David B. Nieborg

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Playtika's platform problems: Theorizing and analyzing risk in digital platform economics - Alexander Ross, David B. Nieborg, 2026 Risk is often an implicit theme in platform studies and is rarely made explicit in the analysis of platform power. The increased dependencies created by digital...

New publication alert! Article by @nieborg.bsky.social and myself on platforms and institutional risk. We use the social casino developer Playtika to assess the shaping of financial, infrastructural, and regulatory risks in the platform economy.

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Some personal news, as they say.

Get your submissions ready for when our portal opens February 12. As the founding editor-in-chief of the new Springer Nature academic journal Creator and Influencer Studies, I’m thrilled to welcome them.

link.springer.com/journal/44538

Mainstreaming and Game Journalism Mainstreaming and Game Journalism addresses both the history and current practice of game journalism, along with the roles writers and industry play in conve...

Ours 😇 mitpress.mit.edu/978026254628... The mainstreaming argument should provide enough food for discussion (& the focus on game journalism remains unique)

What a great paper!

Congrats Dr.!

TikTok

That is just a ridiciously cute dog. Thanks for your work on the bridging for AoIR btw!

Thanks! Some of our interest stems from the fact that this is an underexplored and underresearched topic. The other reason to look into this is that for platform companies to be able to control what other companies do, is by creating tools and setting the rules for tool usage.

Hot off the press: Chris J Young, Daniel J Joseph and @nieborg.bsky.social trace a platform historiography of #Unity to discuss how workflows create dexterous corporate lockins in cultural production journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... enjoy!

Another kind review of our work by Andreas Rauscher about @nieborg.bsky.social and my book! For those who speak German, this may be a good one for you: mediarep.org/server/api/c...

👋👋

New on H-Sci-Med-Tech:

Check out Gabriel Antúnez De Mayolo Kou (UWisconsin-La Crosse)‬’s review of @nieborg.bsky.social (@utoronto.ca‬) & @maxwellfoxman.bsky.social‬ (@uoregon.bsky.social‬)’s book _Mainstreaming & Game Journalism_ (2023) @mitpress.bsky.social

Review avail @hnetreviews.bsky.social

Special issue introduction: reflecting on TikTok creators and digital economies From global trends to record-breaking growth, TikTok provides new playgrounds for popular culture, low barrier participation in public life, and new forces of creator labour that are reshaping cult...

ICYMI: the special issue "on TikTok creators and digital economies" in which Kaushar Mahetaji and I have a paper on TikTok's historical development as "platform tool" is out now. Here's the introduction: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... (& here's our paper: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....)

In our new article with @producing2power.bsky.social, we examine the tensions and labor dynamics faced by Latin American influencers working in the U.S. Published in the @ijcs-journal.bsky.social.

Read Jim’s book! Short review is it’s very good if you’re interested in game tools!

Dear universities,

I am begging you to stop requiring letters of recommendation for master's programmes. You and I both know you don't read them, so stop asking for them.

Instead, have applicants list a name and get in touch if it's a borderline case.

Signed,
Everyone.

This is really great, and a good reminder to every academic to always resist saying the reason your own research matters is because ‘no one else has done it’. It’s almost certainly wrong and, even if true, not a good reason for doing it being worthwhile.

Timely!

I look forward to read this!

It's official. I've been promoted to Full Professor at @uoft.bsky.social! Grateful to all those who made this happen.

💥 New article: Labour and migration in the games industry: circulation of workers and struggles across Brazilian and British contexts, with André Campos Rocha and Jamie Woodcock in Globalizations journal.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Tip for PhD applicants reaching out to prospective advisors: Don’t use an LLM to write these emails. It’s not a great first impression to express your admiration for a recent paper the faculty member published if that paper does not exist.

Frisian! ❤️

Analyzing institutional platform power: Evolving relations of dependence in the mobile digital advertising ecosystem - David B Nieborg, Thomas Poell, 2025 This article calls for systematic analysis of the accumulation and exercise of institutional platform power in the digital economy. We examine how the relativel...

Just out! Open access article with @nieborg.bsky.social on "Analyzing institutional platform power" journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.... #power #platforms #digital #bigtech Preparing the ground for our book on Platform Power!