Fragmented desire? Platform intimacy and the politics of care
MEDIA CULTURE & SOCIETY, 2026 (SSCI, Scopus)
- Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
- Basım Tarihi: 2026
- Doi Numarası: 10.1177/01634437261466979
- Dergi Adı: MEDIA CULTURE & SOCIETY
- Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus, IBZ Online, Periodicals Index Online, ComAbstracts, Communication Abstracts, Educational research abstracts (ERA), Film & Television Literature Index, Index Islamicus, International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance (IBTD), Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts (LISTA), MLA - Modern Language Association Database, Political Science Complete, Public Affairs Index, DIALNET, Information Science & Technology Abstracts (LISTA), MLA International Bibliography, Political Science Abstract (IPSA), Social Sciences Abstracts, EBSCO Communication Source, Academic Search Ultimate (EBSCO), Social Science Premium Collection (ProQuest), Communication Source (EBSCO), Sociology Source Ultimate (EBSCO)
- İstanbul Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet
Özet
This article argues that fragmentation is not the inevitable outcome of dating and hook-up apps, nor a simple synonym for the decline of intimacy. It is better understood as a recurrent tendency of platformized intimacy: the reformatting of intimate exchange into searchable, ranked, and monetizable units. Drawing on scholarship on digital intimacies, platform governance, and relational labor, the article shows how swipe-based abundance, algorithmic sorting, and continuous self-presentation can intensify provisionality, decision fatigue, and emotional exhaustion. At the same time, it rejects technological determinism by foregrounding user ambivalence, tactical agency, and the indispensable role that apps can play for LGBTQ+ users seeking safety, friendship, sexual publics, and recognition. The problem, then, is not digital intimacy as such, but the way intimate life is increasingly organized by extractive infrastructures whose benefits and harms are unevenly distributed. The article concludes by reworking an ethics of care as a political rather than nostalgic project: one that links platform accountability, differentiated safety protections, relational literacy, and labor protections for those whose intimate visibility is monetized.