From “Surveillance Capitalism” to “Association Capitalism”: The Mediatization and Organization of Chinese Digital Platforms

This article develops an alternative framework for analyzing the formation and figuration of platform capitalism in China and beyond as a complement to the dominant paradigm of “surveillance capitalism.” We call it “association capitalism.” From the perspective of organization and communication, association capitalism conceptualizes platformization as a process of mediatization, in which platforms connects, organizes, and mobilizes various social resources, and ultimately consolidating their monolithic gatekeeping positions in the Chinese market. Taking the food delivery industry as a case, the article argues that association capitalism is constituted through three interrelated dimensions: habituation, mediation, and embodiment. Each act of association-making is mediated by a heterogenous assemblage of people, objects and social relations that perform functions of coordination, management, and aggregation. As a sensitizing concept, “association capitalism” offers a theoretically productive lens for rethinking relationships among digital platforms, technological labor, and organizational governance.