Digital platforms

Abstract

This entry describes how Science and Technology Studies (STS) approaches the digital platforms. Despite the architectural image of stability, digital platforms are dynamic and complex. The entry surveys the vast array of digital platforms, from social media to scientific instruments, highlighting their ubiquity and ever-increasing presence. It also examines how platforms themselves produce "knowledge" by collecting and analyzing data, shaping user behavior and sparking controversies. STS research investigates how the social and ethical issues surrounding platform operations, issues such as algorithmic bias and data sovereignty, can be understood as effects of that knowledge production. The entry suggests that STS alters understandings of such issues by describing the practices of making, using and repairing that collectively stabilise platforms. Show more