Platform Economies
Research Network

Conference! Digital Platform Economies - Value from Data? April 25-26, 2024

PERN X ADM+S | December 2023

On April 25 and 26, 2024, PERN and ADM+S will convene a 2-day in-person conference at The New School in NYC to showcase programmatic research on data valuation. The conference will consider the question: How do platforms produce value and monetize those value forms? Register for attendance here!


New Book! Data Enclaves by Kean Birch

Kean Birch | November 2023

Kean's new book "Data Enclaves" introduces new analytical tools comprising data assets and data rentiership, and offers an alternative way to frame personal data governance. Congratulations, Kean!


New Book! Data Money by Koray Çaliskan

Koray Çaliskan | August 2023

Koray's new book "Data Money: Inside Cryptocurrencies, Their Communities, Markets, and Blockchains" is out with Columbia University Press. Congratulations, Koray!


James Meese awarded major grant from the Australian Research Council!

James Meese | July 2023

James has been awarded an ARC Discovery Early Career Research Award (DECRA) for the project "Aligning Personalized News Recommendations with the Public Interest." The research will enhance our understanding of how to sustain the important democratic role that the institution of journalism plays in a personalized and automated environment. Congratulations, James!


Seyram Avle awarded tenure and promoted to Associate Professor of Global Digital Media!

Seyram Avle | July 2023

Seyram Avle has been awarded tenure and promoted to Associate Professor of Global Digital Media in the Department of Communication at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst! Congratulations, Seyram!


Na Fu awarded a Postdoctoral Fellowship at The Watson Institute!

Na Fu | June 2023

Na Fu, Ph.D. Candidate in Politics at NSSR and PERN member, was recently awarded a Postdoctoral Fellowship at The Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University for her research project "Knowledge, Data, and the State in the Mass Customization of China’s Shoe Production." Congratulations, Na!


PERN NYC Workshop on "Economization, Part 3"!

PERN | May 2023

On May 15, ADM+S and PERN held a workshop at The New School in NYC to discuss Michel Callon, Koray Çalışkan, and Donald MacKenzie's research program, "Economization, Part 3: A Research Programme for the Study of Platforms." Jake Goldenfein, Salomé Viljoen, and Janet Roitman provided comments. Read the ADM+S Media Release here.


Fabio Mattioli, Kean Birch, and Janet Roitman to explore Web3 value creation at ADM+S workshop

Fabio, Kean, Janet | April 2023

The workshop at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-making and Society (ADM+S) aims to explore the economies of Web3 to understand how value is produced and what counts as an asset. Very limited places are available. If interested, please write to Josiah Lulham by April 20.


Janet Roitman's Keynote Lecture "Platform economies: Beyond the North-South divide" published in Finance & Society!

Janet Roitman | January 2023

Janet's Keynote, "Platform Economies: Beyond the Global North/Global South Divide," at the 2022 Finance & Society Annual Conference, has been published in F&S.


Victoria Hattam awarded 2023-24 Leverhulme Visiting Professor Fellowship!

Victoria Hattam | January 2023

Victoria has been awarded the 2023-24 Leverhulme Visiting Professor Fellowship to the School of Sociology, Politics, and International Studies at the University of Bristol. Congratulations, Vicky!


Koray Çaliskan interviews Gillian Tett, FT editor-at-large

Koray Çaliskan | December 2022

Koray speaks with Gillian Tett about her new book, "Anthro Vision: How Anthropology Can Explain Business and Life."


'Economies of Virtue: The Circulation of ‘Ethics’ in AI' with Jake Goldenfein

Jake Goldenfein | December 2022

New open-access publication, 'Economies of Virtue: The Circulation of ‘Ethics’ in AI,' edited by Thao Phan, Jake Goldenfein, Declan Kuch, and Monique Mann published in Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam.


Koray Çaliskan's research featured in FT about FTX and the crypto sector

Koray Çaliskan | November 2022

Koray's analysis of crypto exchanges, forthcoming in NYU Press, has been featured in a Financial Times article by Gillian Tett, "How magical thinking enabled the rise of FTX — and led to its fall."


Kean Birch appointed as Director of the new Institute for Technoscience & Society!

Kean Birch | November 2022

Kean has been appointed as the inaugural Director of the new Institute for Technoscience & Society at York University. Congratulations, Kean!


New collaboration between PERN and ADM+S

PERN | November 2022

We are excited to announce a new collaboration between PERN and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-making and Society (ADM+S). With support from ADM+S, our network will launch new initiatives on digital platforms and processes of data valuation. Stay tuned!


New edited volume, "The Algorithmic Distribution of News"!

James Meese | September 2022

James Meese and Sara Bannerman's edited collection, "The Algorithmic Distribution of News: Policy Responses," has been published in the Palgrave Global Media Policy and Business. Congratulations!


Janet Roitman to give Keynote Lecture at the Finance & Society Network Annual Conference!

Janet Roitman | September 2022

Janet will give the Keynote Lecture, "Platform Economies: Beyond the Global North/Global South Divide," at the Finance & Society Network Annual Conference in London on 15 September 2022.


Angèle Christin awarded the 2022 Vivianna Zelizer Best Book Award!

Angèle Christin | August 2022

Angèle's "Metrics at Work: Journalism and the Contested Meaning of Algorithms" won the 2022 Joseph Levenson Vivianna Zelizer Best Book Award from the American Sociological Association!


Lydia Nobbs interviews Justin Joque in Public Seminar!

Lydia Nobbs | July 2022

Lydia recently interviewed Justin Joque, author of Revolutionary Mathematics: Artificial Intelligence, Statistics, and the Logic of Capitalism, for Public Seminar.


New Article from Emma Park and Kevin Donovan in Antipode!

Emma Park | March 2022

Emma and Kevin's new article, "Knowledge/Seizure: Debt and Data in Kenya’s Zero Balance Economy," examines financialization and data extraction in Kenya. Out now in Antipode!


Silvia Lindtner awarded the 2022 Joseph Levenson book prize!

Silvia Lindtner | February 2022

Silvia's "Prototype Nation: China and the Contested Promise of Innovation" won the Joseph Levenson Book Prize from the Association for Asian Studies!


Janet Roitman's seminar 'Africa Rising:' Class or Finance? for Deakin Science & Society is online!

Janet Roitman | February 2022

Janet presented her research on remittances as an asset class and High Finance in Africa at the 2022 Deakin University Science & Society Network seminar series. The research is supported by US National Science Foundation. You can view a recording of the seminar from February 3 here.


New article from Kean Birch "The Assetization of Social Life" in Bot Populi!

Kean Birch | February 2022

Kean writes that innovation and our technological futures are being driven by the assetization of everything we do freely today and many things we can’t even think of in the future. What might this mean in practice? You can read the article in Bot Populi here.


Final Salon event of the year with Angèle Christin and James Meese is archived!

PERN Salon | November 2021

This conversation with Angèle Christin and James Meese on digital media platforms and value production was live-streamed to the public on Thursday, 18 November 2021 at 6 PM EST. You can view the recording here.


Silvia Lindtner awarded the 2021 Francis L.K. Hsu Book Prize!

Silvia Lindtner | November 2021

Silvia's "Prototype Nation: China and the Contested Promise of Innovation" won the Francis L.K. Hsu Book Prize from the Society for East Asian Anthropology!


PERN's Salon event with Kean Birch is archived

PERN Salon | October 2021

This conversation with Kean Birch on technoscientific capitalism and processes of rentiership and assetization was live-streamed to the public on Thursday, 21 October 2021 at 6 PM EST. You can view the recording here.


Fabio Mattioli awarded the 2021 Ed A Hewett Book Prize!

Fabio Mattioli | October 2021

Fabio's "Dark Finance: Illiquidity and Authoritarianism at the Margins of Europe" won the 2021 Ed A Hewett Book Prize for an outstanding monograph on the political economy of Russia, Eurasia and/or Eastern Europe!


PERN's inaugural Salon event with Jenna Burrell and Marion Fourcade is archived

PERN Salon | September 2021

This conversation with Jenna Burrell and Marion Fourcade on their recent essay, “The Society of Algorithms,” was live-streamed to the public on Thursday, 16 September 2021 at 6 PM EST. You can view the recording here.


Leila Lin awarded National Science Foundation grant

Leila Lin | August 2021

Leila Lin has been awarded a National Science Foundation Grant for her research project entitled "Experiments in Pharmaceutical Pricing Reform in Sanming, China." This award is part of a collaborative grant on platform economies.


Koray Çaliskan receives the Falling Walls Science Breakthroughs 2021 Prize

Koray Çaliskan | July 2021

Koray Çaliskan has been awarded the Falling Walls Science Breakthroughs of the Year 2021 Prize in the Social Sciences and Humanities Category. His work on "Data Money" shows how cryptocurrencies monetize the right to send data privately on the public accounting ledgers of blockchains.


Silvia Lindtner awarded 2021-23 Public Intellectuals Program Fellowship

Silvia Lindtner | July 2021

Silvia Lindtner has been awarded a 2021-23 Public Intellectuals Program Fellowship by the National Committee on US-China Relations. Silvia will conduct primary research on transnational shifts in technology industries, labor, and data-driven innovation in global supply chains and manufacturing.


Seyram Avle launches the new Tech Labor Forum

Seyram Avle | July 2021

Seyram Avle and Sarah Fox have launched the new Tech Labor Forum in the Association for Computing Machinery with the primary aim of curating conversations about the conditions and futures of the human labor underpinning technology production and maintenance.


Paul Dourish named Steckler Endowed Chair

Paul Dourish | July 2021

Paul Dourish has been named the Steckler Endowed Chair under the Steckler Center for Responsible, Ethical and Accessible Technology (CREATE) in UCI’s Donald Bren School of Information & Computer Sciences (ICS). Paul will continue to advance his research into the practical contexts in which AI and data systems are deployed.


Koray Çaliskan and collaborators win ESCR grant

Koray Çaliskan | July 2021

Koray Çaliskan and his collaborators Donald MacKenzie and Charlotte Rommerskircher won a research grant from the Economic and Social Research branch of the United Kingdom Research and Innovation Council (720,000.00 USD). He will work with a team of researchers and post-doctorate colleagues to carry out socio-economic research on Online Advertising and its Data, Materiality, Systematically and Power.


Jenna Burrell joins Data & Society as Director of Research

Jenna Burrell | June 2021

Jenna Burrell joins Data & Society as Director of Research on a one-year rotation through August 2022. Burrell will be taking leave from the School of Information at UC Berkeley, where she is the co-director of the Algorithmic Fairness and Opacity Group (AFOG).


Janet Roitman awarded National Science Foundation grant

Janet Roitman | December 2020

Janet Roitman was awarded a National Science Foundation Grant for the project "High Finance in Africa" (in collaboration with Hannah Appel), which inquires into fintech platforms as potential sources of standardized actionable data that generate new asset classes and capital markets, or the future contours of “high finance” in the Global South.


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