对抗的联结:大流行病与平台资本主义

Contested Connectivities:Pandemics and Platform Capitalism

自从世界被数字媒体高度组织化以来,新冠肺炎疫情是人们遭遇的首例全球大流行病。数字媒体在各层级的行为主体克服困境的过程中发挥了核心作用,这些主体包括居家隔离状态的个人、寻找疫苗方案的科学家,以及试图利用追踪系统控制病毒传播的政府。在西方资本主义社会,上述联结围绕着政府与公民之间的关系问题展开,如占主导地位的商业化数字平台的控制,易感群体的脆弱性和数字资源的可得性,以阶级、社会性别、年龄和种族划分的跨领域社会不平等,以及数字技术对个人和家庭的休闲、学习、工作的影响等问题产生的无处不在的对抗,而最根本的对抗指向的是数字媒体在大流行病与环境危机的关联中所扮演的角色。

Covid-19 is the first global pandemic where the connections offered by digital media have played a central role in organising responses at every level-from individuals at home under lock down provisions,to scientists exchanging data in search of a vaccine,to governments attempting to control the spread of the virus with track and trace systems.These connections are however all sites of contest at every level-within the global system between different styles of government,within capitalist societies around the relations between government and citizens,with questions of control around the domination of the major commercial digital platforms,with the intersections between vulnerability to infection and access to digital resources and cross cutting social inequalities-by class,gender,age and ethnicity;around the impact of digital technologies on leisure,study and work for individuals and families confined to the home.And arguably most fundamentally of all-around the role of digital media in the convergence between the pandemic and the environmental crisis.The connection is organised into clearly labelled sections that address the tensions and conflicts in each of these areas.