Platformization's Elsewheres

Japanese Convenience Stores and the Platform Economy

Bibliographic Data

ID2414932
AuthorsM Steinberg (0000-0002-6560-2980, Concordia University, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume11
Issue1
Publication date2025-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial Media + Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2056-3051 • E-ISSN: 2056-3051
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/20563051251328096
OpenAlexW4408877544
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited32

Platformization's elsewheres refers to other locations and places where platformization as a process takes place. This article focuses on the franchised Japanese convenience store as a particularly salient site from which to understand platformization in Japan. It is also crucial for thinking the platform economy historically and regionally within Asia where Japanese-style convenience stores abound, as well as globally given how Japan's convenience stores were a model of the internet-connected mobile phone that in turn becomes a model for iPhone and Android smartphones. Focusing on the convenience store and its Japanese trajectory of development allows us to see the process of platformization of the franchised, networked, logistically-enabled convenience store from the 1970s to the present. The convenience store is, I argue, a crucial, if overlooked, site for platformization in Asia and beyond. It is also a key site for rethinking the most central of feelings to the platform economy: convenience

Business · Commerce · Sharing economy · World Wide Web · Computer Science · Digital Economy and Work Transformation · Sharing Economy and Platforms

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Open DOIOpen Access