与世界做生意:跨境电商平台的全球数字缔合实践——基于基础设施可见性/不可见性的视角

Doing Business with the World:Global Digital Association Practice of Cross Border E-commerce Platform——Perspective Based on Infrastructure Visibility/Invisibility

数字信息技术的高速发展使全球流动变为一种低成本的常态化存在,在经济和政治的双重助推下,跨境电商逐渐成为经济全球化的重要实践方式。本研究采用参与式观察和深度访谈的研究方法,以福建的一家跨境电商公司为例,从基础设施研究视角出发,洞察跨境电商平台、人及数字资本运作的缔合关系。本研究认为可见性与不可见性对媒介基础设施的研究而言具有本体论意义,因此按“经验/理论”的类型化原则将可见性/不可见性的分析框架提炼为:视觉/物性、感觉/意识、规制/意识形态三个层面,探讨可见性/不可见性的具体面向和指涉维度,以丰富这一概念的理论层次和学术肌理。鉴于物的表面特征与系统内在运作结构的分离,本研究进一步指出物质性结构的技术系统具有自创生特点。同时,技术系统依赖“商品数据化”与“数据商品化”的互相转化,对商品经济形式及现实社会产生了基质性影响,造就了平台基础设施实践中经济活动的属性变革。

With the rapid development of digital information technology,global mobility has become a low-cost,normalized existence.With the dual boost of economy and politics,cross-border e-commerce has gradually become an important practice of economic globalization.This research adopts the research method of participatory observation and in-depth interview,taking a cross-border e-commerce company in Fujian as an example,from the perspective of infrastructure theory,this research has insight into the multiple relationships among cross-border e-commerce platforms,people and digital capital operations.This study believes that visibility and invisibility have ontological significance for the research of media infrastructure.Therefore,the analysis framework of visibility and invisibility is divided into three levels:visual/physical,feeling/consciousness,and regulation/ideology.Through empirical research,the specific orientation and reference dimensions are discussed to enrich the theoretical level and academic texture of this concept.Since the separation between the surface characteristics of objects and the internal operation structure of the system,this study further points out that the technical system of physical structure has the characteristics of autopoiesis.At the same time,the technology system relies on the mutual transformation of“commodity datalization”and“data commercialization”,which has a matrix impact on the form of commodity economy and the real society,and has created the attribute change of economic activities in the practice of platform infrastructure.