Publications

For a full list of my publications, see my CV. Please feel free to email me if you cannot access any of my papers that are behind paywalls.

Jump to: Journal articles · Special issues · Book chapters · Other articles & editorials · Book reviews

Refereed journal articles

ᴱ indicates equal first-authorship; * indicates a graduate student co-author at the time of writing.

Chan, N. K. (2026). Platform worker organizing for power: Relational dynamics of platform unionism in Taiwan’s food delivery sector. Work in the Global Economy.

Chan, N. K.ᴱ, Su, C. C.ᴱ, & Zhou, R.* (2026). Imagining and enacting futures: The anticipatory politics of algorithmic governance. Sociology Compass, 20(9), e70249.

Qing, F.*, & Chan, N. K. (2026). Governing by ambiguity: Sociotechnical imaginaries of platforms in China. Policy & Internet, 18(2), e70040.

Su, C. C.ᴱ, & Chan, N. K.ᴱ (2026). Assembling platform governance as private ordering in the age of generative AI: Platform interdependence in policy evolution. Information, Communication & Society, 29(6), 1929–1953.

Chan, N. K.ᴱ, Kwok, C.ᴱ, 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.

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.

Mao, T., Su, C. C., Chan, N. K., & Guo, L. (2025). Communicating about and through platform values: Legitimizing public expression regulation on X and Weibo 2007–2024. Social Media + Society, 11(4), 20563051251395398.

Chan, N. K.ᴱ, Su, C. C.ᴱ, & Shore, A.* (2025). Shifting platform values in community guidelines: Examining the evolution of TikTok’s governance frameworks. New Media & Society, 27(2), 1127–1151.

Kwok, C.ᴱ, & Chan, N. K.ᴱ (2024). Human-automated collectives: Automating communication for social movement mobilization. New Media & Society, 26(9), 4992–5012.

Kwok, C.ᴱ, & Chan, N. K.ᴱ (2024). Datafication and implicated networks of demobilization: Social movement demobilization in datafied societies. Social Movement Studies, 23(3), 373–390.

Chan, N. K.ᴱ, & Kwok, C.ᴱ (2024). State-led embeddedness: Analyzing the discursive construction of platforms and social good in Beijing, Hangzhou, Shanghai, and Shenzhen. Global Media and China, 9(3), 362–383.

Butkowski, C. P., Chan, N. K., Berniker, T., Rodriguez, A., Schlather, K., Zhang, K. M., & Humphreys, L. (2023). Communication about sensors and communication through sensors: Localizing the internet of things in rural communities. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 28(5), zmad005.

Chan, N. K. (2022). Algorithmic precarity and metric power: Managing the affective measures and customers in the gig economy. Big Data & Society, 9(2), 20539517221133779.

Butkowski, C. P., Chan, N. K., & Humphreys, L. (2022). Community internet of things as mobile infrastructure: Methodological challenges and opportunities. Media and Communication, 10(3), 303–314.

Vasudevan, K., & Chan, N. K. (2022). Gamification and work games: Examining consent and resistance among Uber drivers. New Media & Society, 24(4), 866–886.

Chan, N. K.ᴱ, & Kwok, C.ᴱ (2022). The politics of platform power in surveillance capitalism: A comparative case study of ride-hailing platforms in China and the United States. Global Media & China, 7(2), 131–150.

Kwok, C., & Chan, N. K. (2022). The making of contentious political space: The transformation of Hong Kong’s Victoria Park. Space and Culture, 25(4), 615–632.

Kwok, C., & Chan, N. K. (2021). Towards a political theory of data justice: A public good perspective. Journal of Information, Communication & Ethics in Society, 19(3), 374–390.

Chan, N. K.ᴱ, & Kwok, C.ᴱ (2021). Guerilla capitalism and the platform economy: Governing Uber in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Information, Communication & Society, 24(6), 780–796.

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.

Chan, N. K. (2019). “Becoming an expert in driving for Uber”: Uber driver/bloggers’ performance of expertise and self-presentation on YouTube. New Media & Society, 21(9), 2048–2067.

Chan, N. K. (2019). The rating game: The discipline of Uber’s user-generated ratings. Surveillance & Society, 17(1/2), 183–190.

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.

Chan, N. K., & Humphreys, L. (2018). Mediatization of social space and the case of Uber drivers. Media and Communication, 6(2), 29–38.

Chan, N. K. (2018). Place-making and communication practice: Everyday precarity in a night market in Hong Kong. Space and Culture, 21(4), 439–454.

Kwok, C., & Chan, N. K. (2017). Legitimacy and forced democratization in social movements: A case study of the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong. China Perspectives, 2017/3, 7–16.

Su, C., & Chan, N. K. (2017). Predicting social capital on Facebook: The implications of use intensity, perceived content desirability, and Facebook-enabled communication practices. Computers in Human Behavior, 72, 259–268.

Journal special issues edited

Chan, N. K., Zeng, J., & Pun, N. (Eds.). (2026). Infrastructure, labour & social change: Understanding digital and big data practices in/from China. Big Data & Society.

  • This special issue features an editorial essay, seven regular-length research articles, and one commentary addressing (a) data labor behind AI production; (b) big data infrastructures and practices for social change; and (c) the geopolitics of data infrastructures in and from China.

  • Read the editorial introduction.

Chan, N. K. (Ed.). (2025). Platformization of Chinese societies (華人社會的平台化). Communication and Society, 71. (in Chinese)

  • This special issue features a short editorial and six regular-length research articles addressing the platformization of Chinese societies.

Book chapters

Chan, N. K. (in press). “Striving for hope”: The cycle of worker resistance against food delivery platforms in Hong Kong. In A. Wolf & M. Figueroa (Eds.), Global gig economy and the local conditioning of algorithmic work. University of Illinois Press.

Chan, N. K. (in press). Understanding the ambivalence of platform work through a moral economy approach: Narratives from food delivery and ride-hailing workers in Hong Kong and Taiwan. In C. A. Scolari, M. Guerrero-Pico, & M. Piña (Eds.), Working in/for platforms (pp. 276–289). Wiley.

Chan, N. K., & Ou, J. (2025). Digital communities in the gig economy: Platform workers’ information sharing, empowerment, and community building (零工經濟下的網絡社群：平台工人的信息傳遞、自我賦權和社群建構). In G. Tang, J. Li, & C. K. Tsang (Eds.), Hong Kong, culture, and exploration (香港．文化．探索) (pp. 155–178). Infolink Publishing. (in Chinese)

Non-refereed journal articles and editorials

Chan, N. K., Zeng, J., & Pun, N. (2026). Demystifying big data in China: Infrastructure, labour and social change. Big Data & Society, 13(3), 20539517261478112.

Chan, N. K., & Kwok, C. (2026). Data, human subjects, and research ethics in transformative contexts. AI & Society, 41, 473–474.

Abidin, C., Van Doorn, N., Chan, N. K., & Lin, J. (2025). Mapping the platformization of labor, culture, and society (勞動、文化與社會的平台化). Communication and Society, 72, 1–41. (in both Chinese and English)

Chan, N. K. (2025). Editor’s note: Platformization of Chinese societies (華人社會的平台化). Communication and Society, 71, v–x. (in Chinese)

Kwok, C., & Chan, N. K. (2016). The problem of legitimacy in the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement. Discover Society, 31.

Book reviews

Chan, N. K. (2026). Review of Behind the Startup: How Venture Capital Shapes Work, Innovation, and Inequality, by Benjamin Shestakofsky. International Journal of Communication, 20, 2142–2145.

Chan, N. K. (2022). Review of Social Media and the Automatic Production of Memory: Classification, Ranking and the Sorting of the Past, by Ben Jacobsen and David Beer. International Journal of Communication, 16, 1365–1367.

Chan, N. K. (2019). Review of Technologies of Consumer Labor: A History of Self-Service, by Michael Palm. International Journal of Communication, 13, 780–783.

Chan, N. K. (2018). Review of Antisocial Media: Anxious Labor in the Digital Economy, by Greg Goldberg. International Journal of Communication, 12, 2740–2743.

Chan, N. K. (2015). Review of Media and the City: Cosmopolitanism and Difference, by Myria Georgiou. International Journal of Communication, 9, 1459–1462.