From healthy communities to toxic debates: Disqus’ changing ideas about comment moderation

A new open access article by Johannes Paßmann, Anne Helmond, and Robert Jansma in Internet Histories. We use data from the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine to examine online commenting system Disqus’ shifting discourse about comment moderation and its increasing modes of platform interventionism. Crucially, we find that in the case of Disqus, the toxic is… Read more From healthy communities to toxic debates: Disqus’ changing ideas about comment moderation

Mapping business and data partnerships in the social media ecosystem

Research article by Fernando van der Vlist and Anne Helmond – An empirical study about the significance of partnerships and how partners mediate and shape platform power published in the open access journal Big Data & Society. Social media platforms are among the world’s most profitable businesses whose business models rely on digital advertising revenues.… Read more Mapping business and data partnerships in the social media ecosystem

A Plataformização da Web

My article on ‘The Platformization of the Web‘ (2015) has been translated into Portuguese! ‘A Plataformização da Web‘ was translated by Tiago Salgado and was published in the edited volume ‘Métodos Digitais: teoria‐prática‐crítica’, edited by Janna Joceli Omena. The book is available for free, open access, and a PDF and can be downloaded here. Helmond,… Read more A Plataformização da Web

Social Media and Platform Historiography: Challenges and Opportunities

We just published a new article (open access🔓) on doing historical platform studies: Anne Helmond and Fernando van der Vlist (2019) “Social Media and Platform Historiography: Challenges and Opportunities.” TMG – Journal for Media History 22(1): 6–34. http://www.tmgonline.nl/articles/434/ Abstract In this article, we propose a methodological outlook for historical platform studies to increase the prominence… Read more Social Media and Platform Historiography: Challenges and Opportunities

Regramming the Platform: Infrastructural Relations between Apps and Social Media

We just published a new article (open access🔓): Carolin Gerlitz, Anne Helmond, Fernando van der Vlist, and Esther Weltevrede (alphabetical). “Regramming the Platform: Infrastructural Relations between Apps and Social Media.” Computational Culture 7 (2019). http://computationalculture.net/regramming-the-platform Abstract In this article, we empirically analyse the infrastructural relations between mobile apps and social media platforms and present a… Read more Regramming the Platform: Infrastructural Relations between Apps and Social Media

Apps and Infrastructures – a Research Agenda

We just published a new article (open access🔓): Carolin Gerlitz, Anne Helmond, David Nieborg, and Fernando van der Vlist (alphabetical). “Apps and Infrastructures – a Research Agenda.” Computational Culture 7 (2019). http://computationalculture.net/apps-and-infrastructures-a-research-agenda Abstract In this special issue editorial, we introduce a research agenda for empirical app studies. First, we introduce the three main strands of… Read more Apps and Infrastructures – a Research Agenda