Platformisation, Political Change and Democracy in Southeast Asia – for a Labour Turn in Digital Media Studies

Abstract In this paper, I examine the relationship between increasing digitalisation and platformisation on one side, and political mobilisation and political change in Southeast Asia on the other. Southeast Asia presents a particularly instructive case, as the penetration of social media and digital platforms is highly advanced — among the highest in the world — while political systems are undergoing dynamic transformations. I begin with a discussion of earlier conceptual approaches, characterising their explanatory strategies as either endogenous or exogenous. Highlighting the shortcomings of both types of approaches, I argue that labour — specifically, working conditions and the changing basis of material reproduction — should be placed at the centre of study and taken as the primary point of departure. The Italian theoretical school of Operaism (workerism), along with recent developments in this field, offers valuable insights. In the final part of the paper, I present preliminary findings from an ongoing empirical research project, which shed light on the implications of the approaches discussed in the preceding sections. Adopting this labour-oriented perspective in digital media studies has theoretical implications for the concept of techno-environments as well as for area studies more broadly.