Abstract

This article analyzes the impact of digital platformization on scientific knowledge production in Chilean universities. While previous studies have documented how digital technologies have transformed teaching and educational management, little attention has been paid to how these platforms reshape the everyday practices of academic research-particularly from a qualitative perspective situated in Latin America. The study draws on in-depth interviews with scholars from various disciplines, complemented by systematic observation of the digital platforms used in academic work. Data were analyzed through abductive thematic coding, enabling a dialogue between emergent categories and theoretical frameworks on academic labor and platformization. The findings identify a digital platform ecology that mediates key functions of visibility, evaluation, collaboration, and institutional management, reconfiguring temporalities, autonomy, and criteria for knowledge validation. While the study highlights opportunities related to open access, automation, and expanded research networks, it also reveals structural tensions linked to the commodification of knowledge, labor precarization, and epistemic homogenization. This article offers a critical reading of the academic digital ecosystem and underscores the need to strengthen regulatory frameworks, public infrastructures, and collective forms of agency to challenge its more exclusionary effects.