The Internet has often been portrayed as the ultimate leveler of information where existing hierarchies of power and privilege are undermined by meritocracy. Some websites and functions are, however, more equal than others. In particular, search engines such as Google have been a key means to...

There are now over three billion Internet users on our planet. The connections afforded to all of those people, in theory, allow for an unprecedented amount of communication and public participation. The goal of this paper is to examine how those potentials match up to actual patterns of...

The world of work is changing. Communications technologies and digital platforms have enabled some types of work to be delivered from anywhere in the world by anyone with a computer and an internet connection. This digitally-mediated work brings jobs to parts of the world traditionally...

Cities are inherently digital. Digital infrastructures that augment the city – the code – the content – fundamentally shape urban life. Many of those digital augmentations of the city have now become part of the ‘platform economy'. Platforms in the urban environment are reshaping urban...

Millions of workers around the world join the so-called “sharing economy” every day to perform a variety of jobs. Most of these jobs are digitally mediated through internet-based platforms which connect buyers and sellers of goods and services. However, recent research has begun to highlight...

The rise of the “gig economy” has enabled Internet users to find new work previously unavailable to them. For this purpose, “online labor platforms” have been set up, which constitute a global remote gig economy and enable clients to access world-wide labor power. This chapter discusses...

We are witnessing the emergence of a ‘planetary labour market' for digital work. Building on a five-year study of digital work in some of the world's economic margins, we show a planetary labour market does not do away with geography, it rather exists to take advantage of it. Digital...

After observing the growth of the Indian and Filipino Business Processing Outsourcing sectors, Kenyan policy-makers and managers made substantial investments in international internet infrastructure and BPO marketing campaigns. While observers continue to discuss the sector in terms of its...