User:Bohye Woo/Annotated Bibliography
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Scholz, T. (2013) The Internet as Playground and Factory. chapter 2: Free Labor by Tiziana Terranova.
In this chapter, it explains how the reality of the Internet is deeply connected to the development of late post-industrial society where technology, information, and services are more important than manufacturing actual goods. There are much more cultural and technical works rather than economical works whose line of work needs to think for a living, and its activities are widely spreaded throughout capitalist societies. (Terranova, 2013)
It also demonstrates how internet is an advanced capitalist platform where these cultural and technical works become a voluntary labour that is unwaged. Building free websites or modifying software packages are the examples of exploitation of cultural and technical work. I found it's relavant to take it to my thesis because it explains the Internet is an advanced platform of capitalist society through examples of free works in the network society.
The author continue talking about 24-7 electronic sweatshops, over-working culture, being burned by digital media, and the form of netslaves. Mentioning about Gilroy's distinction between work as "servitude, misery and subordination", this attitude of exploiting labours are situated in a hierarchical way between subordiates and superior. This invisible hierarchical layers appears when a user using social media as a subordinated platform, unconciously working for 24-7 hours with over-working hours as a full time worker in the modern digital society.
Lastly, it tells that the labour is a pervasive feature of the society where the knowledge is valued through the economy. In this manner, she talks about the legitimacy of a fixed distinction between production and consumption, labor and culture. Building on those story, the chapter ended with explanation of how production and consumption can be restructured within the category of free labor in the information industry.
Couldry, Nick (2019). The Costs of Connection: How Data Is Colonizing Human Life and Appropriating It for Capitalism. Chapter 1: The capitalization of life without limit (p 3-7).'
In this chapter, Couldry unpacks how the concept of data colonialism is involved through hisorical colonialism. In the colonial past, the concept was formed though economic and social organization dominated by major colonial powers. Here I can corelated to the modernized digial colonialism where social media platforms or big companies has a big colonial power. Through its power dynamic, superiors are controling inferiors forcefully or implicitly. In other words, there is no more colonial period but it's happening rather in the web instead. Colonialism is inherited in the social structure, thus the social structure of social media has inherited as well based on the traditional form of colonialism. By insisting that it's inherited, neocolonial forms of power live on social media with a different form and structure.
According to Couldry's text, it explains appropriation in the historical colonialism is geographically bounded, data colonialism expands ever more layers of human life itself. Contrary to historical colonialism, now it's rather human bounded, in a bigger scale group bounded. With which platform you use to share your information, who do you want to share, and what information you're giving away to the giant ocean is much more important than just a linear concept of geography.
Scholz, T. (2013) The Internet as Playground and Factory. chapter 1: In Search of the lost Paycheck by Andrew Ross'
In this article, Andrew Ross starts sharing the story of fighting against exploiters of free online content provision, and considers this as normal phonomenon that this digital online tools offers even clever ways to sneaking out from the web
Graham, M. (2016) Digital Labour and Development: New Knowledge Economies or Digital Sweatshops.'
In this video, Mark Graham briefly explains the theory of digital labour, changing connectivity through the Internet, and what are the different digital labours performing in the web that might gives a range of risks and costs impacted on them. Here I found it's interesting to connect with over-working culture and 24-7 electronic sweatshops from Scholz's text. One interesting example from this presentation is the reason of why there is a labour surplus and struggles on employment in the local labour market. All as a way to undermine how digital employment could be in an improved conditions for digital workers.