Profile
I am interested in the ways digital technologies embed in and transform social, political, and economic relations and infrastructures. My current research explores transformations in labor and organizing in the platform economy, looking at how labor platforms are situated within complex socio-technical infrastructures while also examining how platformization reshapes 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 capitalism and where community, kinship relations, and local structures of power are inscribed, reinforced, and challenged. My recent research locates the intersections of finance (e.g. fintech platforms and local infrastructures of lending and credit), labor platformization, and social platforms, examining the digital-social-economic transactions that facilitate and are facilitated by labor platformization.
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 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. In my early years as junior researcher I completed 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 public access telecenters 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.
I am currently Professor of Communication in De La Salle University (DLSU) in the Philippines, involved in both scholarly and engaged research. I was Principal investigator of Fairwork Philippines (2021-2025) and currently leads the Philippine leg of Digital Transactions in Asia, focusing on the financial and social economies within and around platform work. I also lead Resilient Platform Work PH (under FutureWORKSAsia), which examines the intersections of platform work, climate change, and technological development. Read our recent report: Towards Resilient Platform Work in the Philippines. I held a Visiting Fellowship at the Australia-APEC Women at the Centre for Communication, Politics and Culture of the School of Media and Communication at the RMIT University in Australia, was Artist (Scholar) -in-Residence of the LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore from January to April 2023, and took on the Isaac Manasseh Meyer Fellowship (IMMF) at the Communications and New Media at the National University of Singapore in August 2025.
I am part of the founding editorial collective of the open access journal, Platforms & Society (read our Editorial Introduction) and one of the editors of the book series, Power Currents: Asian Media in the World (University of Pittsburgh Press). I also serve as Associate Editor of 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, Communication Theory, and the Journal of Applied Communication Research. I support open access research as part of the Steering Committee of mediastudies.press and MediArxiv -- community/scholar-led efforts to promote open access for works in media, film, and communication research.
Open access copies of my papers and presentations are available in the Research tab. I'm interested in discussing global media, digital cultures, and platform labor so do share related papers/ ideas you might have for research collaboration. 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 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. In my early years as junior researcher I completed 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 public access telecenters 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.
I am currently Professor of Communication in De La Salle University (DLSU) in the Philippines, involved in both scholarly and engaged research. I was Principal investigator of Fairwork Philippines (2021-2025) and currently leads the Philippine leg of Digital Transactions in Asia, focusing on the financial and social economies within and around platform work. I also lead Resilient Platform Work PH (under FutureWORKSAsia), which examines the intersections of platform work, climate change, and technological development. Read our recent report: Towards Resilient Platform Work in the Philippines. I held a Visiting Fellowship at the Australia-APEC Women at the Centre for Communication, Politics and Culture of the School of Media and Communication at the RMIT University in Australia, was Artist (Scholar) -in-Residence of the LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore from January to April 2023, and took on the Isaac Manasseh Meyer Fellowship (IMMF) at the Communications and New Media at the National University of Singapore in August 2025.
I am part of the founding editorial collective of the open access journal, Platforms & Society (read our Editorial Introduction) and one of the editors of the book series, Power Currents: Asian Media in the World (University of Pittsburgh Press). I also serve as Associate Editor of 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, Communication Theory, and the Journal of Applied Communication Research. I support open access research as part of the Steering Committee of mediastudies.press and MediArxiv -- community/scholar-led efforts to promote open access for works in media, film, and communication research.
Open access copies of my papers and presentations are available in the Research tab. I'm interested in discussing global media, digital cultures, and platform labor so do share related papers/ ideas you might have for research collaboration. Email me at cheryll.soriano (at) dlsu.edu.ph
