Platform Economics

Cristiano Codagnone is Aggregate Professor in Media and Communication at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Spain and Researcher in the Social and Political Science at Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy. His research focuses on the behavioural and socio-economic dimensions of the digital transformation of economy, society, and government. Athina Karatzogianni is Associate Professor in Media and Communication at the University of Leicester, UK and researches the impact of digitization on the political economy of conflict, activism and security. Jacob Matthews is Professor of Information and Communication Sciences at the Université Paris 8, France. His research now primarily focuses on the political economy of the Internet and digital intermediation platforms.

• IntroductionChapter 1. Platform economics and the sharing economy: a primerChapter 2. Rhetoric, reality, impacts and regulation in labour intermediation platformsChapter 3. Digital labour markets in a broader perspectiveChapter 4. Ideological production in digital intermediation platformsChapter 5. Conclusion and agenda for the future

The champions of the "sharing economy" tout two apparently contradictory rhetorics, say Condognone, Karatzofianni, and Matthews. One is of disruptive innovation typical of neo-liberal ideology; and the other is a positive normative discourse about grass-roots and bottom-up revival of community, trust, social capital, and the moral economy allegedly enacted by exchange between peers. This obfuscation has contributed to delays in or total lack of policy and regulatory intervention, they say, so that the platforms have grown into powerful economic and political players with no public or legal constraints.