Dialoghi nelle Scienze umane - volume 3

PAROLA D AUTORE Some management and business scholars have touted this development the platform revolution and focus on the positive economic effects of a technological development they hail as innovative disruption . Individual citizens or consumers organize themselves through online networks, so they are less dependent on legacy institutions or companies such as publishers, news organizations, hospitals, unions, brokers, and so on. The Internet-based utopian marketplace would allow individuals to offer products or services directly without having to rely on offline intermediaries, whether state or corporate. In the early years of this development, some theorists touted the nascent growth of online platforms as the economic corollary of a participatory culture that started with the emergence of social media networks and Web 2.0 in the early years of the millennium. The wealth of online social networks enables connectedness, while bypassing existing social institutions; following this line of argument, connectivity automatically leads to collectivity or connectedness. We agree that online platforms are at the core of an important development, but we think of them neither as an exclusive economic phenomenon nor as a technological construct with social corollaries. Rather, we prefer a comprehensive view of a connective world where platforms have penetrated the heart of socie- 342 | unità 4 | ties affecting institutions, economic transactions, and social and cultural practices hence forcing governments and states to adjust their legal and democratic structures. Platforms, in our view, do not cause a revolution; instead, they are gradually infiltrating in, and converging with, the (offline, legacy) institutions and practices through which democratic societies are organized. That is why we prefer the term platform society a term that emphasizes the inextricable relation between online platforms and societal structures. Platforms do not reflect the social: they produce the social structures we live in. Answer 1. Besides Facebook, other platforms are quoted in the text. Which are these platforms? Do you already know them? If not, search them online and describe what they are about. 2. Which positive consequences and benefits are addressed in relation to the role of online platforms? 3. What does it mean that platforms produce social structures? Reflect together Discuss in classroom about one specific online platform that many of you use regularly. Which benefits this platform brought to your social experience? Are there also negative effects that seem be generated on society by this platform?