This article explores platform workers’ strategies for producing sustainable, quality services within platform structures that simultaneously over- and under-determine their work. We present findings from interviews with U.S.-based mental health professionals (n = 48) working on teletherapy platforms. These therapists describe navigating both the presence of platformic controls and the absence of features supporting professional best practices and regulatory requirements. We describe this absence as the “empty shell” characteristic of platforms and argue that it is a central technique through which platforms create scale. Our findings detail the communicative strategies therapists employ to navigate the empty shell and provide quality care to their clients. These strategies can be seen as a form of “articulation work,” a concept drawn from the sociology of work. Attending to articulation work in an emerging platform labor context, such as teletherapy, contributes to our understanding of the politics of platforms.

中文翻译：

---

在空壳中航行：铰接工作在平台结构中的作用

本文探讨了平台工作人员在平台结构内提供可持续、优质服务的策略，同时过度和低估了他们的工作。我们展示了对在远程治疗平台上工作的美国心理健康专业人士 (n = 48) 的采访结果。这些治疗师描述了如何应对平台控制的存在和支持​​专业最佳实践和监管要求的功能的缺乏。我们将这种缺失描述为平台的“空壳”特征，并认为这是平台创造规模的核心技术。我们的研究结果详细介绍了治疗师用来应对空壳并为客户提供优质护理的沟通策略。这些策略可以被视为一种“衔接工作，“这个概念源自工作社会学。参与新兴平台劳动环境中的衔接工作（例如远程治疗）有助于我们理解平台政治。