Context matters: Understanding the platformization of violence

This introductory paper outlines the conceptual foundations and research agenda for our special issue Contextual Complexities of Violence on Digital Platforms. We argue that violence on digital platforms cannot be understood as a fixed or self-evident category, but must be situated within the sociotechnical, cultural and political environments that shape its production, circulation and recognition. Drawing on cross-disciplinary scholarship, we develop the framework of contextualized platformized violence, which explains how harm arises through the interaction of platform infrastructures, cultural narratives, governance regimes, and local power dynamics. We identify key challenges that complicate efforts to study violence across digital environments, emphasizing the need for thick, reflexive and contextually grounded approaches. We conclude by introducing the 10 contributions in this special issue, each of which demonstrates how attending to context transforms our understanding of platformized violence and provides conceptual, empirical and methodological pathways for advancing research in this rapidly evolving field.