IR220: Digital Platforms: Power, Politics and Resistance

Digital platforms—like those owned by Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, Baidu, or Tencent—now shape and manipulate our everyday digital (and non-digital) lives. Their capacity to shape economic, social, and political life is seen across virtually all sectors, including transport, education, communication, and healthcare.

This platformisation of society generates extensive social damage, as witnessed in the past few years by dramatic episodes of disinformation and media manipulation, algorithmic amplification of hate, and massive data breaches. Around the world citizens, politicians, and activists are holding platforms to account and demanding a change to the concentration of power in digital platforms; these demands are based in the view that platform power is at the centre of a crisis of democracy, and a crisis in the individual and collective ability to communicate and make sense of the world.

This course begins with these received crises but looks both forwards and backwards, to understand how we got here and where we are going. Through this course, you will gain access to research-led lectures and the latest scholarship to properly understand how digital platforms work and the roles they play in society. You will apply this knowledge to case studies to understand how platforms are shaped and where citizens might intervene in their governance. You will engage in debates to think about how to critically engage with technological power and to mitigate the social harms of platforms.

Prerequisites: At least one introductory course in either social science (e.g. political science, international relations, sociology, economics), history or law. 

Level: 200 level. Read more information on levels in our FAQs

Fees: Please see Fees and payments

Lectures: 36 hours

Classes: 18 hours

Assessment: An essay of 2,000 words (50%) and an exam (50%)

Typical credit: 3-4 credits (US) 7.5 ECTS points (EU)

Please note: Assessment is optional but may be required for credit by your home institution. Your home institution will be able to advise how you can meet their credit requirements. For more information on exams and credit, read Teaching and assessment

This course is ideal if you are looking to combine a social and technological understanding of digital platforms with an overview of the harms they generate and the civic response to these harms.

If you are targeting a career in the technology sector, in communication, advertising & journalism, or in public policy, this course is for you.

• Develop a deeper understanding of the sociotechnical basis of digital platforms
• Situate digital platforms within the technical and cultural history of the internet
• Review how the platform model differs across various cultural and political contexts
• Gain a comparative view of different regulatory frameworks for platform power
• Engage in regulatory experiments to imagine a fairer platform society

The design of this course is guided by LSE faculty, as well as industry experts, who will share their experience and in-depth knowledge with you throughout the course.