Queering Platform Economies and Studies

In my contribution, I ask how queer perspectives can contribute to the analysis of the political economy of global digital media. I investigate major platform economy effects from the perspective of queer technology studies. Queer technology studies are situated at the intersection of gender, media and sexuality. So far, scholarship has put a major focus on how information and communication technologies (ICTs) can be used for queer identity formations, creating queer solidarities and “liberatory spaces” (Miles, 2018) and organizing political mobilization to challenge cis- and heteronormative public spheres. The discipline also ”resists the gravitational pull towards heteronormativity and binary thinking in the ways technologies are imagined, narrativized, redesigned, and used“ (Shaw and Sender 2016: 1). In his study analyzing major gay online platforms, Joshua Gamson already raised concerns of commercialization of queer media technologies in the beginning of the “.com bubble”, when mostly US-based internet companies started to attract major capital by the beginning of the new Millenium (Gamson, 2003, O’Riordan, 2020). Monopolization must be regarded as major trend, when analyzing the digital media ecologies defining our Internet infrastructure affecting mobilization, visibilities and securities of various networks (Antonakis, 2016). I argue that the potential of queer technology studies to analyze current political challenges in the field of digital (platform) economy should further be explored. Drawing on “classical” platform governance research, I call for queering the analysis of the digital economy of platforms themselves to grasp the development of increasing monopolization. According to Owen, there are five major repercussions from capitalist platform economies that dominate the digital age: the toxic nature of the digital public sphere, the amplification of misinformation and disinformation, the declining reliability of information, heightened polarization and finally, broad mental health repercussions (Owens, 2019). Drawing on current studies in the field, I want to investigate (How) can queer tech studies speak to each of these dimensions? How do they affect self-representation and community building? The paper would fit well as part of Panel I: Theorizing capitalist economies from an LGBTI*Q Perspective: Concepts, Approaches, and Theoretical Genealogies Antonakis, A.(2018): Feminist Networks in Times of Multi-layered Transformations. Perspectives from Tunisia. In: Carola Richter, Anna Antonakis and Cilja Harders, (ed.): “Media and the Politics of Transformation” Springer VS. Wiesbaden. Gamson, Joshua, 2003, Gay Media, Inc.: Media Structures, the New Gay Conglomerates, and Collective Sexual Identities, S. 255-278, in: Martha McCaughey und Mike Ayers (Hg.): Cyberactivism: Critical Theories and Practices of Online Activism. London/New York. Routledge. Miles, (2018): Still getting it on online: Thirty years of queer male spaces brokered through digital technologies. In: Geography Compass. 2018;12:e12407. Owen, T. (2019): Why Platform Governance? In: Models for Platform Governance. Centre for International Governance Innovation. O’Riordan, K (2020): Queer Digital Cultures. In: Somerville,S. (Ed): The Cambridge Companion to Queer Studies. Cambridge University Press. Shaw, A., & Sender, K. (2016). Queer technologies: affordances, affect, ambivalence. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 33(1), 1-5.