Oliver Ngai Keung Chan
Assistant Professor
School of Journalism and Communication
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Technology · Work · Power · Social Life
I study how data-driven socio-technical systems are reconfiguring relations of power. In particular, I explore how precarious workers, activists, and datafied citizens live with, feel about, navigate, and resist the systems that increasingly govern their working and public lives. Broadly, my work addresses what it takes—and what it costs—for people to be seen, valued, and heard in today’s datafied societies.
Research Themes
How do platform firms deploy algorithmic management to manufacture worker consent and facilitate labor control in service workplaces? How do workers fight back? How do prolonged precarious (platform) work experiences extend into other domains of social life and shape one’s future projections?
How does Big Tech gain and mobilize power resources across sectors and regulatory contexts over time? How do such firms attempt to legitimize their role as private governors and manufacture user and public consent? How might we theorize and analyze the back-and-forth struggles between Big Tech and other relevant social groups?
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?