Abstract
This article provides an exploratory systematic mapping of the global ecosystem of COVID-19 pandemic response apps. After considering policy updates by Google Play’s and Apple’s App Store, we analyse all the available response apps in July 2020;their different response types;the apps’ developers and geographical distribution;the ecosystem’s ‘generativity’ and developers’ responsiveness during the unfolding pandemic;the apps’ discursive positioning;and material conditions of their development. Google and Apple are gatekeepers of these app ecosystems and exercise control on different layers, shaping the pandemic app response as well as the relationships between governments, citizens, and other actors. We suggest that this global ecosystem of pandemic responses reflects an exceptional mode of what we call ‘pandemic platform governance’, where platforms have negotiated their commercial interests and the public interest in exceptional circumstances. © 2021, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society. All rights reserved.
Highlights
On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organisation (WHO) officially declared the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak as a global pandemic
To combat COVID-19 dis/misinformation, the WHO had begun working closely with more than 50 major platform companies, including Google, to implement solutions to fight the emerging infodemic (WHO, 2020b). This collaboration, initiated by the WHO, resulted in ensuring that ‘science-based health messages from the organisation or other official sources appear first when people search for information related to COVID-19’ on participating platforms (WHO, 2020b, n.p.), as we observe in Google Play with the surfacing of the WHO apps
A key starting point for our analysis of COVID-19 apps was to go beyond the critical analysis of single apps within a national context
Summary
On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organisation (WHO) officially declared the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak as a global pandemic. This article presents an exploratory systematic empirical analysis of this COVID-19 app ecosystem and draws attention to how layered platform governance and power relations have mediated the app response to the pandemic as a singular global emergency.We use the term ‘ecosystem’ to refer to a platform and the collection of (mobile) apps connected to it (Tiwana et al, 2010).
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