Profile
I am interested in the social and political implications of communication technologies. In particular, my research explores the intersections of digital cultures and marginality-- understanding the way users from political, economic, or cultural margins use new media, and how such digital media engagements facilitate social transformation and create new modes of understanding culture/politics. My current research explores transformations in labor and organizing in the digital economy, looking at how socio-technical structures of platformization shape conditions for work and workers' capacity to organize. My recent publications examine the conditions of platform workers in both cloudwork and location-based work, but most importantly the ways they express agential, resistant, and solidaristic responses to platform controls and where community, kinship relations, and local structures of power are inscribed, reinforced, and challenged.
My research interests reflect my academic background and work experiences. I completed my PhD in Communications and New Media at the National University of Singapore but prior to communication & media, I studied the Politics of Alternative Development (Masters in Development Studies from Institute of Social Studies-Erasmus University, The Netherlands) and Political Science (from the University of the Philippines). Prior to academia, I worked with non-profit research institutions in the Philippines such as Ideacorp, Inc., focusing on Internet governance and telecommunications policy, and engaged in consultancy work for the programming of microfinance interventions to assist underprivileged communities. I worked with the Presidential Management Staff-Office of the President of the Republic of the Philippines for over seven years, providing decision-information and research for programming and assessing various development interventions in the fields of e-governance, universal access, and human security. I completed a commissioned research on mobile applications in the Philippines and Africa (with Mendes, S; Alampay, E.; and Soriano, E.) and on telecommunications and Internet governance policy (with Lallana, E.). I lived in China for a year to conduct a research project on telecenter and rural livelihoods in Hebei as a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Sociology and Anthropology of Peking University under a grant from the Ford Foundation/ Asian Scholarship Foundation. From end December until April 2017, I took on the Australia-APEC Women in Research Fellowship hosted by the Centre for Communication, Politics and Culture of the School of Media and Communication at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) in Australia, where I consolidated my research on youth digital cultures in low-income communities. I was Artist (Scholar) -in-Residence of the LA SALLE School of the Arts in Singapore from January to April 2023.
I am currently Professor of Communication in De La Salle University (DLSU) in the Philippines.
I am also Principal Investigator of Fairwork Philippines, a part of the global Fairwork network which seeks to advance fair labor conditions in the gig economy across the world (read our recent Report). I co-led a digital ethnography project on online freelancing and cloudwork in the Philippines under the Newton Tech4Dev Network, a networking collaboration between DLSU and University of Leicester and funded by the British Council and another project on the viability of digital labor in the Philippines funded by De La Salle University. I am Partner Investigator of the Australian Research Council - funded project, Digital Transaction Platforms and Ecosystems in Asia (led by A. Athique), which examines the technical and commercial organization of the leading Asian transaction platforms in 8 countries in the region, along with ethnographic research on platform-mediated transaction chains.
I serve as Associate Editor of the Asian Journal of Communication and Plaridel: A Philippine Journal of Communication, Media and Society and sit in the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Communication, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Communication, Culture and Critique, Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, and the Journal of Applied Communication Research. I support open access research as part of the Steering Committee of MediArxiv, a free, community-led digital archive for media, film, and communication research.
Open access copies of my papers and presentations are available in the Research tab-- please contact me if you would like to discuss them (comments welcome!). I'm interested in discussing global media, digital cultures, and platform labor so do share related papers/ ideas you might have for research collaboration. Thanks and email me at cheryll.soriano (at) dlsu.edu.ph
My research interests reflect my academic background and work experiences. I completed my PhD in Communications and New Media at the National University of Singapore but prior to communication & media, I studied the Politics of Alternative Development (Masters in Development Studies from Institute of Social Studies-Erasmus University, The Netherlands) and Political Science (from the University of the Philippines). Prior to academia, I worked with non-profit research institutions in the Philippines such as Ideacorp, Inc., focusing on Internet governance and telecommunications policy, and engaged in consultancy work for the programming of microfinance interventions to assist underprivileged communities. I worked with the Presidential Management Staff-Office of the President of the Republic of the Philippines for over seven years, providing decision-information and research for programming and assessing various development interventions in the fields of e-governance, universal access, and human security. I completed a commissioned research on mobile applications in the Philippines and Africa (with Mendes, S; Alampay, E.; and Soriano, E.) and on telecommunications and Internet governance policy (with Lallana, E.). I lived in China for a year to conduct a research project on telecenter and rural livelihoods in Hebei as a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Sociology and Anthropology of Peking University under a grant from the Ford Foundation/ Asian Scholarship Foundation. From end December until April 2017, I took on the Australia-APEC Women in Research Fellowship hosted by the Centre for Communication, Politics and Culture of the School of Media and Communication at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) in Australia, where I consolidated my research on youth digital cultures in low-income communities. I was Artist (Scholar) -in-Residence of the LA SALLE School of the Arts in Singapore from January to April 2023.
I am currently Professor of Communication in De La Salle University (DLSU) in the Philippines.
I am also Principal Investigator of Fairwork Philippines, a part of the global Fairwork network which seeks to advance fair labor conditions in the gig economy across the world (read our recent Report). I co-led a digital ethnography project on online freelancing and cloudwork in the Philippines under the Newton Tech4Dev Network, a networking collaboration between DLSU and University of Leicester and funded by the British Council and another project on the viability of digital labor in the Philippines funded by De La Salle University. I am Partner Investigator of the Australian Research Council - funded project, Digital Transaction Platforms and Ecosystems in Asia (led by A. Athique), which examines the technical and commercial organization of the leading Asian transaction platforms in 8 countries in the region, along with ethnographic research on platform-mediated transaction chains.
I serve as Associate Editor of the Asian Journal of Communication and Plaridel: A Philippine Journal of Communication, Media and Society and sit in the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Communication, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Communication, Culture and Critique, Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, and the Journal of Applied Communication Research. I support open access research as part of the Steering Committee of MediArxiv, a free, community-led digital archive for media, film, and communication research.
Open access copies of my papers and presentations are available in the Research tab-- please contact me if you would like to discuss them (comments welcome!). I'm interested in discussing global media, digital cultures, and platform labor so do share related papers/ ideas you might have for research collaboration. Thanks and email me at cheryll.soriano (at) dlsu.edu.ph
