber-related video content—perform expertise in driving for Uber on YouTube. I con…
Legal and Ethical Perspectives on (Big) Data, Platforms, Ai and Algorithms
AoIR and the Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society (JICES) share common interests in critical reflection on the ethical and social dimensions of the internet and internet-facilitated communication, and have begun a collaboration aimed at collecting ethically-focused AoIR conference submissions for presentation and critique at AoIR, with a view towards subsequent publication in a special issue of JICES. This panel collects fo…
Guerilla Capitalism and the Platform Economy: Governing Uber in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong
Platform firms, such as Uber and Airbnb, are emerging economic actors that aim at re-organizing the economic sectors they enter through challenging existing regulatory frameworks politically. While most studies focus on how platform firms’ political playbooks operate in European and North American democratic contexts, we know less about the regulatory and contestatory stories in non-Western and non-democratic contexts. This study aims to fill thi…
Anticipatory Futures: Framing the Socio-technical Visions of Online Ratings and Reviews in Wired
Drawing insights from the sociology of expectations and recent studies on future visions in communication studies, this article traces and analyzes how Wired—a technology news provider and socio-technical vanguard whose vision is to uncover technological innovations—anticipated socio-technical visions of online ratings and reviews over two decades (1998–2018). The qualitative textual analysis of Wired’s coverage revealed two socio-technical visio…
The Making of Contentious Political Space: The Transformation of Hong Kong’s Victoria Park
Space plays a vital role in structuring and forming social movements into particular shapes—especially via its physical settings, the representation constructed through dominant and alternative discourses, and protesters’ spatial practices therein. Geographers and urban theorists have long argued that public space is of paramount significance to collective actions. Yet we know less about how a sustainable, manageable, and iconic public space for …
Towards a Multi-Dimensional Theory of Temporal Control in the Gig Economy
This paper proposes a multi-dimensional theory of temporal control in the gig economy. Specifically, we focus on different types of platform-based temporal control and their respective effects on (a) workers’ autonomy, (b) value of free time, and (c) their social and political connectedness. Theoretically, we draw on the sociology of time and normative time literature in political theory. Empirically, the framework is informed by the synthesis of…
Guerilla capitalism and the platform economy: Governing Uber in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong
Platforms play an increasingly important role in organizing our economic and political systems globally. Drawing on the varieties of capitalism (VoC) approach and the notion of regulatory entrepreneurship, this article introduces the concept of guerilla capitalism to describe an emerging politically led and economic operative logic of platforms: their profitability relies on the active exploitation of legal gray zones and their ability to harness…
Community Internet of Things as Mobile Infrastructure: Methodological Challenges and Opportunities
From smart devices to homes to cities, Internet of Things (IoT) technologies have become embedded within everyday objects on a global scale. We understand IoT technologies as a form of infrastructure that bridges the gaps between offline spaces and online networks as they track, transmit, and construct digital data from and of the physical world. We examine the social construction of IoT network technologies through their technological design and…
The politics of platform power in surveillance capitalism: A comparative case study of ride-hailing platforms in China and the United States
This article uses a comparative case study of two ride-hailing platforms—DiDi Chuxing in China and Uber in the United States—to explore the comparative politics of platform power in surveillance capitalism. Surveillance capitalism is an emerging economic system that translates human experiences into surveillance assets for behavioral predictions and modifications. Through this comparative study, we demonstrate how DiDi and Uber articulate their o…
Gamification and work games: Examining consent and resistance among Uber drivers
In 2018, Uber released an overhauled mobile application for its independent contractor workforce, who had become increasingly dissatisfied by the lack of autonomy, transparency, and flexibility while working on the platform. Based on the gamification of work, the application linked individualized rewards with Uber’s need to maintain a frictionless marketplace. However, as recent studies of gig economy have revealed, workers resist gamified algori…
Algorithmic precarity and metric power: Managing the affective measures and customers in the gig economy
Drawing on a qualitative, multi-case study of three kinds of geographically tethered gig work-ride-hailing, delivery, and domestic services platforms-in the United States, I examine how workers anticipate the influences of metrics, live with metrics, and cope with algorithmic precarity. Data for this project include in-depth interviews with 50 gig workers about their efforts to interpret and manage metrics as part of their everyday work practices…
Communication about sensors and communication through sensors: Localizing the Internet of Things in rural communities
Internet of Things (IoT) sensor networks are an emerging technology at the center of the datafication and optimization of far-reaching environmental infrastructures—from “smart cities” to workplace efficiencies. However, this low-power, low-cost technology is also well suited to local deployments in rural communities, which are often overlooked by digital development initiatives. Therefore, we used a social construction of technology approach to …
Shifting platform values in community guidelines: Examining the evolution of TikTok’s governance frameworks
Social media can establish governance frameworks for their users through public-facing documents and policies. Such governance frameworks are value-laden and embody platform values. As a newly dominant platform in the United States, TikTok serves as an exemplary medium to study the evolution of platform values. Based on the iterations of TikTok’s Community Guidelines from 2018 to 2022 ( N = 25,641), we conducted longitudinal lexical analyses to d…
State-led embeddedness: Analyzing the discursive construction of platforms and social good in Beijing, Hangzhou, Shanghai, and Shenzhen
Drawing on Polanyi’s concept of embeddedness, this article introduces the concept of “state-led embeddedness” to theorize non-competitive and subordinating state-platform relations in China. Under state-led embeddedness, platforms are not conceived first and foremost as private economic actors but as instruments for providing social good and resolving social problems. This article presents a qualitative thematic analysis of the official discourse…
Human-automated collectives: Automating communication for social movement mobilization
Central to algorithmically mediated activism is the politics of algorithmic (in)visibility. Activists must consider how they can increase the visibility of their claims. Bringing together critical data studies and social movement studies, this study introduces the concept of human-automated collectives to capture how activists strategically make collective claims about and through algorithms and mobilize algorithmic tactics on social media. Using…
Datafication and implicated networks of demobilization: Social Movement Demobilization in Datafied Societies
An increasing number of social movements have taken the form of connective action achieved through datafication structures in the absence of central coordinating social movement organizations. Social movement demobilization in digitally-mediated connective action remains a relatively understudied area. Drawing together social movement studies and communication studies, we introduce the theoretical framework of ‘implicated networks of demobilizati…
Contesting data power at the margins: Contentious data imaginaries and social movement mobilization
This article highlights the role of data imaginaries in shaping narratives about social movement mobilization. Weaving together critical data studies and social movement studies, it examines how activists imagine, negotiate, and resist the politics of datafication, which may further construct collective understandings of political opportunity structures and shape their repertoires of action. Empirically, we analyzed discussions about digital data…
Communicating About and Through Platform Values: Legitimizing Public Expression Regulation on X and Weibo 2007–2024
In this article, we argue that social media platforms communicate their governance strategies both about and through values across diverse sites of communication— about values in presenting normative ideals and through values to justify their content moderation practices. Moreover, we highlight the significance of analyzing platform values across temporal and regional contexts, especially beyond the Western sphere. Focusing on X and Weibo, we emp…
Dynamics of Platform Architecture and Labor Unrest: Mobilizing and Contesting Solidarity in the 2021-2022 Foodpanda Delivery Rider Strikes in Hong Kong
Weaving together relational approaches to collective action as well as the concepts of platform architecture and social media affordances, this qualitative study examines the manifestation and contestation of worker solidarity in the platform-mediated gig economy. Based on semi-structured interviews with 30 participants-including riders and labor rights group members involved in the 2021-2022 Foodpanda delivery rider strikes-this article offers a…
Imagining and Enacting Futures: The Anticipatory Politics of Algorithmic Governance
This review article synthesizes social science scholarship on algorithmic governance through the lens of anticipation. Building on research in the sociology of expectations, Science and Technology Studies, and futures studies, we lean on the concept of anticipatory assemblages to conceptualize algorithmic governance as a politics of the future. Constituted through representational and socio‐material practices, algorithmic governance provisionally…
Demystifying big data in China: Infrastructure, labour and social change
To date, much of the discussion of big data in China remains caught between fears of authoritarian threats and dreams of developmental alternatives. Such mythifications reduce China's techno-development to a monolithic, state-led master plan, and conceal the labour, frictions and relations of power these data infrastructures depend on. Drawing on infrastructure studies, this Special Theme approaches data infrastructures as relational, contingent …
Political science (21 works) · Sociology (21 works) · Digital Economy and Work Transformation (15 works) · Computer Science (14 works) · Law (10 works) · Politics (10 works) · Public relations (10 works) · Sharing Economy and Platforms (9 works) · Business (8 works) · Corporate governance (7 works)