Making sense of the politics and economics of platforms across society
I lecture, research, and write about the political economy and sociology of digital technology and platforms.
Senior Lecturer (permanent) of Digital Sociology at Manchester Metropolitan University (2019-)
Postdoctoral fellow, University of Toronto (2018-2019)
Lecturer at University of Toronto (2015-2019), Lakehead University (2018)
PhD in Communication & Culture @ Toronto Metropolitan University and York University (2017)
Member of the App Studies Initiative
Freelance writer
RECENT WORK
“Advertising as governance: The digital commodity audience and platform advertising dependency” - Sophie Bishop and I’s research on how platform governance research need to consider advertisers as key governance players.
“One Big Store: Source Diversity and Value Capture of Digital Games in National App Store Instances” - Part of David Nieborg, Chris Young & I’s ongoing work on the intersection of cultural imperialism and the games industry in iOS app store.
“Delivering People” - A short piece for Real Life on the importance of the audience commodity.
“Selling Elysium” - Alex Gekker and I over at the Baltic Screen Media Review on the political economy of radical games like Disco Elysium.
“Batte Pass Capitalism” - My article in the Journal of Consumer Culture on the consumer politics of in-game digital commodities.
Book review of Bruce Pietrykowski, Work: What is Political Economy (New York: Polity Books 2019) - me in Labour/Le Travail.
“Seeing and Discoverability: the political economy of digital cultural production” - A presentation for the launch of Amy Alexander’s endless documentary “What the Robot Saw”.
“App Imperialism: The Political Economy of the Canadian App Store” - David Nieborg, Chris Young, and me on Social Media + Society.
“Platforms for people, not profit” - Me in Briarpatch Magazine writing about how the left in Canada needs to get serious about democratic platforms.
“Lost in the App Store: The Political Economy of the Canadian Game App Economy” - David Nieborg, Chris Young, and Me in the Canadian Journal of Communication.
“The Time Canada Wanted Its Own Internet Because It Thought the US Would Mess It Up” - Me, over at Motherboard writing about the Science Council of Canada’s 1971 report on the “Trans-Canada Computer Communications Network”.
“Digital Games: A Canary in the Coal Mine of Capital” - A recording on YouTube of my talk in Toronto for The Capitalism Workshop at the Workers Action Centre.
“The Discourse of Digital Dispossession: Paid Modifications and Community Crisis on Steam” - research informed by my dissertation in Games & Culture.
“Two-Faced: The Culture of Platform Capitalism” - me over at Real Life Magazine.
“Code of Conduct: Platforms are taking over capitalism, but code convenes class struggle as well as control” - more ruminations on platforms at Real Life Magazine.
DANJO IN THE NEWS
“The Great Consolidation of the Video Game Industry” - I was interviewed by Lewis Gordon over at The Ringer about the game industry’s trend towards oligopoly.
“Organizing against precarity” an interview with me about organizing with Game Workers Unite over at The People’s Voice.
My dissertation was discussed by Will Partin in his review of Steam’s card game, Artifact.
I was interviewed by Matthew Gault for this story about Fortnite’s business model.
I make a brief appearance over here in a recent CBC report about labour conditions in the digital games industry CBC report here, representing Game Workers Unite.
I also make a brief appearance (based on the footage above) in this recent episode of Patriot Act about labour conditions in the digital games industry.