My research examines the intersections of platform economies, digital cultures, and social justice. I probe the historical and socio-economic conditions surrounding the emergence of digital platforms and how platform engagements (especially by marginal populations) reshape politics, society, inequality, and agential possibilities.
I have explored four key sub-themes: 1) minority groups and online political mobilization; 2) digital infrastructures and inequality; 3) digital/platform labor, organizing, and precarity; and 4) networked brokerage and the dynamics of aspirational content creation and cultural production on social media platforms.
BOOKS
Soriano, C.R. & Cabalquinto, E.C. (2022) Philippine Digital Cultures: Brokerage Dynamics on YouTube. Amsterdam University Press (Order here) (Open access preprint here)
Lim, S.S. & Soriano, C. (eds.) (2016). Asian Perspectives on Digital Culture. Emerging Phenomena, Enduring Concepts. London & New York: Routledge. (Open access chapter preprints here)
Del Mundo, C., Mariano, G., & Soriano, C. (Eds.) (2021). The Critical Prosumer. Manila: Communication Foundation For Asia.
JOURNAL ARTICLES, CHAPTERS IN EDITED VOLUMES, OP-ED
On digital cultures, labor, and the platform economy
Soriano, C. (forthcoming). “Calibrated servitude”: Agency, relational practice, and postcolonial dynamics in cloudwork. In J. Qiu, S. Yeo, & R. Maxwell (eds.). Handbook of Digital Labour. Wiley-Blackwell.
Soriano, C. & Cabalquinto, E. (2024). Digital bayanihan as method: Rethinking the audience-producer relationship in influencer cultures. Routledge Companion to Media Audiences. Routledge.
Soriano, C (2024). Alternative cultures of resistance and collective organizing in the platform economy In. S. Subramanian and O. Banjo (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Media and Social Justice. Oxford University Press.
Soriano, C. R. R. (2024). Interactions of Filipino platform workers with AI systems: implications for design and governance of labour platforms. Communication Research and Practice, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1080/22041451.2024.2346418
Chen, J., van Doorn, N., Grohmann, R., Pollio, A., & Soriano, C. (2024). Introducing Platforms & Society. Platforms & Society, 1. https://doi.org/10.1177/29768624241235492
Gómez-Cruz, E., Horst, H., Siles, I., & Soriano, C. (2023). Beyond the tropicalization of concepts: theorizing digital realities with and from the Global South, Communication, Culture and Critique, 16(4), 217–220, https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcad037
Soriano, C. (2023). ‘Suddenly, virtual organizations’: Communication technology and the labor politics of work and time. In Lee, R. & Roma, D. (Eds.). Bordered Lives No More: The Humanities and the Post Covid-19 Recovery. Manila: De La Salle University Press. (Read open access pre-print)
Soriano, C. (2023). Digital Labour Platforms Must Provide Philippine Gig Workers a Fair Deal. Fulcrum. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore.
Soriano, C (2023). Solidarity and Resistance Meet Social Enterprise: The Social Logic of Alternative Cloudwork Platforms. International Journal of Communication. (open access)
Chen, Y. & Soriano, C.R (2022). How do workers survive and thrive in the platform economy? Evidence from China and Philippines. In Graham, M. & Ferrari. F. (eds), Digital Work in the Planetary Market. MIT Press. (open access).
Soriano, C. (2022). Class formation and relations among Filipino cloudworkers. In Ness, E. (Ed), Routledge Handbook on the Gig Economy. Routledge. Open access preprint.
Soriano, C. & Cabanes, JVC. (2022). Solidaristic formations among cloudworkers in the platform economy: Entrepreneurial logics with resistant identities. In T. Flew (Ed.), SAGE Handbook of the Digital Media Economy. Sage.
Soriano, C.R. (2021). Digital Labour in the Philippines: Emerging Forms of Brokerage. Media International Australia [Special Issue: The Dynamics of Digital Communication in the Philippines: Legacies and Potentials]. Online first. [Read preprint here]
Soriano, C.R. (2021). Digital platform labor in the Philippines: Emerging configurations and policy implications. Japan Labor Issues, 5(32), 56-66. (Open access).
Soriano, C., Cabalquinto, E. & Panaligan, J.H. (2021). Performing ‘digital labor bayanihan’: Strategies of influence and survival in the platform economy. Sociologias. (open access).
Soriano, C. & Cabanes, J.V. (2020). Entrepreneurial solidarities: Social media collectives and Filipino digital platform workers. Social Media + Society [Special issue on Marginality and Social Media. doi.org/10.1177/2056305120926484 [open access]
Tintiangko, J. & Soriano, C.R. (2020). Coworking Spaces in the Global South: Local Articulations and Imaginaries. Journal of Urban Technology, 27(1), 67-85. [Read postprint here]
Soriano, CR & Cabanes, JV. (2020). Between ‘world class work’ and ‘proletarianised labor’: Digital labor imaginaries in the Global South. In E.Polson, L. Schofield-Clarke, R. Gajjala (Eds). Routledge Companion to Media and Class (pp 213-225). London & New York: Routledge. [Read preprint]
Soriano, CR & Panaligan, J.C. (2019). ‘Skill-makers’ in the platform economy: Transacting digital labor. In A. Athique & E. Baulch). Digital Transactions in Asia: Economic, Informational, and Social Exchanges (pp 172-191). London & New York: Routledge. [Open access preprint]
Dynamics of digital political engagement, influence production, and networked political brokerage
Gaw, F. & Soriano, C.R.R. (in press), Brokerage. In Nai, A., Grömping, M., & Wirz, D. (Eds). Elgar Encyclopedia of Political Communication. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Soriano, C. & Gaw, F. (2022). Broadcasting anti-media populism in the Philippines: YouTube influencers, networked political brokerage, and implications for governance. Policy and Internet. [Open access preprint]
Soriano, C. & Gaw, F. (2022). Platforms, alternative influence, and networked political brokerage on YouTube. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 28(3), 781-803. https://doi-org.dlsu.idm.oclc.org/10.1177/13548565211029769 (Open access preprint here).
Horbyk, R., Löfgren, I., Prymachenko, Y. & Soriano, C. (2021). Fake News as Meta-Mimesis: Imitative Genres and Storytelling in the Philippines, Brazil, Russia and Ukraine. Popular Inquiry, 8(1), 1-26 (open access)
Cabalquinto, E. & Soriano, C. R. (2020). 'Hey, I like your videos, super relate!' Locating sisterhood in an online intimate public on YouTube. Information, Communication, and Society (open access).
Soriano, C. (2014). Minorities and Online Political Mobilization: A Historical-Dialectical-Structurational Analysis. Journal of Creative Communications, 8, 89-106 [Read post print here]
Soriano, C. (2016). Transmedia mobilization: Agency and literacy in ethnic minority productions in the age of spreadable media. The Information Society, 32(5), 354-363. https://doi.org/10.1080/01972243.2016.1212620
Soriano, C.R, Roldan, MDC, Cheng, C. & Oco, N. (2016). Social media and civic engagement: The case of Twitter use during typhoon Yolanda. Philippine Political Science Journal, 37(1),6 -25. Doi:10.1080/01154451.2016.1146486 [open access]
Soriano, C. (2015). Strategic activism for democratization and social change. In D. Holtzhausen and Ansgar Zerfass (eds.), Handbook of Strategic Communication (pp.424-438). London & New York: Routledge.
Soriano, C. (2014). Constructing Collectivity in Diversity: Online Political Mobilization of an LGBT Political Party. Media, Culture and Society, 36(1), 20-36. [Postprint here]
Soriano, C.R. (2012). The Arts of Indigenous Online Dissent: Negotiating Technology, Indigeneity, and Activism in the Cordillera. Telematics and Informatics, 29, 33-44.
Soriano, C.R. & Sreekumar, T.T. (2012). Multiple Transcripts as Political Strategy: Social Media and Conflicting Identities of the Moro Liberation Movement in the Philippines. Media, Culture and Society, 34(8), 1028 – 1039. [Read preprint here]
Digital communication, ethics, and inequality
Fox, J., Pearce, K. E., Massanari, A. L., Riles, J. M., Szulc, Ł., Ranjit, Y. S., Trevisan, F., Soriano, C. R. R., Vitak, J., Arora, P., Ahn, S. J., Alper, M., Gambino, A., Gonzalez, C., Lynch, T., Williamson, L. D., & Gonzales, A. L. (2021). Open science, closed doors? Countering marginalization through an agenda for ethical, inclusive research in Communication. Journal of Communication. Advance online publication. Open access preprint here
Soriano, C.R., David, C., and Atun, J. (2019). Crystallizing the official narrative: News discourses about the killings from the Philippine government’s campaign against illegal drugs. Journalism: Theory, Practice, Critique. Online First. [Read preprint here]
Soriano, C.R. (2019). Communicative assemblages of the ‘pisonet’ and the translocal context of ICT for the ‘have-less’: Innovation, inclusion, stratification. International Journal of Communication, 13, 4692-4701. [open access]
Soriano, C.R., Davies, H. & Hjorth, L. (2019). Social surveillance and Let’s Play: A regional case study of gaming in Manila slum communities. New Media & Society, 21, (10): 2119-2139
Atun, J.M., Mendoza, R., David, C., Cossid, R.P., Soriano, C.R. (2019). The Philippines’ anti-drug campaign: Spatial and temporal patterns of killings linked to drugs. International Journal of Drug Policy, 73, 100-111.
Bernadas, J.M. & Soriano, C.R. (2019). Online privacy behavior among youth in the global South: A closer look at diversity of connectivity and information literacy. Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, 17(1),17-30.
Soriano, C. Cao. R.J., Sison, M. (2018). Experiences of ICT use in shared, public access settings in Philippine slums. Development in Practice, 28(3), 358-373
Soriano, C., & Lim, S. S. (2015). The Virgin Mary with a Mobile Phone. Ideologies of Mothering and Technology Consumption in Philippine television advertisements. Communication, Culture and Critique, 8(1), 1-19. DOI: 10.1111/cccr.12070 [open access]
Sriramesh, K. Rivera-Sánchez, M. & Soriano, C. (2013). Websites for stakeholder relations by corporations and non-profits: A time-lag study in Singapore. Journal of Communication Management, 17(2), 122- 139. [on open access]
Ilagan, K.A. & Soriano, C.R. (2020). Data Journalism in the Philippines: New trends, new practices for old media organizations. In B. Mutsvairo, S. Bebawi, & E. Borges-Rey, Data Journalism in non-Western Societies: Comparative Perspectives. Palgrave.
Soriano, C. & Cao, R. (2017). Of Owned, Shared, and Public Access ICT: Constructs of Privacy and Publicness in Marginal Spaces. In (A. Telleria, Ed.) Between the Public and Private in Mobile Communication (pp. 77-98). London & New York: Routledge
Soriano, C. & Cao, R. (2016). Minority groups and strategies of display and dissent in physical, virtual, and hybrid spaces. In Ong, J. & Rovisco, M. (Eds). Taking the Square: New protest movements, the media, and the struggle for democracy 'from below (pp. 207-228). Rowman and Littlefield.
Philippine / Asian digital communication / Decolonizing media and communication
Gómez-Cruz, E., Horst, H., Siles, I., & Soriano, C. (2023). Beyond the tropicalization of concepts: theorizing digital realities with and from the Global South, Communication, Culture and Critique, 16(4), 217 220, https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcad037
Lorenzana, J. & Soriano, C.R. (2021). Introduction to the Special Issue. The Dynamics of Digital Communication in the Philippines: Legacies and Potentials. Media International Australia. Open access preprint here
Lim, S. S. and Soriano, C (2016). A (digital) giant awakens: Invigorating media studies through Asian perspectives. In Lim, S.S. & Soriano, C. (Eds). Asian Perspectives on Digital Culture. Emerging Phenomena, Enduring Concepts (pp. 3-16). London & New York: Routledge.
Soriano, C. & Lim, S.S. (2016). Ritual and communal connection in mobile phone communication: Representation of kapwa, bayanihan and "People Power" in the Philippines. In Lim, S.S. & Soriano, C. (Eds). Asian Perspectives on Digital Culture, Emerging Phenomena, Enduring Concepts (pp. 100-118). London & New York: Routledge.
Sapitula, M and Soriano C. (2016). My Letter to Heaven via Email. Translocal Piety and Mediated Selves in Urban Marian Piety in the Philippines. In Lim, S.S. & Soriano, C. (Eds). Asian Perspectives on Digital Culture, Emerging Phenomena, Enduring Concepts (pp 33-51). London & New York: Routledge.
Soriano, C. (2014). Mobile technologies and gender rituals. In X. Xu (Ed), Mobile Media and Communications: Social, Political and Economic Implications (pp. 85-107). Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
MAJOR REPORTS AND POLICY BRIEFS
Fairwork (2023). Fairwork Philippines Ratings 2023: Protecting Worker Health, Safety, and Security in the Philippine Platform Economy. Oxford, United Kingdom; Berlin, Germany; Manila, Philippines (open access).
Fairwork (2022). Fairwork Philippines Ratings 2022: Towards Fair Labor Conditions in the Philippine Platform Economy. Oxford, United Kingdom; Berlin, Germany; Manila, Philippines (open access)
Soriano, C.R, Cabanes, JV., Bernadas, JMA, Tarroja, MC, Mata, K (2022). How Filipino youth identify and act on bullying and harassment on social media. (open access)
Soriano, C.R., Bernadas, J.M, Salvosa, F III., Torneo, A., & Figueroa, C.M. (2020). Setting up a health communication strategy for Local Government Units during the covid-19 pandemic: Insights and Recommendations. Policy Briefs 1(3). DLSU- Jesse M. Robredo Institute of Governance. (open access)
BOOK / ARTICLE REVIEWS
Soriano, C. (2015). Review: Proenza, F. J. (Ed.), Public Access ICT across Cultures. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. Kasarinlan: Philippine Journal of Third World Studies, 30(1), 130-133.
Soriano, C. (2015). Review: Rogers, R. (2013). ‘Digital Methods’. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. Television and New Media, 16(8), 772.
Soriano, C. (2013). Review: G. Lovink, ‘Networks without a Cause: Critique of Social Media’. Mobile Media & Communication, 1(3), 373-374
COMMISSIONED WORKS
Magno, F. & Soriano, C. (2013). E-Government Services for Overseas Filipino Workers. Study funded by the National Research Council of the Philippines and the Department of Science and Technology.
Lallana, E. & Soriano, C (2008). Towards Universal Internet Access in the Philippines. Ideacorp, Inc. and Intel Technology Philippines Inc. Available from http://www.unapcict.org/ecohub/resources/towards-universal-internet-access-in-the-philippines
Mendes, S. Alampay, E., Soriano, E. & Soriano, C. (2008). Innovative Mobile Applications in the Philippines (Lessons for Africa). Research commissioned by the Swedish International Development Agency. Available from http://www.sida.se/shared/jsp/download.jsp?f=SIDA38306en_Phillippines+web.pdf&a=33306
Email me at [email protected] for latest CV
