Amplification, communities, platforms: Reclaiming space with Idil Galip and Julia Bee

Contemporary platform politics take shape within socio-technical amplification regimes that blur the line between mobilization and manipulation. Memetic ambience, algorithmic visibility, and affective uptake structure the conditions under which movements emerge, communities fracture, and political energies are redirected, diluted, or amplified. In this conversation, Julia Bee (Professor of Gender and Media Studies, University of Bochum) and Idil Galip (Lecturer in New Media and Digital Culture, University of Amsterdam) join Ambient Amplification theme issue editors Elena Pilipets and Marloes Geboers to explore the complexities of platform-mediated engagement through an activist lens. Julia draws on feminist traditions of care, diversity, and resistance to examine how platforms mediate visibility, exclusion, and collective action, while Idil bridges meme and platform studies to explore how affect, irony, and circulation oscillate between marketing logics and social movements. Together, they reflect on vibe shifts, counter-publics, and digital encounters as sites of tension and possibility, asking how crowds can reclaim space and cultivate solidarity despite extractive platform logics. While the issues under discussion resonate globally, the conversation deliberately foregrounds situated experiences and local political contexts, treating them not as limitations but as analytical lenses reflecting broader platform dynamics.