Invitation to the defense of Niklas Strüver’s doctoral thesis

The SFB cordially invites you to the defense of Niklas Strüver’s doctoral thesis.

Monday, July 27, 2026, at 11:00 a.m. in Room AH-A 217/18.

During the defense, the findings of his dissertation will be presented to the examination committee and academically defended. The title of his dissertation is “Speaking on behalf of the periphery: Third-party relationships in Amazon’s Alexa ecosystem” and it examines the developmental dynamics of the voice assistant Alexa from the perspectives of infrastructure and platform theory. Drawing on the four articles presented, the dissertation explores how Alexa functions as an infrastructure and platform for third-party providers in business and academia, and what sociotechnical power imbalances arise in the process. This analysis allows for an examination of the social relationships that Amazon, as the manufacturer, enters into with complementary providers on the periphery of the platform. Through various empirical approaches, it is possible, despite the usual secrecy maintained by large corporations, to gain insight into the development of technologies that are present in the everyday lives of many people.

It will be conducted in German and supervised by the two examiners, Dagmar Hoffmann and Armin Beverungen.

Niklas Strüver (M.A.) ist wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter im Projekt B06 („Un/erbetene Beobachtung in Interaktion“) und Doktorand am SFB 1187 „Medien der Kooperation“. Er studierte Soziologie mit einem Schwerpunkt auf Techniksoziologie an der RWTH Aachen und schloss dort den Master of Arts ab. Seine Forschungsschwerpunkte liegen u.a. in den Bereichen Techniksoziologie, Science and Technology Studies sowie Platform Studies.