User's Role in Platform Infrastructuralization: WeChat as an Exemplar

Abstract

Recent years have witnessed the rise of platforms such as Facebook and Google. Gigantic in scope and becoming omnipresent, these platforms are acquiring qualities of infrastructure, which is large-scale connected systems that support people's activities invisibly. Recent scholarship has identified WeChat, the most popular mobile social platform in China, as infrastructure. WeChat follows a platform logic to expand, and by conforming to the Chinese government's techno-nationalist focus, it has gradually become an infrastructure in China. We contribute to the understanding of platform infrastructuralization by taking WeChat as a case, highlighting the user's role in this process. We find user contributes to WeChat's infrastructuralization through a three-level interaction process: to practice, to appropriate, and to create. By calling out the user's role in platform infra-structuralization, we discuss how the CHI community can contribute to a better understanding of this phenomenon.