[ecrea] CfP Special Issue: The Platformization of Chinese Society

Special Issue of Chinese Journal of Communication: The Platformization 
of Chinese Society

Extended Abstract Submission Deadline: July 1, 2017
Full Paper Submission deadline: February 28, 2018

Guest Editors: Jeroen de Kloet, Thomas Poell, Zeng Guohua

Full text: 
http://jeroendekloet.nl/the-platformization-of-chinese-society/ 
<http://jeroendekloet.nl/the-platformization-of-chinese-society/>

We are currently witnessing a fast process of platformization of Chinese 
society. Social media, as well as platforms for collaborative 
consumption, are emerging as new power players that challenge older 
institutions and disrupt economic sectors like news, hospitality, and 
transport. Yet, in the light of omnipresent government regulation and 
intervention, platformization presents us with a very different set of 
problems and questions than in the West. In the same way, we need to 
critically interrogate the seemingly ‘natural’ connection between online 
platforms and ‘global capitalism’, which has been theorized through the 
notion of ‘platform capitalism’ (Smicek, 2016). Again China presents an 
odd case, as it is hard to read China as a capitalist society (Nonini, 
2008). Against this background, the aim of this special issue is to 
critically engage with the platformization of China, using China as a 
method (cf. Chen, 2010) to interrogate, complicate, and complement 
current research on the global rise of the platform society (van Dijck & 
Poell 2015). We thus ask in this special issue: what does the platform 
society mean for China, but also, what does China mean for our thinking 
about the platform society?

This special issue aims to empirically scrutinize different platforms 
that are currently popular in China. The Chinese process of 
platformization appears to differ on at least three crucial dimensions 
with developments in the US and Europe. First, there are vital 
differences in the political economy of platforms: the ownership 
structure and business models of Chinese platforms are different from 
those in the US. This also has implications for the ownership of data, 
raising issues of surveillance, control and marketing of data (Couldry & 
Hepp, 2017; Dyer-Witheford, 2014). Second, vital differences need to be 
taken into account in terms of the architectures and affordances of 
platforms: user and programming interfaces (and its semiotics), 
algorithms (what is made visible and invisible), and infrastructures 
(how are third parties plugged into the platform ecosystem) (Hookway, 
2014; McVeigh-Schultz & Baym, 2015; Plantin et al., 2016). Finally, 
Chinese online platforms appear to be characterized by particular types 
of user practices and cultures, which differ from those in other parts 
of the worlds (Poell, de Kloet & Zeng 2014; Qiu, 2016). Given that the 
societal impact of new technologies is for an important part shaped by 
how these technologies are integrated in social practice, these 
differences greatly matter.

The contributions we solicit for this special issue will each focus on 
one specific type of platform, following a typology based on a 
preliminary inventory (see below). We envision contributions that 
analyze a particular platform and its role in societal relations through 
the three dimensions sketched above. These contributions are expected to 
build on the fields of media and cultural studies, software studies 
and/or platform studies, in their investigation of one of the following 
types of platforms:

1.     Public social media (e.g. weibo and douban)
2.     Private social media (e.g. weixin).
3.     News and search platforms (e.g. baidu)
4.     E-commerce services (e.g. taobao)
5.     Media sharing platforms (e.g. youku and tudou)
6.     Transport platforms (e.g. taxi didi and mobike)
7.     Food services (e.g. meituan and eleme)
8.     Dating platforms (e.g. tamtam and blue’d)

Evidently, we will welcome strong paper proposals, focused other types 
of platforms as well.

Timeline

1200-word extended abstracts should be submitted by mail to Jeroen de 
Kloet ((b.j.dekloet /at/ uva.nl) <mailto:(b.j.dekloet /at/ uva.nl)>) and Thomas Poell 
((Poell /at/ uva.nl) <mailto:(Poell /at/ uva.nl)>) by July 1, 2017. The abstract 
should articulate: 1) the issue or research question to be discussed, 2) 
the methodological or critical framework used, and 3) indicate the 
expected findings or conclusions. Decisions will be communicated to the 
authors by July 15, 2017.

Full papers of the selected abstracts should be submitted by February 
28, 2018. All submitted manuscripts will be subject to a rigorous blind 
peer-review process. All accepted manuscripts will be published online 
first. The planned printed publication date is an issue of CJC in 2019.

Submissions should conform to the editorial guidelines of the Chinese 
Journal of Communication found at http://www.informaworld.com/cjoc 
<http://www.informaworld.com/cjoc> under “Instructions for Authors.”

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