Of fixes and glitches: Mixing metaphors for platform urbanism

Abstract

The growing influence of digital platforms on cities has captured the attention of urban scholars, marking a ‘platform pivot’ in digital geography and urban research. This article reviews emerging literature on platform urbanism, using the metaphors of the fix and the glitch as starting points from which to discuss two contrasting perspectives on the phenomenon. Rooted in Marxist political economy, fix-thinking highlights how platforms generate new opportunities for value-extraction through processes of disembedding, datafication and deregulation. Influenced by feminist, queer and Black media studies, glitch-thinking performatively underscores the breakdowns and openings in the working of platforms. Where fix-thinking highlights the role of platforms in furthering urban capitalism, glitch-thinking encourages us to envision how things could be otherwise. The review leads to two original insights that may further knowledge on this phenomenon. First, it points to a gap in research investigating instances when breakdown and disruptions turn into organised action and sustained social change. Second, it underscores the citational politics that limit engagements between the two strands, and the potential usefulness of drawing on earlier scholarship that softens or challenge the ‘fix-glitch divide’.