Time and Date: December 17, 2024, 3-4 pm (CET)
The Legitimacy of Platformized Speech Governance: A Mixed-Methods Case Study Approach
Diyi Liu
Despite extensive research on platformized speech governance in established democracies, the political nature and stakes of online speech in less-than-democratic developing countries remain underexplored. Through the theoretical lens of legitimacy, my doctoral research conducts a mixed-methods case study examining how TikTok, one of the largest user-generated content platforms worldwide, interacts with local actors in Indonesia and Pakistan. The overarching question I seek to tackle is: How are the rules and norms that enable or constrain online speech legitimized, and by whom?
This talk will present a methodological reflection on an integrated research design that combines document analysis, fieldwork-informed expert interviews, survey experiments, and thematic analysis of users’ open-ended responses. The work traces legitimation processes from institutional actors at the center of the governance network (platforms, states, civil society organizations) to the perspectives and experiences that shape and contest the legitimation order from within (users and creators). By bridging established methodological approaches from platform governance and human-computer interaction, this talk seeks to highlight both opportunities and limitations of mixed-methods case study designs, particularly in studying the legitimacy of platform governance in Majority World countries.
Presenting Author
Diyi Liu is a DPhil candidate in Information, Communication, and the Social Sciences at the Oxford Internet Institute. Her doctoral research examines algorithmic content moderation and the legitimacy of platformized speech governance in South and Southeast Asian contexts. Currently a DPhil candidate at the OII, Diyi is also a visiting researcher at the National University of Singapore (Fall 2023), an Open Research Fellow at the Weizenbaum Institute in Germany (Spring 2024), and a research fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta Indonesia (Fall 2024).
About the Series
This talk is part of the series Behind the Scenes – Conversations on Empirical Platform Governance Research that invites scholars in this field to share their experiences and views, fostering community exchange about how we can study platform governance in this challenging context. It is hosted by the Lab “Platform Governance, Media, and Technology” (PGMT) at the Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research (ZeMKI), University of Bremen, and the Centre for Media and Journalism Studies, University of Groningen.
Registration