[Commlist] PlatGovNet2025 CFP: Transitions, Frictions, and New Realities in, Global Platform Governance

  2025 Conference Call for Submissions


      PlatGovNet2025: Transitions, Frictions, and New Realities in
      Global Platform Governance (December 1-2, online)

Platform governance continues to grow in importance and intellectual 
vibrancy as an interdisciplinary field of research. A changing mix of 
competing platform companies faced with various efforts to regulate, 
influence, or control them and their offers has become an ever more 
central feature of many societies. As monolithic services begin to 
fracture and decentralized platform infrastructures, some governments 
assert their power and authority, and new constellations of actors 
emerge, we witness more than mere technical transitions and instead 
realignments in the political economy of platforms and societies. These 
changes manifest through multiple frictions across state, market, and 
civil society – between digital sovereignty and transnational platform 
operations, established market leaders and nascent alternatives, context 
and consistency, regulatory intent and practice, and between pragmatic 
appraisals and normative aspirations. Understanding these transitions 
demand empirical analysis and may require new conceptual and 
methodological approaches.

The 2025 Platform Governance Research Network 
<https://platgov.net/join/> (PlatGovNet) online conference seeks 
submissions focused on these issues. We welcome a wide range of 
different perspectives and interests, including, but not limited to, 
submissions that focus on the complex and contentious politics of 
platforms, for example new (geo)political tensions, developments around 
generative artificial intelligence, and the wider diversity of rarely 
examined actors including smaller platforms, non-state actors, and 
middleware initiatives.

This is the third PlatGovNet international online conference, which 
brings together researchers engaging with the social and political 
questions posed by the transformation and emerging realities of the 
platformized societies. We seek to foster 
<https://platgov.net/join/>cutting-edge interdisciplinary research that 
critically engages with the social and political questions posed by a 
broad range of digital platforms. Beyond showcasing current research and 
getting feedback, the conference helps participants build community and 
find collaborators.


      Relevant Research Topics

In particular, network members are typically interested in:

  *

    *Empirical studies of platform governance in all of its forms*,
    including investigations into the emerging platform infrastructures,
    the labor practices, technologies, and institutional arrangements
    that characterize new governance configurations, and the
    implications for users, platforms, communities, and society;

  *

    *Conceptual contributions that may describe and interpret current
    changes in platform governance*, namely (but not exclusively):
    decentralization; middleware; bridge-building, “prosocial” or
    “community-based” moderation techniques and philosophies;

  *

    *Policy-oriented analyses of private and governmental efforts to
    govern platforms*, including comparative studies of governmental
    interventions across different geopolitical contexts, through both
    formal regulatory frameworks and informal governance mechanisms;

  *

    *Normative, conceptual, or theoretical insights* into aspects of
    platform governance, especially those that highlight gaps in current
    public or scholarly discourse;

  *

    *Historical analyses and temporal perspectives* on platform
    governance and speech moderation more widely;

  *

    *Methodological innovations* for studying platform governance in
    transition, particularly in the absence of affordable or stable
    platform APIs;

  *

    *Research on the meta-aspects of platform governance scholarship*,
    examining how the relationships between industry, government,
    academia and civil society are being reconfigured, and how these
    shifts impact knowledge production and policy development in the field.

We are keen on incorporating multiple perspectives from researchers 
located all around the world, so we encourage submissions from 
under-represented groups and diverse cultural and geographic 
backgrounds. We are especially interested in perspectives outside of 
U.S. and European contexts and will strive to accommodate multiple 
participant time zones in the conference program.


    Submission Guidelines

Please submit extended abstracts of 800-1000 words via EasyChair at this 
link: https://easychair.org/cfp/PlatGovNet2025 
<https://easychair.org/cfp/PlatGovNet2025>

Abstracts will be blind peer-reviewed and should include:

  *

    a short section framing the context/problem being addressed;

  *

    a clear research question;

  *

    conceptual framework;

  *

    details about how the submission seeks to address that question,
    including its research design; and

  *

    a brief discussion of the paper’s contributions to the literature
    and/or ongoing policy debates.

Authors of selected abstracts will present their ongoing work at the 
online conference. Submission of a complete paper before the Conference 
will not be required, although the organizers and PlatGovNet will, where 
useful, seek to help advise participants on possible avenues 
for publication.

This conference is open to *all interested researchers and members of 
civil society* and will have *no registration fee*.


    Timeline

  *

    Deadline for abstract submission: end of day September 2, aka
    00:00:00 anywhere on earth <https://time.is/Anywhere_on_Earth> time

  *

    Accepted submissions announced: mid-October 2025

  *

    Online conference: *December 1-2, 2025*


    Conference Organizing Committee

  *

    Pranav Bidare, Center for Internet and Society

  *

    Robert Gorwa, WZB Berlin Social Science Center

  *

    Ivar Hartmann, Insper São Paulo

  *

    Clara Iglesias Keller, Weizenbaum Institute, WZB Berlin Social
    Science Center

  *

    Emillie de Keulenaar, University of Copenhagen

  *

    Diyi Liu, University of Copenhagen

  *

    João C. Magalhães, University of Manchester

  *

    Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, University of Copenhagen

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