Dear AoIR community, We invite you to this Webinar hosted by the Center for Global Studies and the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. <Global Platforms and Infrastructures Symposium> Date: April 30th, 9am-11am CST, (3pm-5pm BST, 8am-10am EST) Symposium Description: Digital platforms are so pervasive in our everyday life to the point that it becomes no longer meaningful to separate our lives from them. How do they shape our everyday life, cultural industry, labor relations, and identity? How do digital platforms operate their power—economically, materially, and politically? In this webinar, we invite three experts in Media and Communication Studies, Dr. Dal Yong Jin (Simon Fraser University), Dr. Jean-Christophe Plantin (London School of Economics), and Dr. Julie Yujie Chen (University of Toronto) to discuss the global impacts of digital platforms and infrastructures. Zoom Registration: https://illinois.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_4VL_Z9S-QS2Kq6jWGjzaPg Sponsored by: Center for Global Studies, Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, and Institute of Communications Research at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Moderator: Dr. Anita Say Chan, Associate Professor of Institute of Communications Research, iSchool, and National Center for Supercomputing Applications at UIUC Invited Speakers and Presentations: Digital Platforms in Cultural Production: the platformization of Korean webtoons Dr. Dal Yong Jin This talk utilizes the analytical framework of the platformization of cultural production and attempts to discuss the political economy of digital platforms and cultural production in the Korean webtoon industries. It first discusses new business models that resonate with the creation of new forms of cultural content by mapping out the dominant role of digital platforms in webtoon production, in both production and global circulation. Second, it addresses the infrastructural transformation of mega digital platforms, focusing on Naver and Kakao, through the analysis of vertical integration and its implications. Third, it discusses the increasing role of digital platforms in tandem with IP, focusing on the distinctive role of IP in the realm of webtoons. Bio Dal Yong Jin is the Distinguished SFU Professor, with a Ph.D. in the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois in 2005. Jin’s major research and teaching interests are on digital platforms and digital games, globalization and media, transnational cultural studies, and the political economy of media and culture Programmable Infrastructure and Global Platform Power Dr. Jean-Christophe Plantin While debates on the social implications of tech giants tend to focus on their extensive market power or their data extraction practices, this talk presents their growing involvement at the level of networking infrastructures. It aims to show, first, that this interest of tech giants goes beyond their spectacular projects—such as mega data center campus or transatlantic cables—but also takes place at a much more granular scale, e.g. the design of specific components such as switches, cables, or racks. Second, the presence of tech giants in networking does not consist (only) of imposing specific technologies, but rather take the form of collaborations with existing actors (either through co-creating industry consortia, co-developing technical specifications, or co-writing research papers). Revealing this less known activity of tech giants provides another dimension to the critical study of digital platforms in society. Bio Dr. Jean-Christophe Plantin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Communications at LSE. His research investigates the politics of digital platforms, the evolution of knowledge infrastructures, and the rise of digital sovereignty. Digital Labor in China and the Global Conditions for the Platforms Dr. Julie Yujie Chen Debates concerning the implications of the digital platforms for the global society have many parallels with the earlier debates on globalization. Digital platform companies are the latest actors in moving jobs online or managing the digitally mediated workplace in the history of globalization and information capitalism. In this talk, using digital labor in China as a point of departure, I will discuss the rise and limitations of a platform-centric epistemology of digital labor relations by unearthing the historical continuity and rupture in the material conditions and social relations for workers in China’s booming digital economy. I argue that the intertwining and contentious forces of China’s domestic economic restructuring and uneven integration into the global digital capitalism, with various social actors involved, shape the experience of Chinese digital workers in a global trajectory of disempowering workers in the neoliberal regime. Rigorous contextualization responsible for the situated history and culture is needed to the knowledge production to shed new light on the global conditions for and practices of the platforms. Bio Dr. Julie Yujie Chen is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Communication, Culture, Information, and Technology (ICCIT) at the University of Toronto Mississauga and holds a graduate appointment at the Faculty of Information. Chen is specialized in digital labor studies and political economy of media and communication. All-in-one- Apps: Formation of Transnational Cultural Identity on WeChat and KakaoTalk Jingyi Gu and Jane Yeahin Pyo In our research, we take the example—China’s WeChat and Korea’s KakaoTalk to explore the global impacts of the apps that are considered “regional.” What is truly “global” in the reach of platforms, especially in the cultural aspect? Are these platforms, initially targeting “local” users by penetrating deeply into each society, making “global” impacts through users’ transnational migration? Adopting a qualitative approach, we reconsider the dichotomy between the local and the global as these platforms allow their users to create a globalized version of the “local." Bio Jingyi Gu and Jane Pyo are Ph.D. students at the Institution of Communications Research, UIUC. Hope to see you there, Jingyi & Jane