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Teaching Design in the Age of Platforms:
A Framework for Platform Education

Abstract
Our contemporary social, cultural, and political experiences are increasingly mediated and shaped by digital platforms, such as search engines, content intermediaries, and networked communications tools. A digital platform is the provider of software, sometimes hardware, and service that uses computational architecture to mediate social activities strategically. Contemporary communication design practice is largely in service of and circulates through digital platforms. Design education needs to be responsive to the rise of platforms as the latest transformation of the internet on both practical and theoretical levels. This paper situates a platform education within and beyond communication design to help develop understandings of the mechanisms of platforms, values influenced by platformization, and design implications. The author presents a framework of relevant knowledge structured in a triangular model of design practice, platform literacy, and design experiment, aiming at functioning as a tool for teaching, framing, and making critical inquiries into platforms.



KEYWORDS | 
PLATFORM LITERACY, PLATFORM EDUCATION,
DESIGN EDUCATION, COMMUNICATION DESIGN, FRAMEWORK





2020


presented at Cumulus Design Culture(s) 2021