The conversation situates both works within a broader inquiry into how platforms and spatial media shape contemporary culture, economies, and governance. Over the past two decades, digital platforms have evolved from bounded services into expansive ecosystems that structure markets, public discourse, and social interaction. In parallel, digital maps have shifted from representational tools to active media that shape movement, organise labour, and embed surveillance, personalisation, and platform logics into everyday navigation.

Bringing these perspectives into dialogue highlights how platformisation and spatial media increasingly converge through processes of datafication, infrastructural control, and the everyday exercise of power.

The programme features short presentations of key arguments from both books, followed by a moderated panel discussion with invited scholars and respondents. Together, the speakers will reflect on themes including platform power, ‘casual’ everyday forms of influence, digital labour, data governance, and the role of AI in reshaping both platforms and mapping technologies.

Register: 

https://voxpop.uva.nl/shared/subsites/vox-pop/en/events/2026/10/the-power-of-platforms-and-maps.html