Digital Platforms as Co-Producers of Space: A Lefebvrian Analysis of Tensions in Digital Platforms

Research on digital platforms has paid scant attention to the entanglement of digital platforms with physical spaces, their interactions, and associated tensions. The entanglement is of increased consequence in the wake of ontological reversal wherein digital constructs the physical. Using Lefebvre's spatial triad of perceived, conceived, and lived space to study digital platform ecosystems, this paper argues that digital platforms through the production of digital space have dramatically transformed the access, experiences, and meanings of the offline physical spaces, thereby emerging as co-producers of contemporary physical space. We illustrate that this process of co-production can lead to gradual emergence of tensions that arise due to the divergence between conceived and lived space and the essential differences in the rationalities of physical and digital space. In doing so, we develop a new spatial understanding of how tensions emerge and build in digital platform ecosystems.