The Department of Sociology is pleased to announce that faculty member Professor Tom McDonald has recently published an insightful article in the esteemed journal Platforms & Society. Titled "Liquid platforms: Theorising the new digital economy", the paper introduces the innovative concept of ‘liquid platforms’ to critically examine the fluid and contested nature of contemporary digital economies.

Drawing on ethnographic research and interviews with non-fungible token (NFT) collectors and industry leaders based in Hong Kong, Prof McDonald explores how actors manipulate platform boundaries and employ labour-intensive practices to imbue NFTs with liquidity. The study underscores the persistent structural vulnerabilities and the dynamic role platforms play as both infrastructural and sociotechnical systems.

This work contributes to critical social science scholarship by offering a novel framework to understand the complex, unstable dynamics shaping modern digital economies. The article is published in Platforms & Society, a leading journal dedicated to examining the societal impacts of platformisation across the globe.