[Commlist] "Social Media and Platform Work: Stories, Practices and Workers' Organisation" - CfP for a special issue of Convergence

*Call for Papers*

*Social Media and Platform Work: Stories, Practices and Workers' 
Organisation - CfP for a special issue of Convergence*

Deadline for Abstract Submissions: *15th March 2022*

Deadline for Full Papers: *15th August 2022*

Expected date of publication: *April 2023*

*
*

This special issue aims to deepen the understanding of the ways platform 
workers engage with social media.

During the last decade, social media have been instrumental within 
platform work because they are fundamental to this type of labour. 
Platform workers’ use of social media can be considered forms of 
communication, socialisation and organisation. Through WhatsApp, 
Telegram, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and other channels, workers can 
share tips, stories, and practices. Therefore, it is crucial to develop 
new understandings of the different uses, discourses, practices and 
stories that emerge when platform work intersects with social media. 
  Furthermore, platform workers can use social media to bring to the 
fore different forms of exploitation, discrimination, and inequalities 
around platform power, and also in relation to consumers of the platform 
services. Thus, it has clearly become necessary to interrogate the ways 
in which platform work is reinforcing pre-existing inequalities in the 
areas of gender, class, sexual orientation, and country of origin, among 
others, as well as to understand the role that social media play to 
mitigate or increase these inequalities.

Beyond questioning inequalities associated with platform work expressed 
in social media, it is also important to explore the ways social media 
platforms can be key spaces for workers to collaborate, socialize, and 
learn informally about this type of labour. Workers share stories on 
social media about their work routine and everyday practices. Social 
media can also be a place for work self-promotion and the emergence of 
workers acting as influencers and coaches. Hence, it is important to 
raise questions about the centrality that social media has for workers’ 
organizations, strikes, fissures among the collective, or other forms of 
emerging solidarities.

We invite researchers to send proposals focused on different theoretical 
and empirical frameworks on the use of social media among platform 
workers. We strongly encourage contributions from scholars of the Global 
South, and from different academic fields. This may include (but is not 
limited to) the following topics:

  * Platform work and social media influencers;
  * Social media uses for platform work;
  * Discourses about platform work within social media communities and
    groups;
  * Digital workers’ solidarity and organisation through social media;
  * Social media and platform worker’s informal learning;
  * The use of humorous content to discuss platform work on social media;
  * The use of social media for discussing the precariousness of
    platform work;
  * The use of social media for denouncing inequalities in platform work
    (gender, immigration; social class and other intersecting aspects);
  * Platform workers’ reputation on social media;
  * Worker’s self-representation in social media platforms;
  * Social media and theborders and limits of the workspace in a
    platformisation context.
Potential contributors should submit a 500-word abstract (excluding 
references), a 100-word bio, and the contact information of the 
corresponding author to the guest editors: Júlia Vilasís Pamos 
((julia.vilasis /at/ upf.edu) <mailto:(julia.vilasis /at/ upf.edu)>); Fernanda Pires 
((fernanda.pires /at/ uab.cat) <mailto:(fernanda.pires /at/ uab.cat)>); Willian 
Fernandes Araújo ((waraujo /at/ unisc.br) <mailto:(waraujo /at/ unisc.br)>); Rafael 
Grohmann ((rafaelgrohmann /at/ unisinos.br) 
<mailto:(rafaelgrohmann /at/ unisinos.br)>). Feel free to consult the special 
issue editors about your article ideas and potential angles or 
approaches. After the abstracts have been selected, authors will be 
invited to submit a full paper. Please note that acceptance of an 
abstract does not guarantee publication, given that all papers will go 
through the journal’s peer review process.


Important note: no payment from the authors will be required.

---------------
The COMMLIST
---------------
This mailing list is a free service offered by Nico Carpentier. Please use it responsibly and wisely.
--
To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit http://commlist.org/
--
Before sending a posting request, please always read the guidelines at http://commlist.org/
--
To contact the mailing list manager:
Email: (nico.carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
URL: http://nicocarpentier.net
---------------