This sub-project focuses on political developments related to platformization in Southeast Asia. In this region, the penetration of social media and other platforms is particularly advanced. Moreover, since the end of the pandemic, online shopping portals, delivery platforms and digital labor platforms are playing a central role in shaping local, national and transnational economic activities.

The dominance of platforms in daily life leads to an overlap of different social spheres - socialization and the formation of a social identity, consumption and work. Increasingly, these spheres are being integrated via platforms, as in the case of the prosumers of K-pop: The economic model of Korean pop culture is strongly based on the integration of fans in organized fan groups (fandoms). A closer look shows that such organized fans not only consume the music (and other products), but through their interaction with each other and through concerted fan activities, they shape and co-create the products and sometimes the idol him/herself.

Against this backdrop of this integration of the spheres of work, consumption and socialization, we examine new models of political mobilization and organization. The starting point are phenomena such as the Move Forward Party, which won the election in Thailand in May 2023 - not through a traditional party organization, but on the basis of a K-pop-like fandom that was dubbed Domsom "the Organge Fandom" in the press. Or phenomena such as the #MilkTeaAlliance - a transnational movement for democracy that emerged from K-pop-like fandoms and mobilizes against authoritarian government practices in East and Southeast Asia, primarily through memes and pop culture symbols.