Outputs
Introduction
Our project outputs take several forms, from journal and media publications to explainer videos to active social media accounts (Bluesky, LinkedIn, YouTube, and archived Twitter account), to our main dissemination event on 21st June 2025. Please use the tabs below to explore our work as it evolves across different forums.
Research Outputs
Platforms, Advertising, and Power: June 2025 Project Event
Our project's major dissemination event was a one-day hybrid academic/knowledge exchange meeting on Saturday, 21st June 2025. The event explored issues of platform power, material politics, and advertising as a 'lens' for opening up platforms for empirical research.
The programme included keynotes from Anne Helmond (Utrecht University) and Fernando van der Vlist (University of Amsterdam), Liz McFall (University of Edinburgh) and a practitioner keynote by Brian O’Kelley. The project team (Donald MacKenzie, Koray Caliskan, Charlotte Rommerskirchen, and Addie McGowan) presented findings from the project, and friends of The Platform Social extended the conversation of platform power beyond AdTech in additional talks.
The meeting was jointly organised by Data Civics (EFI, led by Liz McFall), The Platform Social (PhD/ECR research network) and the ESRC funded AdTech Research Project (PI: Donald MacKenzie).
Academic Publications
- Caliskan, K., MacKenzie, D. and McGowan, A. (2026). “Superplatform: A Framework to Analyse and Regulate Google’s Online Ad Ecosystem.” Internet Policy Review 15(1): 1-25. https://policyreview.info/articles/analysis/superplatform-framework
- MacKenzie, D. and Caliskan, K. (2026). Inside Digital Advertising: Platforms, Power, and Material Politics (Cambridge: Polity Press). 248 + vii pp. ISBN: 9-781509-568635. Open access download: https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=inside-digital-advertising-platforms-power-and-material-politics--9781509568635
- Caliskan, K., MacKenzie, D. and Callon, M. (2025). Stacked Economization: A Research Program for the Study of Platforms. Journal of Cultural Economy 18(2): 304-331. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17530350.2024.2423687
- Caliskan, K., MacKenzie, D., McGowan, A. (2025). Prodexchange: Digital-industrial economization in Google Search supply chain. Platforms & Society, 2. https://doi.org/10.1177/29768624251337868
- McGowan, A., MacKenzie, D., Caliskan, K. (2024). Intermediaries, mediators, and digital advertising's tensions. Journal of Cultural Economy, 17(5), 513-531. https://doi.org/10.1080/17530350.2024.2360919
- Caliskan, K., MacKenzie, D. and Rommerskirchen, C. (2023) Strange Bedfellows: Consumer Protection and Competition Policy in the Making of the EU Privacy Regime. JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies. 62(5), 1296-1313. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.13552
- MacKenzie, D., Caliskan, K., Rommerskirchen, C. The longest second: Header bidding and the material politics of online advertising. Economy and Society, 52(3), 554-578. https://doi.org/10.1080/03085147.2023.2238463
Media Publications
- AI's Scale, Donald MacKenzie, London Review of Books, February 2026 [final draft + links to main sources used].
- The Future of Search, Donald MacKenzie, London Review of Books, November 2025 [final draft + links to main sources used].
- Hey Big Spender: What Your Smartphone Knows About You, Donald MacKenzie, London Review of Books, August 2024 [final draft + links to main sources used]
- A Puff of Carbon Dioxide [digital advertising's carbon emissions], Donald MacKenzie, London Review of Books, January 2023 [final draft + links to main sources used].
- Donald MacKenzie writing for the London Review of Books: Blink, Bid, Buy, May 2022
- Donald MacKenzie writing for the LRB: Cookies, Pixels and Fingerprints, April 2021
Accept cookies! We all do it everyday, and indeed you had to "accept cookies" when visiting this very website. But what exactly is a cookie? We've found that not everyone is so sure in our conversations with academics, generalists, and even AdTech professionals.
So, we've put together a three-part video explaining cookies, produced by our project team colleague Charlotte Rommerskirchen and featuring our primary investigator Donald MacKenzie.
Part 1: First Party Cookies
Donald MacKenzie explores what cookies are, how they work, and how they are used in the digital economy.
Part 2: Third Party Cookies
Donald MacKenzie shares our thoughts on third party cookies, which make it possible for advertisers to track user behaviour across many websites, and are used by various advertising systems in our digital economy.
Part 3: The End of Third Party Cookies
Donald MacKenzie discusses how Google Chrome, the most common web browser of all, was set to block third party cookies. Although third party cookies have been blocked by Safari and Firefox for some time, Chrome's blocking of them (which has now been abandoned) would have been a big change that would have had ramifications across the entire online advertising ecosystem.