Article
Madhuja Mukherjee
This paper grows from my art–practice and reflects on the projects which are connected to the city (of Kolkata, India), maps, and archives. I have discussed elsewhere (Mukherjee 2019), how our project executed at Gem Cinema, Kolkata, in 2018 (Mukherjee 2025a), generated a multi–planar history, by setting up a CC camera on top of the theatre. We argued that the omniscient camera–eye provoked us to become intimate with our immediate and distant contexts. In this paper, I put the spotlight on ‘Sketches and Stories of Kolkata’ media–installation projected on a curved screen at the historic Victoria Memorial Hall and Museum, Kolkata, in 2022. The work operated within ‘Archives and Museums’ programme, and the trajectory of Adi Ganga (rivulet) aka Tolly canal became both the route and a method of remapping the city. It became an arc that connected pre–colonial geographies with post–colonial overgrowth. By rethinking uses of drone camera in the 2022 project, I discuss how such technologies are repurposed toward collective histories, via intense juxtaposing. I unpack the processes of digital–documentation and ‘decolonisation’—by installing the video within the colonial monument. By addressing ‘unequal participation’ during recording, I speculate how the site of installation activates alternative routes, experiences and shared futures.
July 31, 2026pp. 1-13Kolkata, Urban History, Media–Installation, Drone photography, Decolonisation, Adi Ganga
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Article
Peter Hudis
A little over 100 years ago, György Lukács built upon the work of Max Weber, George Simmel, and others in advancing the concept of reification as the defining feature of capitalist modernity. His Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat (1923) has long been considered a classic work in extending reification from its application to the labour process to thought, culture and cognition. Today the reification of thought looms larger than ever in debates over the digital revolution, the production of virtual reality, and the development of artificial intelligence. This paper explores how Lukács’ contributions can address today’s debates over the future of human cognition in an era when thought has become increasingly subjected to mechanical manipulation.
July 31, 2026pp. 14-24Digital, Lukács, Marx, Reification, Social
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Article
Joyce C.H. Liu
This article argues that contemporary digital governance is structured by a morphological homology between population management and military deployment. Enabled by chip-based infrastructures, this homology operates at an unprecedented scale, transforming population governance into a continuous, real-time, and anticipatory form of logistical control analogous to military operations. Rather than merely expanding surveillance capacities, digital technologies fundamentally reconfigure the relations between security, territory, and population, thereby enabling a renewed rationality of authoritarian governance. Situating this argument within the broader context of twenty-first-century authoritarian resurgence, the article examines how chip-based technologies intensify both the ambitions and technical capacities of governance across diverse political systems. Developments such as the United States’ Project 2025 and China’s Fifteenth Five-Year Plan (2026–2030) illustrate how digital infrastructures sustain and deepen new configurations of power, including racially differentiated modes of internal control. While these formations take heterogeneous institutional forms, their underlying logic reveals a persistent attraction to totalising modes of population management—what may be conceptualised as an enduring Tianxia ambition as discussed in Tianxia and Its Discontents (Liu 2026): a mode of power that organises space, hierarchy, and subjectivity while concealing domination through the language of moral inclusion.
July 31, 2026pp. 25-44
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Article
Ursula Rao
From the mid-2000s onwards, pioneering states started to build comprehensive digital infrastructures for the efficient and cost-effective management of public services, and to overcome typical draw back of the paper bureaucracy. What is the characteristic this new digital bureaucracy? Through in-depth ethnography this article draws attention to the excessive dynamism of the system. First, hardware must be kept up to date, software patches and updates must be installed, while new digital tools are constantly being incorporated. Second, the material malleability of DPIs makes them susceptible to changes introduced in response to feedback from real–time monitoring, lobbying by stakeholders, or shifting political or fiscal priorities. As highly malleable tools, DPIs are caught in a chronic meantime. They are held in suspense, so that users, while they are engaged in everyday bureaucracy, must already remain alert, and to remain visible to the state, always ready to embrace the techno-policy’s next iteration.
July 31, 2026pp. 45-54
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Article
Abhijit Roy
The paper focuses on the low–end DTP shops catering to common people and small organisations in the city of Kolkata. Beyond the specialised work of designing various kinds of visual material, the worker here typically does a lot of ‘computer jobs’: typing, printing and some online work. Labour here is characterised by informality at various levels: job–based payment, absence of legal contracts, lack of minimum wage and social security, absence of unionism, recycling, outdated hardware, ‘jugaad’, piracy, etc. I show how the ‘located sociality’ of the traditional bazaar conditions livelihood, creativity and the everyday technoculture in this sector, where digital capitalism’s emphasis on obsolescence and IP is interrogated by practices of repair, recycling and piracy. The paper presents the reasons why this sector has remained a blindspot in the digital labour discourses. It demonstrates how this sector has a complicated relationship with the state and the capital, bearing a ‘social in the digital’ that poses a threat to these institutions, but at the same time being a site of the e–waste coming from economically advanced countries. Lastly, I look into some of the current efforts of the Indian state that aim at appropriating/formalising this informal bazaar of digital production.
July 31, 2026pp. 55-63Located sociality, bazaar, digital labour, technoculture, livelihood, south Asia
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Article
Nguyen Huu Hoang
Digital technology is sparking profound social change. These transformations, in turn, place heavy demands on the social sciences. With ‘society 5.0’ taking root in the soil of the Fifth Industrial Revolution, we find ourselves in dire need of fresh sociological perspectives to decode an increasingly knotted social reality. By synthesising secondary data from reputable international academic databases, this paper delves into the history, defining traits, and the push–and–pull of opportunities and challenges inherent in ‘sociology 5.0’ as a burgeoning sub–discipline. In doing so, it positions ‘Sociology 5.0’ as a powerful approach one that not only sheds light on the complex web of social relations in the digital era but also serves as a roadmap for future empirical research.
July 31, 2026pp. 65-73The Fifth Industrial Revolution, Digital technology, Social problem, Society 5.0, Sociology 5.0.
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Article
Triyanto
The growing use of artificial intelligence (AI) in higher education presents both opportunities and ethical challenges for university students. This study explores students’ understanding and practices of digital ethics in AI use for academic purposes. Using a qualitative approach, data were collected through in–depth interviews with 20 university students in Surakarta, Indonesia, and analysed using thematic analysis. The findings show that students generally demonstrate awareness of digital ethics, particularly regarding academic integrity and responsible AI use. However, this awareness is not consistently reflected in their actual practices. A gap emerges between ethical understanding and behaviour, especially under academic pressure, tight deadlines, and heavy workloads. Students encounter ethical dilemmas such as uncertainty about authorship, minimal modification of AI–generated content, and lack of clarity in attribution. Additionally, students’ decisions are influenced by peer norms, institutional expectations, and cultural values. This study highlights that digital ethics in AI use is not only an individual issue but also socially and culturally embedded. The findings suggest the need for clearer institutional guidelines and the integration of digital ethics into higher education curricula to promote responsible AI use.
July 31, 2026pp. 74-86Artificial intelligence, digital ethics, university students, higher education, qualitative study.
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Article
Abdul Azeez Sulaim
In contemporary digital society, responsiveness in digital communication is increasingly shaped by social obligation rather than individual choice. While digital sociology has examined availability norms, reachability expectations and subtle forms of disciplinary power, responsiveness itself has rarely been empirically examined as a distinct normative force. This paper introduces the concept of normative responsiveness, defined as the socially produced obligation to respond within an implicitly acceptable timeframe, where responsiveness operates as a moral and relational expectation rather than a purely technical act. The study adopts a qualitative ‘netnographic’ design to explore the case of undergraduate students from Faculty of Indigenous Social Sciences and Management Studies, Gampaha Wickramarachchi University of Indigenous Medicine, Sri Lanka by systematically analysing their digital interactions and communications via WhatsApp and social media. The findings show that expectations regarding the timing and tone of responses transform responsiveness into a form of soft social control, operating through internalised norms and anticipatory self–discipline rather than formal sanctions. Delayed or no responses are commonly interpreted as rudeness or disengagement, prompting anticipatory apologies or justifications. By shifting analytical attention from connectivity to compliance, the paper highlights normative responsiveness as a significant yet under–examined force shaping digital social relations, with implications for digital well–being and academic life.
July 31, 2026pp. 87-101Normative responsiveness, Digital sociology, Availability norms and reachability expectations, Soft social control, Digital communication, Academic interaction.
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Article
Suddhayan Chatterjee
This paper revisits the widely circulated narrative of the Left Front’s resistance to computerisation by situating it within a longer history of technological transition in India. Rather than treating opposition to automation as ideological rejection of modernity, the paper argues that the trade union movements throughout the country during the 1960s and 1980s articulated a critique of the uneven social consequences of technology guided by import against export economic policies facilitating the historical shift from a protectionist state structure to a private sector–oriented model. Extending this argument to the cultural domain, the paper examines the crisis in the film industry in the mid–1980s due to the proliferation of television and video technologies. Focusing on West Bengal under the Left Front, the paper attempts to initiate a dialogue within three interrelated domains – labour, cultural policy, and the popular culture to examine how technology was negotiated rather than being resisted. Analysing the trade union movements, state policy shifts, and cultural debates surrounding events such as Hope 86, the paper aims to show how anxieties around computerisation and media technologies were embedded within broader transformations associated with liberalisation in India and the reconfiguration of the Indian state.
July 31, 2026pp. 102-111computerisation, Left Front Government in West Bengal, Leftist film and cultural policy, economic liberalisation, media and popular culture, automation debates
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Article
Axel Fair–Schulz
Erich Fromm developed a concept of socialism that centres on the development of the human capacity for self–determination based on critical education, the cultivation of rationalism and empathy, and an orientation of productivity. While the new and emerging digital technologies promise to dramatically increase human productivity by incorporating AI into all aspects of life (work and recreation), Fromm’s definition of what constitutes a truly productive orientation differs significantly from what digital technologies have come to represent at our current juncture. To Fromm, productivity was not merely a quantitative metric but most of all a qualitative category that emphasised the full development of human creativity and liberation from alienation and submission to the myriad overt and anonymous authorities in people’s lives, ranging from corporate and political structures all the way to public opinion, cultural patterns, and perceptions of ‘common sense.’ To Fromm, anything that did not directly originate from the mental and emotional experiences of humans was superimposed on them by external authorities and would deprive them of their capacity of self–determination. My paper explores to what degree digital technologies in educational institutions, such as colleges and universities, encourage or limit a productive engagement with knowledge acquisition and production.
July 31, 2026pp. 112-119AI, critical pedagogy, digital technologies, education, Erich Fromm, Henry A. Giroux, higher education, human creativity, humanities, liberation, Marxism, Psychology
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Article
Peter-Erwin Jansen
The advancing ‘digital age’ permeates and influences our lives: work, education, culture, memory, and science. The relationship between humans, nature, and technology is being reshaped, but remains uncertain for the future. The development and dominance of modern technologies are affecting people's social experiences and relationships and the development of political systems in different countries around the world. Are digital developments producing new mechanisms of domination and new social control, or are they supporting the autonomy and emancipation of individuals? Is it a new kind of one-dimensionality without alternative? These questions were discussed: using the analyses of critical theory, particularly the theses of Herbert Marcuse. Central in Marcuse's analysis is the thesis of an intrinsic connection between technological progress and growing control. Marcuse wrote as early as 1964 that technology serves ‘to introduce new, more effective and more pleasant forms of social control and social cohesion.’ (Marcuse 1964. xiv). However, according to Marcuse, this turns technology itself into ideology. Technology is not a neutral instrument but rather transforms itself into a system of domination: ‘technological rationality’ has become ‘political rationality’ (Marcuse 1964. xvi.). In this sense, the consequences of the digital age (‘Dataism’, PEJ) can be interpreted as the modern continuation of Marcuse's thinking. The dominance of new technologies accelerates processes of social reproduction and transformation and shapes the possibilities for political action.
July 31, 2026pp. 120-131Critics of Technology, Critical Theory, Big Data, Technology as new Ideology, One-Dimensional Man (Herbert Marcuse), Control and Domination
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Article
Chinthani Senavirathna
The increasing integration of digital technologies has fundamentally transformed disaster governance, particularly in the production, dissemination, and utilisation of disaster–related information. This study evaluates the productivity of disaster information flow in Sri Lanka by examining four key dimensions: digital governance arrangements, data use and security, communication processes, and community engagement. Adopting a qualitative comparative design based on secondary data, the study benchmarks Sri Lanka’s practices against global best practices. The findings reveal that despite advancements in early warning systems and digital communication technologies, the effectiveness of disaster information flow remains constrained by institutional fragmentation, weak interoperability, uneven access, and trust deficits. These limitations are particularly evident in last–mile communication and community responsiveness. The study argues that improving disaster information flow requires an integrated approach that combines governance reform, technological advancement, and social inclusion. It proposes strategic pathways focused on coordination, interoperability, inclusivity, and strengthened data governance to enhance disaster risk management in Sri Lanka.
July 31, 2026pp. 132-142Disaster information flow, digital governance, early warning systems, Sri Lanka, disaster risk management
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Article
Pham Thi Ha Thuong; Tran Thuy Vy; Trinh Ngan Phuong; Nguyen Thi Tien Nhi; Tran Thi Ngoc Hien
In the context of digital transformation associated with the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the adoption of digital technologies has become a key factor in supporting women receiving policy credit to develop small-scale businesses and enhance sustainable livelihoods. This study employs a mixed–methods approach, combining a quantitative survey of 80 women receiving policy credit in Nha be commune with qualitative data from 16 in–depth interviews with women borrowers and local officials. The findings indicate that most women continue to operate their businesses using traditional practices, with a strong reliance on cash transactions and only basic applications of digital technologies, such as Facebook, Zalo, or simple online selling. Access to more advanced digital tools, including QR code payments and business management software, remains limited. The level of digital technology adoption is influenced by women’s individual and household characteristics, as well as the extent of support provided by local authorities. The study highlights a significant gap between policy credit programs and initiatives aimed at strengthening digital capacities for women borrowers, and it proposes several policy recommendations to promote sustainable and inclusive livelihood development for women engaged in small scale business activities.
July 31, 2026pp. 143-159Digital transformation, sustainable livelihoods
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Article
Orville Hombrebueno; Mild R. Hombrebueno; Gydabelle M. Celestino
This study understands how women navigate the spaces of environmental hazards, particularly seismic risks, in the local community of Paitan in Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya, Philippines. Anchored on an extension program of Nueva Vizcaya State University, the project responds to growing evidence from local, national and international studies showing that women experience the most severe impacts of disasters due to their multiple and intersecting roles within households, communities and broader social structures. In Paitan, these vulnerabilities are intensified by limited access to hazard information, lack of formal training and the persistence of gendered expectations in disaster response. Using participatory workshops, community mapping and focus group discussions, the program reveals that women primarily rely on informal networks, family knowledge and local experiences in understanding seismic risks and other natural disasters. Results indicate that women possess strong contextual knowledge of their environment but lack technical capacity in disaster preparedness and early warning systems. Through targeted training on disaster risk reduction and environmental awareness, participants reported increased confidence, improved preparedness practices and greater participation in community–level decision–making. The study highlights that empowering women with localised knowledge and skills transforms them from passive victims into active agents of resilience through digital function – a mathematical concept in performing operations through simplified and contextualised outputs. Furthermore, the findings underscore the importance of community–based, gender–sensitive extension programs in strengthening women’s roles in managing natural disasters and hazards.
July 31, 2026pp. 160-170DRRM, women resilience, localised knowledge, seismic risks, digital function
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Article
Sourav Roy
Can a Gen–Z Student–People’s Uprising, the first in the Asian Spring under the banner of ‘Anti–Discrimination’, be a lens for the GSM (Gender and Sexual Minorities) digitality of Bangladesh? Can the ‘Digital’ signify the Sociology of Gender? And What would be the methodologies to map this signification? In the bloodied last week of July 2024 marching towards the two–day One–point Gen–Z Movement in Bangladesh that toppled the incumbent government, a Facebook post of Muhin Hashmi (pseud.), a popular Bangladeshi gay satire content creator was deleted. Posted in Bengali, it read: the impossible task of uniting all of Bangladesh can only be done around anti–GSM hatred. The unified backlash from all quarters of Bangladeshi gender and political spectrum followed, silencing the voluminous Bengali language and Bengali culture–specific Gender Variant Content (GVC) production from Bangladesh on Facebook for almost a month till the end of August 2024. What does this month–long silence of Gen–Z GVC content makers among the huge content surge about the ongoing Student–People Uprising tell us? Instead of the relevant ‘controversy mapping’ online (Munk, Meunier, Venturini 2019) before and after, can we research the forced ‘radio silence’ triggered by the ‘Anti–Discrimination’ ideologies instead? ‘Depending on the research question, it may be most fruitful not to predefine the variables and values but, (...) capture the specific issue language of various actors and sources as they resonate online. (...) this approach aspires to follow the actors in their own words.’ (Niederer and Colombo, Visual Methods for Digital Research, Polity Press 2024, p 53). The GVC content might have developed new kinds of ‘codes of silence’ in the tumultuous times and that might be the key to understanding an aspect of the GSM (Gender and Sexual Minorities) digitality of Bangladesh.
July 31, 2026pp. 171-186Bangladesh, Gender, Platformised Content, Facebook, Google, July Revolution
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Article
Mitus D. Puguon; Albert A. Garcia; Gerald F. Lobeban; Rowin L. Cacay
Ethical challenges in local governance increasingly arise within digital environments where information flows, online communication, and technology–mediated public engagement shape decision–making. In this context, barangay officials must address ethical concerns not only in traditional governance but also in digital transparency, information management, and responsible online communication. This paper examines a values–based capacity–building intervention designed to strengthen ethical reasoning and integrity among barangay officials in Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya, Philippines, with emphasis on digital governance practices. The program promoted accountability, ethical awareness, and values–driven leadership through ethics diagnostics, guided discussions on moral dilemmas, and participatory action planning addressing ethical ‘gray areas,’ including digital information sharing and online engagement. Findings indicate increased ethical awareness, stronger commitment to public accountability, and improved sensitivity to ethical issues. The study underscores the value of ethics education as a complement to institutional reforms and a replicable model for strengthening ethical leadership in local governance.
July 31, 2026pp. 187-199ethical leadership, barangay governance, public service ethics, accountability, university–government partnership
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Article
Tran Xuan Binh; Do Hoang Anh; Dang Phan Thanh Tra; Do Thi Ngoc Trinh
In digital platform labour, drivers and delivery workers are often identified as partners, but the work process is strongly shaped by data, performance indicators, and platform decisions. This study examines the relationship between algorithmic management, platform dependence, procedural quality, and worker voice in the transportation and delivery sector in Ho Chi Minh City. The study used quantitative survey data from 292 workers and analysed them using PLS-SEM. The results show that algorithmic management increases drivers’ dependence on the platform. At the same time, procedural quality and the ability to appeal play an important role in worker voice and workers’ ability to interact with the platform company. The findings suggest that the core issue in platform labour relations lies not only in the level of algorithmic control, but also in the quality of the procedural environment created by the platform. Accordingly, the article highlights the need to improve decision transparency, appeal mechanisms and minimum protections for dependent workers in the context of digital transformation in Vietnam.
July 31, 2026pp. 200-216algorithmic management, platform drivers, worker protection
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Article
Tran Thanh Huyen; Nguyen Tuan Khanh
As the ASEAN Digital Masterplan 2025 gives way to the ASEAN Digital Masterplan 2030 (ADM 2030), regional governance is moving toward a ‘people–centred’ paradigm in which social goals increasingly mediate AI and data integration. Three sites of state–society mediation are examined in this paper. It first examines the effects on privacy and public trust by contrasting Vietnam's stringent localisation under Decree 53/2022 with ASEAN's voluntary data clauses. Second, it examines Resolution 05/2025/NQ–CP and the 2025 Law on Digital Technology Industry, seeing them as hybrid agreements to legalise the ‘gray economy’ through centralised oversight. Lastly, it uses UNESCO's 2025 readiness assessment and the Expanded ASEAN Guide on AI Governance to evaluate the human capital gap. The paper argues that Vietnam is selectively reconfiguring regional rules to prioritise national security alongside social inclusion. Ultimately, Digital Economy Framework Agreement—DEFA’s success depends on whether digital governance is perceived as socially legitimate by the masses.
July 31, 2026pp. 217-230Digital Governance, Public Administration, Vietnam, ASEAN DEFA, Digital Sovereignty, Data Localisation.
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Article
Nguyen Thi Tho and Hoang Phuong Thao
Digital transformation in public administration is often framed in terms of efficiency, transparency, and institutional modernisation. This paper argues that such an understanding is insufficient. When digital systems are embedded in the implementation of state policy, they do not merely optimise administrative processes but reconfigure the normative structure of the social order. Drawing on Kantian ethics, Rawlsian political liberalism, Habermasian discourse theory, and Jonas’s ethic of responsibility, the paper conceptualises digital governance as part of the basic structure of society and therefore subject to standards of legitimacy. It identifies four structural tensions arising from algorithmically mediated governance: instrumentalisation, structural inequality, diffused responsibility, and the infrastructural transformation of authority. In response, the paper develops four corresponding normative principles: non–instrumentalisation, structural justice, public justifiability, and forward–looking responsibility. These principles do not function as technical prescriptions but as conditions under which digital governance can remain normatively defensible within democratic political order. The analysis contributes to ongoing debates by reframing digital governance as a question of legitimacy rather than technical performance.
July 31, 2026pp. 231-242Digital governance, algorithmic governance, normative legitimacy, public authority, basic structure.
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Article
Bernadette B. Bugtong
Democratic governance around the world have recognised the importance of citizen participation. There is, however, reports of limited meaningful policy influence of citizen inputs at the barangay level in the Philippines. Complicating this scenario is the emergence of digital communication channels. This study fills this gap by examining the occurrence of citizen engagement at the grassroots level of governance and addressing inconsistencies through designing an institutional framework. Using a qualitative case study approach, data were collected from five urban and five rural barangays in Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya through semi–structured interviews, observation of a Barangay Development Council (BDC) meeting, and collection of pertinent documents. Findings reveal that participation operates through a hybrid system, combining formal mechanisms with informal, often technology–based, channels. However, citizen input integration is constrained by centralised decision–making processes, institutional capacity gaps, socio–economic and digital inequalities, and political dynamics. In response, the study proposes a Multi–Stakeholder Citizen Input Integration Framework consisting of four components: citizen voice, processing, outputs, and citizen audit. The framework emphasises the integration of physical and digital channels in the participation process, and the active involvement of multiple stakeholders. It advances a more inclusive model of barangay governance using technology–enabled participatory systems in decentralised contexts.
July 31, 2026pp. 243-456Citizen participation, Barangay governance, Digital governance, Multi–Stakeholder framework, Participatory decision–making
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Article
Nguyen Thien Tan
This paper examines the transformation of labour within Vietnam’s private economic sector under the impact of digital transformation, which is redefining traditional employment models. Through a sociological theoretical framework, the study analyses the ‘dual challenge’ facing workers: the urgent need for digital skills and the precariousness of employment within the platform economy. The results indicate that while digitalisation drives productivity, it also increases risks regarding data security, privacy, and the erosion of traditional social security nets. The research emphasises the gap between current labour capacity and the requirements of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, while affirming the role of digital governance in protecting labour rights. The paper concludes that a coordinated approach between public administration and private governance, based on digital ethics and lifelong learning policies, is key to building an inclusive digital environment, ensuring sustainable social development, and preventing vulnerable workers from being marginalised.
July 31, 2026pp. 257-264Private sector labour, digital transformation, social mobility, digital social work, labour rights, Vietnam
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Article
Khang Lê
This paper conceptualises identity leadership in digital contexts by bringing the social identity approach into dialogue with emerging work on digital identity. It argues that digital platforms are social environments in which identities are made salient and mobilised by identity leaders for collective action. Building on social identity theory, self–categorisation theory, and recent work on social digital identity theory, the paper proposes that identity leadership helps transform dispersed online interaction into a shared sense of ‘us’ that can sustain collective action across digital and offline settings. In doing so, it highlights how digitally mediated leadership may shape emergent collective identities and enable collective action through engaged followership. The paper further argues that these processes are politically open–ended. The same identity leadership dynamics may animate solidaristic and progressive action or exclusionary and regressive mobilisation, depending on the content of the identity being advanced and the digital conditions through which it is enacted.
July 31, 2026pp. 265-274
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Article
Jonathan J. Felix
In this essay, I discuss the highly problematic nature of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in terms of its conceptualisation and function. While AI is a defining technology in digital societies such as Vietnam, the often–deterministic discourse surrounding it perpetuates its superfluous and extractive nature. What has received lesser attention in AI scholarship are ontological and teleological considerations that concern both the discourse on AI and the workings of this technology itself. Considering the applications of AI in knowledge production, I explore why AI is antithetical to academic work. Global evidence also strongly suggests a negative correlation between AI use and human capacity building which yields diminishing returns. The current problematic orientation of AI is unlikely to yield positive long–term returns concerning human capital formation. With this critical reflection, I maintain that a re–centring of human capability rather than an egalitarian view of AI use is likely to foster aggregate social competence and long–term capacity building within contemporary digital societies. In this case, AI should not be seen as a partner but a dissimilar tool for limited usage that serve human ends.
July 31, 2026pp. 276-287 AI, human capital, higher education, philosophy, technology
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Article
Ly Uyen Hoang Minh
This article examines the hidden activities of artificial intelligence (AI) in the context of digital capitalism. It argues that AI does not replace human labour but reorganises and obscures it by integrating both productive labour and the social conditions that sustain it into new processes of accumulation. While Marx identified the centrality of living labour, Marxist–feminists such as Fortunati, Federici, Bhattacharya, and Barbagallo expanded this analysis by showing how the conditions of labour are socially reproduced and unpaid. Building on this, the article shows that AI depends not only on concealed forms of human labour, but also on activities embedded in everyday social life, including care, communication, and affective interaction. In the context of capitalism, these activities are increasingly captured as data and incorporated into processes of accumulation without being recognised as labour. Focusing on Marx, Social Reproduction Theory, and Marxist analyses of digital capitalism, the article argues that AI extends capitalist exploitation by absorbing social reproduction labour, thereby deepening and reorganising existing gendered inequalities.
July 31, 2026pp. 288-297AI, social reproduction, digital capitalism, gendered labour, data extraction
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Article
Amites Mukhopadhyay
In recent times, in an increasingly climate uncertain world, the processes of conservation and restoration have witnessed a digital turn. Governance mechanisms from mapping commons, to accessing subsidies, to participating in joint forest management portal, all are migrating to digital platforms. In agriculture as well there has been a mushrooming of agro–tech firms such as Agrico aiming to establish itself as a digital platform that would license and use existing agricultural research to scale its resulting solutions rapidly across farmers in different geographies. Needless to say that the overarching rationale behind this increasing digitisation has been to achieve and sustain ecological and social sustainability. However, inherent in these conservation–restoration projects prioritising hi–tech managerial solutions is the assumption that technological interventions are essentially efficient, mitigational, and therefore, apolitical. The new digitised governance encouraging mobile app based conservation portals, satellite survey, electronic land recording tends to obscure stakeholders’ agency, grassroots knowledge and dialogue, dialogue that has once been the hallmark of the Joint Forest Management (JFM) that the government instituted in India in the decades 80s and 90s in an attempt to render conservation people centric and participation based programme. In the light of the above the paper looks into the social career of conservation in the digital era; the question that arises is, how do we conceptualise local or grassroots’ knowledge especially in the light of its increasing encounter with app–based technologies, algorithmic management and the specialist techies as the new developers? And secondly, can the increasing digitisation of the sustainability initiatives meant to achieve environmental/climate justice necessarily address the contentious issues surrounding social justice?
July 31, 2026pp. 298-307conservation–restoration, digitisation, climate justice, social justice, grassroots knowledg
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Article
Thi Kim Phung Dang; Ngoc Bich Tuyen Tran; Thi Hien Linh Nguyen
In the digital era, environmental awareness and consumer behaviours among youth are increasingly influenced by disparate mediated information environments. This study investigated the impact of traditional and social media on environmental awareness and green consumption behaviours among university students in Vietnam, utilising a digital sociology framework that views media platforms as socially stratified institutions rather than impartial information conduits. Media exposure, environmental awareness, and consumption patterns were analysed through 250 university student surveys and quantitative sociological methods. The findings indicated a consistent disparity between students elevated environmental awareness and their restricted participation in sustainable consumption behaviours. Traditional media influenced environmental awareness, whereas social media more rapidly impacted green consumption behaviour. Environmental knowledge served as a mediator, indicating that information alone did not guarantee sustainable action. From a critical standpoint, the findings indicate that digital media settings generate varied potentials for environmental action, hence exacerbating digital inequality associated with social connection, symbolic resources, and behavioural engagement. This study connects media usage, consumption patterns, and sustainability, so contributing to discussions on digital stratification, lifestyle development, and the disparate social impacts of digitalisation in modern countries.
July 31, 2026pp. 308-319Digital sociology, Digital inequality, Environmental awareness, Green consumption, Social media, Youth, Vietnam
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Article
Nguyen Thi Thanh Tra
Platform capitalism has turned social media advertising into algorithmic targeting, reshaping how social difference is made visible in everyday digital life. This paper examines targeted advertising in Vietnam as a sociotechnical mechanism of algorithmic social sorting—a routine classification process through which platforms distribute visibility, steer attention, and normalise unequal life chances. Bridging research on platform society and algorithmic governance with sociological theories of stratification and visual sociology, the study treats advertisements not only as market messages but as a visual regime that organises ‘who sees what’ and ‘which futures appear plausible’ for different users. Methodologically, the research combines digital ethnography and visual analysis of sponsored ads collected over seven days from multiple research accounts on Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram, each designed to approximate a distinct social persona. Findings show strong alignment between accounts’ behavioural signals and the sectoral and stylistic profiles of ads delivered, indicating feedback loops among user activity, algorithmic profiling, and ad visibility. Across personas, ad imagery constructs differentiated aspirational horizons, translating structural inequality into individualised desire. The paper argues that personalisation functions as an ordinary infrastructure for reproducing hierarchy in Vietnam’s digital context.
July 31, 2026pp. 320-333 algorithmic targeting, social stratification, digital inequality, visual sociology, social media advertising, platform society
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Article
Veranga Wickramasinghe
In the age of digital communication, memes can be identified as a powerful and pervasive form of cultural expression. Memes providing humorous, relatable, and highly shareable content play a significant role in shaping and reinforcing societal attitudes, including those related to gender. This study explores how Sinhala Facebook memes in Sri Lanka function as sites of humour but also as a subtle mechanism of social regulation through sexism and misogyny. The study utilised digital ethnography (Netnography) to gather qualitative data using six public Facebook pages/groups. Using the selected Facebook pages/groups, twenty–two Sinhala Memes were identified as the qualitative content. These memes were selected based on the content they depict, information related to gender stereotypes, sexualisation, objectification, sexual liberty of women, and memes blaming feminism. The study used content analysis methods to analyse gathered qualitative data. Drawing from Simone de Beauvoir’s feminist existentialist concept of woman as Other, Foucauldian analysis on power and discourse, and ‘Lajja Baya’ (Shame–fear) and Respectability by Malathi De Alwis, the study identified that Sinhala memes re–articulate the idea of stereotypical gender roles and question and favour violence on women who divert from the traditional gender roles. These memes also perpetuate harmful ideas about women’s value often reducing them to sexual objects for male consumption while questioning sexual autonomy of women. In doing so they function as a disciplinary mechanism in the virtual world. This can be identified as normalising surveillance over women’s bodies and behaviour and reflects a digital reproduction of patriarchy. In Sri Lanka this can be identified as a process which attempts to re–invent and re–articulate ‘Lajja Baya’ and respectability in the digital spheres.
July 31, 2026pp. 334-349Facebook, Memes, ‘Lajja Baya’, Respectability, Stereotypes, Patriarchy, sexism
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Article
Maria Socorro Q. Perez
This study investigates the Facebook posts and photographs of Filipino–German women who migrated to Germany through marriage, with particular attention to how they appropriate the platform’s visual affordances to construct and foreground their imaginaries of mobility and belonging. Drawing on migration history, ethnographic methods, and perspectives from mobility studies, the research situates these digital practices within broader socio–cultural and legal contexts. It argues that Facebook serves as a crucial site for the curation of self–representation, where these women narrate identities that are simultaneously mobile, cosmopolitan, and transnational. Despite operating within the constraints of Germany’s stringent immigration policies, Filipino–German women actively negotiate and perform their subjectivities through visual and textual content. Furthermore, the study highlights how such digitally mediated representations circulate as aspirational models, shaping migration imaginaries and influencing future marriage migration trajectories among Filipinos. In this way, the research underscores the interplay between digital media, identity formation, and transnational mobility.
July 31, 2026pp. 350-362Marriage Migration, Digital Self–Representation, Transnational Identity, Mobility and Cosmopolitanism, Migration Imaginaries
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Article
Thach Ngoc Pham; Anh Nguyet Vo; Doan Tran Khanh Mai; Mi Hoa Phan; and Quyen To Pham
Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly recognised for enabling personalised, flexible learning and for helping reduce communication barriers. In the meantime, group–based interventions have shown significant positive results for socially excluded populations (Gonyea and Burns, 2013; Robertson and Evans, 2015; Lewis et al., 2016). Yet, AI adaptation into inclusive education settings for deaf and hard–of–hearing students (DHHS) has not been rigorously evaluated. This paper aims to report a realistic evaluation of an AI–based inclusive education program, Artificial Intelligence in Group Social Work for Deaf and Hard of Hearing (AIGS–DHH) in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Our 3–month pioneering program was proposed and implemented at the Center for Research and Education of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (CED). We conducted qualitative interviews and focus group data from two randomly assigned participant groups: the Experimental group (n = 5) and the Control group (n = 5). The Rosenberg Self–Esteem Scale (RSES) (Rosenberg, 1965) and the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10) (Kessler and Mroczek, 1992) were administered to all participants prior to and after the program to record changes in self–esteem and psychological distress over the period. The AIGS–DHH program fulfils its aim of integrating AI–supported tools with a group–based approach to enhance accessible learning and communication, psychosocial development, and social inclusion for DHHS. The positive growth among DHHS implies a priority of participatory and DHHS–led design, ensuring DHHS’s active involvement in future AI–Supported group interventions.
July 31, 2026pp. 363-379Artificial Intelligence, Group Work, Deaf and Hard of Hearing Student, Inclusive education, Psychosocial development
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Article
Phan Tan Khuong
Digital technology provides social science scholars with new tools that supplement traditional research methods. This study employs Mixed Methods Research (MMR), integrating secondary quantitative data, semi-structured interviews, a focus group discussion, and passive digital observation to examine the impact of the digital economy on the social mobility of workers in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC). Within this context, social mobility is analysed through key indicators: Educational Attainment, Occupational Status, Income Levels, and Perceived Socioeconomic Status. Findings reveal that shifting from formal manufacturing to informal platform work frequently leads to precariousness and income instability. Furthermore, mobility outcomes correlate with macro-structural variables, including HCMC's digital economic policies, migration status, and disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Crucially, digital literacy acts as a determinant of mobility: while workers lacking digital skills face downward or stagnant mobility, those who actively leverage digital tools experience upward financial and occupational mobility. These observations align with the neo-Weberian perspective, framing social stratification within specific market conditions. Throughout the research process, this MMR approach emphasised the ethical application of digital tools, ensuring methodological congruence, data authenticity, participant privacy, and data security. These issues fall within the Sociology stream: Methodologies for Sociological Research in the Digital Society.
July 31, 2026pp. 380-394 Digital Economy Transformation, Ho Chi Minh City, Mixed Methods Research, Social Mobility, Workers.
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Article
Phan Vu Yen Nhung and Truong Thi Mong Ni
Debates about public events, including pandemic and wars. in the period 2019–2025, have generated waves of controversy regarding the responses of Gen Z youth. Alongside debates over legality, controversies surrounding Gen Z’s mobilisations and the information controls imposed on their events also raise questions about the public sphere and how it operates in the contemporary digital age. As algorithms have already and continue to dominate the amount of information, possibilities of access and connectivity, as well as attempts at control of identity, question arise as to whether digital media can still be considered merely a public sphere, or whether it has been reorganised under instrumental rationality. Thus, this study conducts a thematic analysis of prior theoretical studies on the public sphere (Negt and Kluge, 1993), as well as political unconscious (Solomon, 2025), to examine whether social media has operated according to capital's logic structure; and to approach Gen Z's discourses as oppositional efforts, in which nascent discourses attempt to break the hegemonic structures within society. The result shows that although the public sphere has expanded its structure and system globally, it has unavoidably been operated under the logic of instrumental rationality for serving capital. Through it, modern hegemony and political discourse are unconsciously colonised, obscuring the real causes that led to the collective behaviours of Gen Z. Instead of colonial legacies and the global capitalist system imposed upon these countries, public actors might focus only on state structures and behaviours. Consequently, Generation Z's collective behaviour, although generating debates about the system, have not truly produced resonance, nor have they succeeded in dismantling the entrenched social order and, more broadly, the rise of global fascism.
July 31, 2026pp. 395-406Public Sphere, Globalism, Gen Z
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Article
Nghi Tran Thi Yen
In this technological age, film consumption has become more than just screen viewing. It has become part of hybrid media environments, including streaming platforms, social media, and offline viewing, as a new form of entertainment. The cultural and social context frames film consumption in Vietnam’s evolving media landscape as a social activity, with particular attention to audience participation and digital inequality. Drawing on audience studies, participatory media theory, and consumer behaviour paradigms, the research defines audiences as socially embedded actors who interact with media across multiple platforms. A mixed–methods approach is employed, combining survey data from 538 respondents in Ho Chi Minh City with qualitative interviews with 16 film industry professionals. The findings show that social media reviews, peer recommendations, and access to streaming sites strongly influence film selection and participation in film–related discussions. However, digital engagement is unevenly distributed: persons with higher digital literacy and better access to online platforms engage more actively, whereas others remain passive consumers in the cinema. The study contributes to understanding how hybrid media environments shape audience participation and reproduce subtle forms of digital inequality in emerging media economies.
July 31, 2026pp. 407-419digital inequality, audience participation, hybrid media environments, film consumption, Vietnam.
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Article
Vo Phan My Tra; Phan Thi Hong Xuan; Dao Hieu Dong
The digital revolution and its applications have affected all spheres, including cultural preservation. Notably, intangible cultural values are now being perpetuated through a myriad of creative methods, as illustrated by the case of Co Thuy Tinh Chau (Water Crystal Chess), commonly known as The Twelve Zodiac Animals Chess – a new Vietnamese chess game coined from the passion and appreciation towards the country’s folk culture. Starting as a physical board game, Co Thuy Tinh Chau is now digitalising its product to expand its reach and strive beyond Vietnam’s borders. CTTC’s values and vision will thus be examined by the authors through the theories of glocalisation and cultural transfer, which hold great potential as a prime example for other entrepreneurs on their innovative cultural promotion and preservation journeys. Despite being an exploratory research paper, the article shows that digitalisation can foster curiosity and appreciation for Vietnamese cultural values and innovative products such as CTTC when utilised effectively.
July 31, 2026pp. 420-429Co Thuy Tinh Chau, digitalisation, cultural industry, cultural transfer, glocalisation
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Article
Thakshila Janakanatha and Veranga Wickramasinghe
Skin lightening is a socially ingrained practice in Sri Lanka, shaped by historical processes. With the expansion of digital media, social networking platforms play a significant role in producing, circulating, and reinforcing beauty standards, including those related to skin lightening. While previous research has predominantly focused on cultural and health dimensions, there remains limited sociological analysis of how digital platforms contribute to the construction and normalisation of these practices. This study explores how skin–lightening narratives are produced, circulated, and normalised on Facebook and TikTok in the Sri Lankan context. The study adopted a qualitative digital netnographic approach, analysing 20 publicly accessible contents (including influencer and non–influencer content) published on Facebook and TikTok platforms between May 2024 and December 2025. The dataset includes videos, images, captions, hashtags, group posts and user interactions. Content from both platforms was analysed comparatively, with attention to differences in format, audience engagement, and modes of presentation of skin whitening practices. Findings from thematic analysis results indicate that fairness is discursively constructed as desirable social currency tied to ideals of femininity, respectability, and upward mobility in contemporary society. It was normalised as part of skincare regimens, and potential health risks were displaced through the reification of colorist ideals. Additionally, influencers serve as agents of legitimising skin lightning through emotional narratives, visual evidence, and promotion. The study also identifies how digital spaces may create pressures related to gendered beauty norms, influencing how individuals present and evaluate bodies online. In some instances, within the dataset, skin lightening appears to function as a strategy through which certain users including some gender nonconforming individuals navigate visibility and social recognition in digital contexts. However, these observations are limited to the scope of the selected sample and should not be generalised beyond it. Overall, the study contributes to existing literature by highlighting the role of social media in shaping beauty standards. It underscores the importance of critically examining how digital platforms may reproduce existing social inequalities, while also pointing to the need for more inclusive and informed digital discourses around beauty practices.
July 31, 2026pp. 430-445Skin Lightening, Social Media, Facebook, TikTok, Sri Lanka
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Article
Le Thi Mai and Nguyen Thi Diem
In the context of the development of information technology and digital technology, a multitude of social media platforms have emerged. Social media is not merely a communication tool but also a digital space where individuals express themselves, affirm their values, and build their personal brand within the community. In today’s digital age, building a personal brand on social media is considered an ‘essential need’ for students. This article focuses on comparing self–assessment reports with digitally tracked behaviour of social science and humanities students using social media to build their personal brand using mixed methods. Drama Theory is used to analyse and compare the research content. The results show a relative difference between self–assessment reports, real–time observations, and behaviours tracked on digital platforms. This difference is a strategic response to structural and cultural constraints. This paper proposes practical implications for higher education regarding the need for digital literacy programs to support students in managing their personal identity in a platform–based society.
July 31, 2026pp. 446-458Digitally Tracked Behaviour, Dramatic Theory, Mixed Methods, Personal Branding, Self–Assessment Reports, Social Network Theory, Students
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Article
Pham Thi Thanh Huyen and Truong Tran Hoang Phuc
Artificial intelligence in higher education is emerging as a global trend and is becoming increasingly prevalent in Vietnam, particularly in the context of the country’s ongoing efforts to advance digital transformation in education and to implement comprehensive and fundamental reforms in the education and training system. This study approaches the impact of artificial intelligence on students’ self–directed learning processes and critical thinking capacities by drawing on Anthony Giddens’s structuration theory, in combination with Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital. Employing both qualitative and quantitative research methods, the article examines the current state of AI usage among university students and seeks to evaluate both the positive and negative impacts of AI on these two essential learning competencies. Based on empirical findings, the study proposes several recommendations and implications for regulating the use of AI in a manner that enhances the effectiveness of higher education within the context of Vietnam’s ongoing digital transformation.
July 31, 2026pp. 464-475Artificial intelligence, higher education, self–directed learning, critical thinking, students
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Article
This paper analysed enrolment ability and resource optimisation of a state university using data–informed strategy plan which anchored on digital governance and evidence–based decision making in public administration. The study was conducted in Nueva Vizcaya State University Bayombong campus, focused on student enrolment and existing resources such as classroom and faculty, and in compliance with the General Appropriation Act (GAA) and Commission on Higher Education (CHED) Policies. The study employs the Verhulst logistic model, along with data simulations using MS Excel and historical enrolment data of the university. The study reveals that the university operates beyond its sustainable capacity. The actual enrolment of 9,575 was more than the carrying capacity estimates of between 6,200 and 6,511 of the institution. The scenario negatively impacted the financial viability, classroom and faculty resources, and quality of service delivery of the university. The result can further serve as benchmark data that can be used in institutional planning, policy coordination and governance. A data–driven enrolment management and optimisation system was recommended and promoted.
July 31, 2026pp. 476-486Strategic Assessment, Resource Optimisation, Carrying Capacity, Enrolment Management, Higher Education Development Fund
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Article
Gauthami Kamalika Jayathilaka
Technology today is being increasingly amalgamated into the experiences of the traveller, necessitating the relentless shift between the physical and the digital. In such a context, this paper critically explores the worldmaking role of the Sri Lankan travel vloggers and the significant sociotechnical implications underlying this through the case study of Sheneller, a popular YouTube channel of a young Sri Lankan content creator who aims to ‘take stories of Sri Lanka to the world’. Sheneller’s high production value, cinematic travel content endeavours to promote travel to and within Sri Lanka offering sustainable travel tips, authentic local insights and lesser–known locations using advanced technology such as aerial videography. This qualitative study extends insights on the ‘tourist gaze’ through a netnography of her vlogs promoting responsible travel, engaging an ‘activist gaze’. In doing so, the paper surpasses the mere scrutiny of her worldmaking agency to emphasise the ‘sociotechnical’ through the employment of the assemblage theory and imaginaries as analytical tools to conceptualize the multifariousness of entities coming together to constitute a new whole—the vlog. As such, this study innovatively examines the connection between mobility, sociality and technology within the dynamic context of new mobile and media technologies and their role and agency in worldmaking.
July 31, 2026pp. 487-498Tourism worldmaking, Activist gaze, Travel vlogging, Technological and human agency, Sri Lanka, Sociotechnical imaginaries
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Article
Marie Lara Pauline B. Bobier
The study examines reliance on personality–driven communication in tourism marketing, focusing on the image of the former Philippine Department of Tourism Secretary, Christina Frasco, in promotional campaigns. While such strategies may enhance visibility within algorithm–driven media environments, they raise critical concerns regarding their implications for potential international visitors. By using a government official’s face, campaigns risk marginalising local communities, destinations, and cultural narratives, potentially reinforcing uneven regional representation. Anchored in the mediatisation framework of Andreas Hepp and Nick Couldry and employing a qualitative approach, the study analyses the organisations’ marketing strategy in the context of declining tourism contributions to the national economy. Findings indicate that the campaign did not effectively maximise media platforms to achieve its intended objectives and instead generated public backlash. The study highlights the limitations of using a government official for a national branding in public–sector communication and emphasises the need for more inclusive, customised, and strategically grounded tourism promotion.
July 31, 2026pp. 499-513mediatisation, tourism promotion, tourism communication, Philippines, economics
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Article
Methmi Bambarabotuwa; Ramoda Nimanshika; Tharushi Kothalawala; Raveen De Alwis; Nadeesha Jayathunga
Wellness tourism is growing in the Sri Lankan tourism industry; however, there is a lack of systematic research available to inform how visitors perceive wellness tourism. Therefore, this study examined visitors’ perceptions of wellness tourism in Sri Lanka from a qualitative perspective using user–generated content associated with Colombo, Galle and Badulla. Online reviews were collected from hotel–spas, wellness–centres, and Ayurveda–spas listed on two major travel platforms, TripAdvisor and Booking.com. As part of a larger project involving online review data, this research analyses thematic and sentiment data to identify the primary experience–based domains; to measure and categories the overall sentiment polarity toward the primary elements of wellness tourism; and to depict how most rated wellness experiences exist across the geographical region of the country. Themes found within the reviewed content include Professionalism, Quality of experience, Peacefulness, and Relaxation; and wellness tourism elements most commonly mentioned include Ayurveda therapies, Body massages, Sports massages, Herbals, Yoga therapy, and High–end treatments. Approximately 84% of the overall review content had a positive sentiment regarding the wellness tourism offerings. The findings point toward the incredible value of end–user–generated content for informing destination management and enhancing service quality associated with the development of sustainable wellness tourism in Sri Lanka.
July 31, 2026pp. 514-527Ayurveda, Hotel Spa, Luxury Wellness, Sentiment Analysis, User–generated content’ Wellness Tourism
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Article
Thi Kim Phung Dang; Thi Thu Trang Nguyen; Ngoc Diem Huynh; Thanh Xuan Tran; Thi Thuy Trang Tran
Later life social connectedness is increasingly affected by spatial transformation, digital access, and changing community forms in the digital society. Using a structured survey of 161 older persons, this study examined the social connectivity of older individuals in an inner–city neighborhood and a peri–urban region of Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam), focusing on the impact of digital inequality on social engagement and support. The findings revealed that social connectivity was unevenly structured across relational domains. Bonding ties remained relatively strong, while linking connectivity—associated with formal participation—remained limited. Older adults in peri–urban areas reported significantly higher bonding connectivity, whereas no significant spatial differences are observed in bridging and linking connectivity. Regression results indicated that digital access and digital skills had limited explanatory power, particularly for formal social participation. Although digital access differed across the two areas, this inequality did not translate into differences in broader social connectivity. Drawing on the perspective of Bourdieu’s theory of capital, the study argues that digital resources are not effectively converted into social connectivity. Digital inclusion for older adults is a social and geographic justice issue that requires comprehensive interventions across infrastructure, community institutions, and daily social activities.
July 31, 2026pp. 528-539Digital inequality, Social networks, Older adults, Aging, Urban–peri–urban differences, Social connectivity, Viet Nam
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Article
Ngai Keung Chan
While research has examined how and why platform–mediated gig workers organise to resist algorithmic management, we know less about platforms’ strategies for undermining workers’ organising capacity. Theoretically, this paper builds on the power resources approach (PRA; Arnholtz and Refslund, 2024) to develop a relational account of how labour platforms cultivate distinct power resources to defend their interests. Empirically, I substantiate this framework by drawing on three years of qualitative research on delivery workers’ mobilisations in Hong Kong and Taiwan. I highlight how platforms in both cases deploy similar strategies to undermine workers’ organising capacity, including technological fix, labour oversupply, and the mobilisation of public values. Their impacts, however, are uneven across worker groups, reflecting differences in levels of platform dependence and socio–political contexts. By reconceptualising platform power as adaptive and relational, the paper advances our understanding of algorithmic management and platform labour unrest.
July 31, 2026pp. 540-552collective organising, platform work, digital solidarity, power resources, algorithmic management
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Article
Yu–Fan Chiu
Since 2021, delivery riders in Taiwan have organised unions to improve working conditions. Taiwan’s institutional framework integrates social insurance with craft unions, linking state insurance systems to unionisation levels in a way that parallels the ‘Ghent effect’ in Nordic countries, where unemployment insurance funds act as recruitment channels and sustain high union density. By leveraging their intermediary role in the social insurance system, riders’ unions recruit members and expand their base. Drawing on three years of qualitative interviews, this article demonstrates riders’ motivations for union participation, echoing Ghent–type mechanisms. However, this trajectory reflects an instrumental orientation of unionism that limits deeper member commitment and makes large–scale collective action difficult. Instead, unions pursue ‘atypical industrial action,’ including short–term, high–visibility protests targeting public authorities. These actions rely on a small core of members while mobilising consumers, NGOs, and broader publics, fostering digitally mediated solidarity and contributing to the passage of the 2026 Platform Rider Protection Act (PRPA). Yet maintaining membership requires preserving riders’ self–employed status. Unions have supported legislation covering only the self–employed, compelling misclassified workers to adopt this status to access protection and remain dependent on union–based social insurance. While disadvantageous to workers, this sustains union strength, producing a double–edged effect.
July 31, 2026pp. 553-564platform riders, Platform Riders Protection Act, Ghent system, digital solidarity
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Article
Nguyen Nu Nguyet Anh and Nguyen Thi Thanh Binh
The growth of platform capitalism in Vietnam has led to severe job insecurity and isolation for gig workers, pushing them into a legal grey area of ‘false self–employment’. This study examines how ride–hailing drivers in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam manage and resist this control by algorithms. Based on Karl Polanyi’s concept of ‘re–embedding’, the research uses a qualitative approach. It combines data from 25 in–depth interviews with an analysis of online driver communities. The findings show that drivers are not passive. Instead, they create ‘hybrid occupational spaces’ by linking physical meeting places (such as pavement cafés) with digital platforms (such as Zalo and Facebook groups). Within these spaces, workers build ‘digital solidarity’ in three main ways: sharing information to manage the algorithm, setting up informal financial safety nets, and offering emotional support to reduce work–related stress. Ultimately, this digital solidarity is a bottom–up effort to ‘re–embed’ their labour into protective social networks. The paper also points out the limits of informal support. It highlights the urgent need for new laws that officially recognise platform workers and guarantee their rights as workers.
July 31, 2026pp. 565-576Platform labour, Algorithmic precarity, Digital solidarity, Hybrid occupational spaces, Re–embedding
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Article
Lisa Yuk–ming Leung
In Hong Kong, the arrival of Keeta (subsidiary of Meituan) in Hong Kong in 2023 further aggravated the structured inequalities facing migrant gig workers. Disgruntled minority/ migrant gig workers, then have to resort to collective tactics, to resist algorithmic and ‘workplace’ aggression, in the face of encroaching state surveillance and mercenary exploitation. This paper consolidates several years of research into the ‘structured’ struggles of south Asian migrant / minority platform workers in Hong Kong, and their tactical agencies and solidarities, in the post–colonial context of Hong Kong. Employing quantitative surveys and qualitative methods, the paper argues that migrant/ racial minority gig workers face could stem from deeply entrenched racialisation/ racism in former colonies, which are contemporised and aggravated in the increasingly ‘involutionist’ platforms. It also argues that these marginalised workers are capable of employing WhatsApp to collectively resist platformed aggression. Employing the notion of ‘un–involution solidarities’, the paper hopes to articulate the nuanced agencies, tactics and solidarities of migrant/ minority workers in engaging in collective forms of resistances, which reflect altogether the layers of structured precariousness incurred by platform capitalism, in an increasingly authoritarian polity.
July 31, 2026pp. 577-592migrant gig workers, racial/ ethnic minority, micro–aggression, food delivery riders, un–involution solidarities, platform capitalism, South Asians, Hong Kong
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