TY - JOUR

T1 - Smartphones and ‘doing community’ in Bangkok’s platform economy:

T2 - A Weberian analysis

AU - McFarlane, Daniel

AU - Mieruch, Yannik

AU - Waters, Tony

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2025.

PY - 2025/2/19

Y1 - 2025/2/19

N2 - This article examines emergent communities of platform-based delivery workers in Bangkok by applying Max Weber’s concept of Vergemeinschaftung or ‘doing community’. Using offline and online ethnographic methods, the authors demonstrate how delivery workers do community on the streets of Bangkok and leverage smartphones and social media to extend their communities to the online realm. These community practices are culturally constituted and share characteristics with pre-existing communities in the transportation sector in Thailand. However, while these older communities are under pressure from rationalisation, or in Weber’s terms, Vergesellschaftung, rider communities emerge from the rational conditions of delivery platforms. Through this analysis, the article demonstrates how Weber’s theory effectively captures the dialectical dynamics of doing community and rationalisation in digital economies, suggesting that scholarship on digital platforms and media could benefit from adopting a Weberian analysis of social change.

AB - This article examines emergent communities of platform-based delivery workers in Bangkok by applying Max Weber’s concept of Vergemeinschaftung or ‘doing community’. Using offline and online ethnographic methods, the authors demonstrate how delivery workers do community on the streets of Bangkok and leverage smartphones and social media to extend their communities to the online realm. These community practices are culturally constituted and share characteristics with pre-existing communities in the transportation sector in Thailand. However, while these older communities are under pressure from rationalisation, or in Weber’s terms, Vergesellschaftung, rider communities emerge from the rational conditions of delivery platforms. Through this analysis, the article demonstrates how Weber’s theory effectively captures the dialectical dynamics of doing community and rationalisation in digital economies, suggesting that scholarship on digital platforms and media could benefit from adopting a Weberian analysis of social change.

KW - Community

KW - Thailand

KW - Weber

KW - digital technology

KW - food delivery

KW - gig economy

KW - platform economy

KW - smartphones

KW - social media

KW - sociology

KW - Sociology

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85218689901&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1177/14614448241312653

DO - 10.1177/14614448241312653

M3 - Journal articles

JO - New Media and Society

JF - New Media and Society

SN - 1461-4448

ER -