Platform Governance: The Challenges of Building Healthy Online Ecosystems

With the evolution of technology platforms into full-fledged social institutions, there is a call to profitably reshape online platform governance toward more socially beneficial outcomes. There are benefits of an interdisciplinary field of platform governance studies that is rooted in the concepts, methods, and ethical commitments of the social sciences. There are various ways that governance unfolds across domains: in content moderation, policy development, research access, user control, news distribution, child safety, and democratic norms. A range of disciplinary perspectives—including sociology, anthropology, law, political science, and media studies—can provide insight into a sector that demands both urgent analysis and imaginative intervention. Insider perspectives from within the industry are vital because platform governance is often shaped in real time by engineers, designers, and policy staff working under conditions of uncertainty and pressure. Without understanding how decisions are made on the inside—what constraints, logics, and incentives guide action—academic and policy critiques risk misfiring. By integrating industry perspectives with scholarly insight, the aim is to foster a more grounded, collaborative approach that benefits researchers, regulators, and the public alike. 

Paperback: $42.00, Sale Price $33.60, ISBN: 9798348847562 
Hardcover: $60.00, Sale Price $58.00, ISBN: 9798348847555 
 
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