TikTok is commonly known as a playful, silly platform where teenagers share 15-second videos of crazy stunts or act out funny snippets from popular culture. In the past few years, it has experienced exponential growth and popularity, unseating Facebook as the most downloaded app. Interestingly, recent news coverage notes the emergence of TikTok as a political actor in the Indian context. They raise concerns over the abundance of divisive content, hate speech, and the lack of platform accountability in countering these issues. In this article, we analyze how politics is performed on TikTok and how the platform’s design shapes such expressions and their circulation. What does the playful architecture of TikTok mean to the nature of its political discourse and participation? To answer this, we review existing academic work on play, media, and political participation and then examine the case of Sabarimala through the double lens of ludic engagement and platform-specific features. The efficacy of play as a productive heuristic to study political contention on social media platforms is demonstrated. Finally, we turn to ludo-literacy as a potential strategy that can reveal the structures that order playful political participation and can initiate alternative modes of playing politics.

With markets concentrating predominantly in and around large cities, gig platforms across the globe seem to depend as much on the cheap labor of migrants and minorities as on investment capital and permissive governments. Accordingly, we argue that there is an urgent need to center migrant experiences and the role of migrant labor in gig economy research, in order to generate a better understanding of how gig work offers certain opportunities and challenges to migrants with a variety of backgrounds and skill levels. To fill this research gap, this article examines why migrant workers in Berlin, Amsterdam, and New York take up platform labor and how they incorporate it into their everyday lives and migration trajectories. Additionally, it considers the extent to which gig platforms are emerging as actors in the political economy of migration, as a result of how they absorb migrant labor and mediate migrant mobilities. We move beyond the existing parameters of gig economy research by engaging with two strands of literature on migration and migrant labor that, we feel, are particularly useful for framing our analysis: the autonomy of migration approach and the migration infrastructures perspective. Combining these conceptual lenses enables us not only to critically situate migrant gig workers’ experiences but also to identify a broader development: the platformization of low-wage labor markets that are an integral component of migration infrastructures.

EN. This paper shows the disproportionate influence Facebook exercises over Indian journalism and how it induces conformity and isomorphism in the journalistic field by nudging journalists to incessantly produce more of the same “shareable” content. It focuses on the efforts of 7 alternative news startups in South India to diversify news coverage, as gleaned through 11 in-depth interviews. These startups have a clear reformative agenda, criticizing and hoping to distinguish themselves from the mainstream media’s elite-controlled, partisan, sensationalist reporting that ignores issues affecting the marginalized. Key to these startups’ claims to be alternative is the dedicated, ground reporting of issues faced by the LGBTQ+ community, Dalits and Adivasis. As digital-only publications, they depend on Facebook to circulate their content, interact with the audience and earn revenue. Using the theoretical framework of platformization (Nieborg & Poell, 2018), this paper demonstrates how this dependence keeps startups locked in a perpetual loop of precarity, trying to placate the algorithm with shareable content to stay visible, hoping to eventually get enough subscribers to make it on their own. The constant churning of shareable content detracts organizational resources and leaves their content undistinguishable from the mainstream, postponing the realization of independence to a later date. *** FR. Cet article montre l'influence disproportionnée que Facebook exerce sur le journalisme indien et comment il conduit au conformisme et à l'isomorphisme dans le domaine journalistique en incitant les journalistes à produire sans cesse davantage de contenu "partageable". L'étude se concentre sur les efforts déployés par sept jeunes entreprises d'information alternatives du sud de l'Inde pour diversifier la couverture de l'actualité, recueillis au cours de 11 entretiens approfondis. Ces startups ont un agenda réformateur clair, critiquant et espérant se distinguer des médias traditionnels, contrôlés par l’élite, dont la couverture de l'actualité sensationnaliste et partisane ignore les problèmes affectant les personnes marginalisées. La clé de la nature alternative revendiquée par ces startups se caractérise par les reportages sur le terrain dédiés aux problèmes rencontrés par la communauté LGBTQ+, les Dalits et les Adivasis. En tant que publications exclusivement numériques, elles dépendent de Facebook pour diffuser leurs contenus, interagir avec le public et gagner de l'argent. En s'appuyant sur le cadre théorique de la plateformisation (Nieborg & Poell, 2018), cet article montre comment cette dépendance maintient les startups dans une boucle perpétuelle de précarité, en essayant d'apaiser l'algorithme avec du contenu partageable pour rester visible, dans l'espoir d'obtenir finalement suffisamment d'abonnés pour réussir à s'en sortir seuls. Le brassage constant de contenus partageables détourne les ressources de l'organisation et fait en sorte que leurs contenus ne se distinguent pas de ceux des médias mainstream, ce qui reporte la réalisation de leur indépendance à une date ultérieure. *** PT. Este artigo mostra como o Facebook exerce uma influência desproporcional sobre o jornalismo indiano, além de levar à conformidade e ao isomorfismo no campo jornalístico, incentivando os jornalistas a produzirem incessantemente o mesmo conteúdo "compartilhável". Com dados coletados por meio de 11 entrevistas em profundidade, o estudo foca nos esforços de sete startups de notícias alternativas no sul da Índia para diversificar sua cobertura jornalística. Essas startups têm uma agenda noticiosa claramente reformista, criticando e tentando se diferenciar das coberturas sensacionalistas e partidárias da mídia mainstream controlada pela elite, que ignora as questões enfrentadas por pessoas marginalizadas. Notícias dedicadas aos desafios das comunidades LGBTQ+ e dos Dalits e Adivasis são elementos-chave para que essas startups reivindiquem para si o papel de mídia alternativa. Por serem publicações exclusivamente digitais, elas dependem do Facebook para divulgar seu conteúdo, interagir com a audiência e obter receita financeira. Com base no quadro teórico da “plataformização” (Nieborg & Poell, 2018), demonstra-se que tal dependência mantém as startups em um ciclo perpétuo de precariedade, pautado pela busca de conteúdo compartilhável para usarem o algoritmo a seu favor e permanecerem visíveis, na esperança de atingir um número de assinantes o suficiente para se tornarem independentes. A utilização constante de notícias “compartilháveis” desvia os recursos organizacionais e faz com que seu conteúdo seja indistinguível daquele da mídia mainstream, adiando a conquista de sua independência. ***