Media@ Sydney: 'WhatsApp’ - Amelia Johns, Ariadna Matamoros-Fernández, Emma Baulch

Abstract

In this seminar we outline the central argument and present formative case studies from our book WhatsApp: From a one-to-one Messaging App to a Global Communication Platform. The book charts WhatsApp’s evolution through the 2010s, as chat apps became a primary mode of communication for many people across the world. It examines Meta’s purchase of WhatsApp in 2014, after which WhatsApp was transformed from a simple, ‘gimmickless’ app into a global communication platform, with its business and broadcasting functions elevating WhatsApp above its former chat app status. The book explores how WhatsApp as a ‘platform’ mediates new kinds of social and commercial transactions, poses new opportunities and challenges for platform regulation, civic participation and democracy, and how it has given rise to new kinds of digital literacy as WhatsApp has become integrated into everyday digital cultures across the globe. We conclude by arguing that this development can shed light on the trajectory of Meta’s industrial development, and how digital economies and social media landscapes are evolving with the rise of ‘superapps’.

Author bios:

Amelia Johns is Associate Professor in Digital and Social Media, in the School of Communication at UTS. Her work spans the fields of social media, digital citizenship and digital activism, with a focus on marginalised young people's negotiation of racism and hate speech, civic and political engagement, digital literacy and safety, across networked and closed digital platforms and publics. Her recent work has focused on misinformation, platform governance and trust on Facebook and WhatsApp. She is current lead Investigator on an ARC Discovery project: Fostering Global Digital Citizenship: Diaspora Youth in a Connected World, and co-author of the recent book 'WhatsApp: from a one-to-one communication app to a global communication platform' (2023), published with Polity Press. She is also the author of Battle for the Flag (2015), and co-editor of Negotiating Digital Citizenship: Control, Contest, Culture (2016). 

Ariadna Matamoros-Fernández is a Senior Lecturer in Digital Media in the School of Communication at QUT, chief investigator at the Digital Media Research Centre (DMRC) and Associate Investigator at the national ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society. She holds a Ph.D. in Digital Media from the Queensland University of Technology (2018), a MA from the Digital Methods Initiative, University of Amsterdam, and a BA in Journalism from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Her research focuses on the entanglement between digital platforms and user practices in (re)producing systemic inequality. She has experience in developing new methods to study digital platforms and is leading research projects investigating platform governance in relation to memes and other controversial content, which includes cross-disciplinary collaborations with scholars from law and data science. 

Emma Baulch is Associate Professor of Media and Communications at Monash University Malaysia. She is Director of the Southeast Asia Research Centre for Digital Tech and Society (SEADS) and Deputy Head of School (Research) at the School of Arts and Social Sciences. Emma researches media and popular culture using cultural studies approaches. She is the author of Making Scenes: Death Metal, Punk and Reggae in 1990s’ Bali (Duke Univ Press, 2007) and co-author of WhatsApp: From a one-to-one messaging service to a global social media platform (Polity, with Amelia Johns and Ariadna Matamoros Fernandez). She is also co-editor of mHealth innovation in Asia: Grassroots Challenges and Practical Interventions (Springer 2017, with Jerry Watkins and Amina Tariq) and Digital Transactions in Asia (Routledge 2019, with Adrian Athique). Emma’s current research examines digital infrastructures and everyday life in Southeast Asia.