Datafication and Social Life
I am interested in understanding how various social actors encounter, interpret, and respond to datafication and platformization in their everyday lives. This line of research emphasizes social actors’ interpretive agency by examining how their socio-technical imaginaries shape what they see as threats and possibilities and which anticipatory tactics they consider viable. The guiding research questions are: How do citizens and activists (re)imagine, negotiate, and resist the politics of platformization and datafication in their everyday lives? How does datafication reshape the dynamics of (de)mobilization in collective action and other social settings?
Selected publications
On collective action
Chan, N. K. (2025). Dynamics of platform architecture and labor unrest: Mobilizing and contesting solidarity in the 2021–2022 Foodpanda delivery rider strikes in Hong Kong. Social Media + Society, 11(1), 20563051251319578.
Chan, N. K., Kwok, C., He, R., & Su, C. C. (2025). Contesting data power at the margins: Contentious data imaginaries and social movement mobilization. Big Data & Society, 12(4), 20539517251389866.
Kwok, C., & Chan, N. K. (2024). Human-automated collectives: Automating communication for social movement mobilization. New Media & Society, 26(9), 4992–5012.
Kwok, C., & Chan, N. K. (2024). Datafication and implicated networks of demobilization: Social movement demobilization in datafied societies. Social Movement Studies, 23(3), 373–390.
On the anticipatory politics of algorithmic governance
Chan, N. K., Su, C. C., & Zhou, R. (2026). Imagining and enacting futures: The anticipatory politics of algorithmic governance. Sociology Compass, 20(9), e70249.
Chan, N. K. (2021). Anticipatory futures: Framing the socio-technical visions of online ratings and reviews in Wired. Communication, Culture & Critique, 14(2), 274–292.
On social media self-presentation and surveillance
Duffy, B. E., & Chan, N. K. (2019). “You never really know who’s looking”: Imagined surveillance across social media platforms. New Media & Society, 21(1), 119–138.