Platformization’s Elsewheres: Japanese Convenience Stores and the Platform Economy

IF 5.5 1区文学 Q1 COMMUNICATION

Social Media + Society Pub Date : 2025-03-26 DOI:10.1177/20563051251328096

Marc Steinberg

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Platformization’s elsewheres refers to other locations and places where platformization as a process takes place. This article focuses on the franchised Japanese convenience store as a particularly salient site from which to understand platformization in Japan. It is also crucial for thinking the platform economy historically and regionally within Asia where Japanese-style convenience stores abound, as well as globally given how Japan’s convenience stores were a model of the internet-connected mobile phone that in turn becomes a model for iPhone and Android smartphones. Focusing on the convenience store and its Japanese trajectory of development allows us to see the process of platformization of the franchised, networked, logistically-enabled convenience store from the 1970s to the present. The convenience store is, I argue, a crucial, if overlooked, site for platformization in Asia and beyond. It is also a key site for rethinking the most central of feelings to the platform economy: convenience.

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平台化的其他方面：日本便利店和平台经济

平台化的其他地方指的是平台化作为一个过程发生的其他位置和地方。本文以特许经营的日本便利店为研究对象，从中了解日本的平台化。考虑到日本的便利店曾是联网手机的典范，进而成为iPhone和Android智能手机的典范，这对于从历史和区域角度思考平台经济也至关重要。在亚洲，日式便利店随处可见。关注便利店及其在日本的发展轨迹，可以让我们看到从20世纪70年代至今的特许经营、网络化、物流化便利店的平台化过程。我认为，在亚洲及其他地区，便利店是一个至关重要的平台化平台，尽管它被忽视了。它也是重新思考平台经济最核心的感受：便利性的关键场所。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Social Media + Society COMMUNICATION-

CiteScore

9.20

自引率

3.80%

发文量

111

审稿时长

12 weeks

期刊介绍： Social Media + Society is an open access, peer-reviewed scholarly journal that focuses on the socio-cultural, political, psychological, historical, economic, legal and policy dimensions of social media in societies past, contemporary and future. We publish interdisciplinary work that draws from the social sciences, humanities and computational social sciences, reaches out to the arts and natural sciences, and we endorse mixed methods and methodologies. The journal is open to a diversity of theoretic paradigms and methodologies. The editorial vision of Social Media + Society draws inspiration from research on social media to outline a field of study poised to reflexively grow as social technologies evolve. We foster the open access of sharing of research on the social properties of media, as they manifest themselves through the uses people make of networked platforms past and present, digital and non. The journal presents a collaborative, open, and shared space, dedicated exclusively to the study of social media and their implications for societies. It facilitates state-of-the-art research on cutting-edge trends and allows scholars to focus and track trends specific to this field of study.