Scholars@Duke
Robyn Caplan

Robyn Caplan

Assistant Professor in the Sanford School of Public Policy
Sanford School of Public Policy
robyn.caplan@duke.edu
237 Sanford Bldg., Durham, NC 27708

Scholarly Works

Taking back and giving back on TikTok: Algorithmic mutual aid in the platform economy

Journal article New Media and Society · July 1, 2025 This article explores three genres of TikTok content in which creators and users collaborate to re(direct) the value they create on-platform toward specific needs, people, and causes. Drawing from literatures on platform economies, user and creator labor, ... Full text Cite

Introduction to the special issue on Locating and theorising platform power

Journal article Internet Policy Review · January 1, 2024 Against the backdrop of ongoing public and political debates about the power and regulation of large platform conglomerates, this special issue calls for more critical, conceptual, and empirical studies on platform power. While a lot of valuable research h ... Full text Cite

Networked Platform Governance: The Construction of the Democratic Platform

Journal article International Journal of Communication · January 1, 2023 Over the last several years, concerns about the credibility or trustworthiness of information online have been mounting. At the center of these concerns were questions about the role platform companies—particularly search and social media—should play in co ... Cite

Tiered Governance and Demonetization: The Shifting Terms of Labor and Compensation in the Platform Economy

Journal article Social Media and Society · April 1, 2020 Social media platforms have profoundly transformed cultural production, in part by restructuring the terms by which culture is distributed and paid for. In this article, we examine the YouTube Partner Program and the controversies around the “demonetizatio ... Full text Open Access Cite

Isomorphism through algorithms: Institutional dependencies in the case of Facebook

Journal article Big Data & Society · January 2018 Algorithms and data-driven technologies are increasingly being embraced by a variety of different sectors and institutions. This paper examines how algorithms and data-driven technologies, enacted by an organization like Facebook, can induce simila ... Full text Open Access Cite

Why media companies insist they're not media companies, why they're wrong, and why it matters

Journal article First Monday · May 1, 2017 A common position amongst social media platforms and online content aggregators is their resistance to being characterized as media companies. Rather, companies such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter have regularly insisted that they should be thought of pu ... Full text Cite