Showing papers in "The Information Society in 2015"
TL;DR: The analysis indicates that while the digital divide policies' focus has moved to skills and usage access, motivational and material access remain relevant since they are necessary through the entire process of Internet appropriation.
Abstract: In this investigation, a multifaceted model of Internet appropriation that encompasses four types of access—motivational, material, skills, and usage—is tested with a representative sample of the Dutch population. The analysis indicates that while the digital divide policies' focus has moved to skills and usage access, motivational and material access remain relevant since they are necessary through the entire process of Internet appropriation. Moreover, each type of access has its own ground of determination and they interact together to shape digital inequalities. Therefore, digital divide policies should address material, skills, and usage access simultaneously.
200 citations
TL;DR: The trucking case reveals multifaceted pathways to the entrenchment of organizational control via electronic monitoring, which operate together to facilitate firms’ control over truckers’ daily work practices in a manner that was not previously possible.
Abstract: This article examines the implications of electronic monitoring systems for organizational information flows and worker control, in the context of the U.S. trucking industry. Truckers, a spatially dispersed group of workers with a traditionally independent culture and a high degree of autonomy, are increasingly subjected to performance monitoring via fleet management systems that record and transmit fine-grained data about their location and behaviors. These systems redistribute operational information within firms by accruing real-time aggregated data in a remote company dispatcher. This redistribution results in a seemingly incongruous set of effects. First, abstracted and aggregated data streams allow dispatchers to quantitatively evaluate truckers’ job performance across new metrics, and to challenge truckers’ accounts of local and biophysical conditions. Second, even as these data are abstracted, information about truckers’ activities is simultaneously resocialized via its strategic deployment into truckers’ social relationships with their coworkers and families. These disparate dynamics operate together to facilitate firms’ control over truckers’ daily work practices in a manner that was not previously possible. The trucking case reveals multifaceted pathways to the entrenchment of organizational control via electronic monitoring.
126 citations
TL;DR: It is demonstrated that social media generate revenue from four primary sources—by leasing advertisement space to generate advertisement rent, by selling information, by Selling services to advertisers, and by generating profits from fictitious capital and speculative windfalls, which can be adequately explained by Marx's theory of value.
Abstract: Fuchs 2010, 2012 argues that users of social media produce value and surplus value in the Marxian sense. Arvidsson and Colleoni 2012 critique this hypothesis, claiming that Marx's theory of value is irrelevant to the regime of value production on social media platforms in particular and in informational capitalism in general. They claim that the affective relations and financial speculations that generate value on social media are not dependent on labor time. This article critically engages Fuchs, and Arvidsson and Colleoni, by revisiting Marx's theory of value. Contra Fuchs, we argue that audiences do not produce value and surplus value—neither for social nor for mass media. Contra Arvidsson and Colleoni, we argue that so-called affective relations philia do not produce value either. Instead we demonstrate that social media generate revenue from four primary sources—by leasing advertisement space to generate advertisement rent, by selling information, by selling services to advertisers, and by generating profits from fictitious capital and speculative windfalls. All four, we argue, can be adequately explained by Marx's theory of value.
62 citations
TL;DR: For the past thirty years, as the translator's profession has undergone a radical metamorphosis from a sort of bilingual craft to a highly technologized profession, translator education has been undergoing a comparatively slow evolution as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: For the past thirty years, as the translator’s profession has undergone a radical metamorphosis from a sort of bilingual craft to a highly technologized profession, translator education has been undergoing a comparatively slow evolution. From pervasive chalk-and-talk transmissionist practice just a few decades ago, the contemporary literature on translator education reveals a plethora of theoretical and practical approaches to the study and teaching of translation-related skills. In this article, the author reviews some key trends in this development within the translator education domain on the basis of his own evolution as a translator educator over the past three decades. A key focus will be placed on the role of epistemology, a mainstay of educational philosophy and learning theory, but a topic that he feels can help elucidate pedagogical practices of the past and guide the way toward ones better suited to educating translators today … and in the future.
58 citations
TL;DR: The concepts of information cultivation and social denomination are introduced to explicate how the development of such a data collection architecture requires a continuous exercise of balancing between the conflicting demands of patient engagement and data semantic context, necessary for effective capture of health phenomena in informative and specific data.
Abstract: Many organizations develop social media networks with the aim of engaging a wide range of social groups in the production of information that fuels their processes. This effort appears to crucially depend on complex data structures that allow the organization to connect and collect data from a myriad of local contexts and actors. One such organization, PatientsLikeMe, is developing a platform with the aim of connecting patients with one another while collecting self-reported medical data, which it uses for scientific and commercial medical research. Here the question of how technology and the underlying data structures shape the kind of information and medical evidence that can be produced through social media-based arrangements comes powerfully to the fore. In this observational case study, I introduce the concepts of information cultivation and social denomination to explicate how the development of such a data collection architecture requires a continuous exercise of balancing between the conflicting demands of patient engagement, necessary for collecting data in scale, and data semantic context, necessary for effective capture of health phenomena in informative and specific data. The study extends the understanding of the context-embeddedness of information phenomena and discusses some of the social consequences of social media models for knowledge making.
51 citations
TL;DR: The historical tradition from which social robots come is discussed, followed by an analysis of the penetration of social robots in everyday life and the importance of interdisciplinary research is highlighted.
Abstract: Industrial and domestic robotics provide fascinating and relevant perspective insights into current and possible trajectories for the development of contemporary societies. While industrial robotics has found its place since the 1960s, domestic robotics wherein humans interact with social robots is still an unsettled area. After reviewing data on the diffusion of social robots and on their use, the historical tradition from which social robots come is discussed. This discussion is followed by an analysis of the penetration of social robots in everyday life and the importance of interdisciplinary research is highlighted.
42 citations
TL;DR: This perspective intervenes in the discussion of value generation on social networking sites by focusing on the role played by the collection and use of personal data and considers the challenge posed by new forms of data processing and collection for arguments regarding labor's ability to appropriate forms of socialized knowledge.
Abstract: This perspective intervenes in the discussion of value generation on social networking sites by focusing on the role played by the collection and use of personal data. It argues, with Fuchs (2012), that the paradigm of user labor remains a useful way for approaching the issue of user generated content. In response to Arvidsson and Colleoni (2012), it suggests that the value of “data troves” better explains the discrepancy between valuation and revenue than the hypothesis of the direct transformation of users’ affective investment into financial rent. Finally, it advances the discussion by considering the challenge posed by new forms of data processing and collection for arguments regarding labor's ability to appropriate forms of socialized knowledge.
36 citations
TL;DR: It is argued that Fuchs reduces the user interactions on the Internet to its economic function and so dismisses its democratic implications, which ignores the human significance of online interaction as a new public sphere.
Abstract: In the era of social media, the notion of immaterial labor or free labor can be interpreted in different ways. On the one hand, Hardt and Negri argue, immaterial labor as labor creates immaterial products. On the other hand, free labor can be understood as unpaid labor that is voluntarily given. Fuchs combines the theories of free labor and Hardt and Negri's concept of the multitude with audience commodity theory in an innovative Marxist analysis of the Internet. In this perspective we critique Fuchs's argument for considering social networking sites as the scene of capitalist exploitation of free labor. We argue that Fuchs reduces the user interactions on the Internet to its economic function and so dismisses its democratic implications. In so doing he ignores the human significance of online interaction as a new public sphere.
30 citations
TL;DR: This study identifies six stages in the information use process and models them and fills the gap by studying information use by poor female mobile phone users in rural India.
Abstract: Digital inclusion research has focused overwhelmingly on access to information. But access to information by itself is of limited value unless the intended beneficiary has the capacity to use it. It is the use of information that delivers the benefits. However, in information and communication technologies for development literature, there is little empirical work on the process by which use of information delivers benefits. This study fills the gap by studying information use by poor female mobile phone users in rural India. It identifies six stages in the information use process and models them.
29 citations
TL;DR: It is concluded that there is still a lot of scope for growth in studies of the Internet in China and several of the identified research gaps are listed.
Abstract: This article is a report on a research project that collected detailed information on articles, book chapters, books, and so on, published by academics on the Chinese Internet between 1990 and early 2013. The findings of the meta-review of 20 years of Chinese Internet research, as gleaned from quantitative and qualitative analysis of the collected body of publications, are presented and discussed in this report. It engages with the conclusions drawn by previous meta-studies, and seeks to shed a critical, self-reflexive light onto the main discursive formations of their research field. The article concludes that there is still a lot of scope for growth in studies of the Internet in China and lists several of the identified research gaps.
29 citations
TL;DR: This perspective examines the source of value in Web 2.0 enterprises such as Facebook and Google by analyzing the advertising model that supplies the bulk of their revenues and proposing that revenues from advertising come from value produced in non-Web 2.
Abstract: This perspective examines the source of value in Web 2.0 enterprises such as Facebook and Google by analyzing the advertising model that supplies the bulk of their revenues. Drawing on Marx's understanding of the circulation of value within the capitalist economy as a whole and his concepts of unproductive labor, subsumption of labor, costs of circulation, commercial capital, and primitive accumulation, we analyze the economic relationships of Web 2.0 capital, proposing that revenues from advertising come from value produced in non-Web 2.0 sectors of the economy. On this basis we critique both Fuchs's and Arvidsson and Colleoni's positions on the origin of value in Web 2.0 and recognize some of the difficulties and contradictions of the advertising model as a form of monetization of free services for Web 2.0 capital.
TL;DR: The argument mobilizes theories of social rationalization from Max Weber to contemporary critical theory to demonstrate that the appearance of automated profiles on social networking platforms can be seen as a logical step in the progressive enclosure of online social interaction in standardized, simplified, and trivialized forms, frames, and gestures.
Abstract: This article takes the concept and some of the existing applications of socialbots—software robots that operate on social networking sites and present themselves as human users—as an occasion to trace the evolution of online sociality. The argument mobilizes theories of social rationalization from Max Weber to contemporary critical theory to demonstrate that the appearance of automated profiles socialbots on social networking platforms can be seen as a logical step in the progressive enclosure of online social interaction in standardized, simplified, and trivialized forms, frames, and gestures. Critical questions concerning what the growth of robo-sociality may mean for individual users and the online public sphere are posed with a view to charting the directions for a needed public debate.
TL;DR: A critique of the traditional Marxist political economy is presented to provide insights into the complex changes in contemporary societies that underlie the growth of user-generated content.
Abstract: Fuchs and also Arvidsson and Colleoni have explored the creation of user-generated content in social media as an economic process. This perspective proposes an alternative conceptual approach, arguing that the main value of user involvement in content production is the constitution of individuals as social subjects. To this end, a critique of the traditional Marxist political economy is presented to provide insights into the complex changes in contemporary societies that underlie the growth of user-generated content. The concept of the social media dispositive is introduced as an analytic for studying material practices as well as economic and social aspects of social media.
TL;DR: The notion of universal projection was coined by Thomas Luckmann as discussed by the authors to denote man's innate capacity to project his own "living body" onto everything he encounters in the world, and Luckmann lists a number of qualities that cancel the projection, such as the lack of perceptible transformations on the outside of an object as an indication of the absence of a responsive inside.
Abstract: “Universal projection” is the term Thomas Luckmann uses to denote man's innate capacity to project his own “living body” onto everything he encounters in the world, and Luckmann lists a number of qualities that cancel the projection. For example, the lack of perceptible transformations on the outside of an object is perceived as an indication of the absence of a responsive inside. This list can serve as a how-not-to guide to building that piece of advanced technology known nowadays as an “artificial companion.” Drawing the border of the social world alongside that of the human world—which is typical of Western modernity—is not an ontological given but rather an evolutionary outcome, that is, a result of social construction. The de-socialization of large parts of the life-world leads to its de-animation, which is closely linked to the emergence and organization of a separate religious symbolic reality. The tendency to endow objects with qualities reminiscent of living subjects contrasts markedly with this. The possibility of programming advanced machines in accordance with one's own wishes, and machines' “ability to learn,” appear to play an important role in the ascription process. Social scientists recognize one of the origins of this development in the meta-process of individualization. From a psychoanalytical perspective, modern Westerners are suffering from relationship fatigue. This fatigue prompts us to endeavor to substitute human relationships with relationships with “nonhumans.” Mediatized communication practices are seen to have a supportive effect in this regard. The article discusses some of these interpretations and contrasts them with an alternative hypothesis on the appeal of artificial companions.
TL;DR: In their assessment of value creation through prosumption and other activities related to the use of digital technologies, Fuchs (2010) and Arvidsson and Colleoni (2012) misinterpret Marx's value theory, and a more careful reading of Marx is a priority.
Abstract: In their assessment of value creation through prosumption and other activities related to the use of digital technologies, despite significant differences, Fuchs (2010) and Arvidsson and Colleoni (2012) misinterpret Marx's value theory. Through their analyses, a totalizing or new form of capitalism is said to have emerged, but these, I argue, entail demonstrably idealist theorizations. The end result is that these authors occlude more than they clarify in their debates concerning value, exploitation, and the role played by digital technologies. However, once we understand the precision needed to apply Marx's complex theory—including his conceptualization of “labor power” and the distinction he makes between “productive” and “unproductive” labor—it becomes apparent that a more careful reading of Marx is a priority.
TL;DR: For reasons people may not wish for total verisimilitude when interacting linguistically with robots, Informational and empathetic functions are likely to be more welcomed than those involving social control or critique.
Abstract: While social robots are the creation of human beings, it is not obvious what kinds of conversation people desire to have with computer-based devices. Progressive improvements in speech recognition, natural language parsing, and physical embodiment are making it technologically possible for social robots to engage with humans in essentially the full range of conversational modes that we do with one another. However, when we examine the variety of possible human linguistic functions, we discover reasons people may not wish for total verisimilitude when interacting linguistically with robots. Informational and empathetic functions are likely to be more welcomed than those involving social control or critique.
TL;DR: Investigation of the potential of machine translation as an efficient and cost-effective means to translate sections of the Ottawa Public Library website into Spanish shows that while machine translation cannot address every need, there are some instances for which the faster and cheaper post-edited versions are considered useful and acceptable to the community.
Abstract: This study investigates the potential of machine translation as an efficient and cost-effective means to translate sections of the Ottawa Public Library website into Spanish to better meet the linguistic needs of the Spanish-speaking newcomer community. One-hundred and fourteen community members participated in a recipient evaluation survey, in which they evaluated four different versions of a translated portion of the library’s website — a professional human translation, a maximally post-edited machine translation, a rapidly post-edited machine translation, and a raw machine translation. Participants also considered metadata such as the time and cost required to produce each version. Findings show that while machine translation cannot address every need, there are some instances for which the faster and cheaper post-edited versions are considered useful and acceptable to the community.
TL;DR: It is concluded that L2 listening comprehension proficiency has a significant effect on undergraduate students’ interpreting ability and is therefore a suitable predictor for interpreting aptitude and should be included in the interpreting program curriculum, preferably before interpretation classes start.
Abstract: This study reports findings from an experiment that was conducted to investigate language proficiency as an indicator of future interpreting performance. The initial assumption was that Spanish undergraduate translation and interpreting students had an insufficient command of L2 skills to start interpreter training. We hypothesized that an intensive teaching module on L2 phonology and listening comprehension would improve their academic performance in interpreting. Several tests were used to evaluate participant L2 listening comprehension (TOEFL), L2 reading comprehension (TOEFL), L2 grammar (TOEFL), and L1 verbal fluency (WAIS-III). Only those related to L2 are reported here. A consecutive interpreting test was given at the end of the first interpretation module. The students’ self-perception regarding L2 issues was assessed using two questionnaires and an interview. The results suggest that L2 listening comprehension training aided in consecutive interpreting performance. Language proficiency was also found to correlate with interpreting scores. A base level of L2 proficiency for interpreting training is suggested. We conclude that L2 listening comprehension proficiency has a significant effect on undergraduate students’ interpreting ability and is therefore a suitable predictor for interpreting aptitude. Consequently, L2 listening skills should be included in the interpreting program curriculum, preferably before interpretation classes start.
TL;DR: The Pisa-IIT SoftHand project promises to meet manipulation needs by a principled combination of sensorimotor synergies and soft robotics actuation, which aims at capturing how the biomechanical structure and neural control strategies of the human hand interact so as to simplify and solve both control and sensing problems.
Abstract: The sustainability of social robotics, like other ambitious research programs, depends on the identification of lines of inquiry that are coherent with its visionary goals while satisfying more stringent constraints of feasibility and near-term payoffs. Within these constraints, this article outlines one line of inquiry that seems especially viable: development of a society of robots operating within the physical environments of everyday human life, developing rich robot–robot social exchanges, and yet, refraining from any physical contact with human beings. To pursue this line of inquiry effectively, sustained interactions between specialized research communities in robotics are needed. Notably, suitable robotic hand design and control principles must be adopted to achieve proper robotic manipulation of objects designed for human hands that one finds in human habitats. The Pisa-IIT SoftHand project promises to meet these manipulation needs by a principled combination of sensorimotor synergies and soft robotics actuation, which aims at capturing how the biomechanical structure and neural control strategies of the human hand interact so as to simplify and solve both control and sensing problems.
TL;DR: It is argued that in the digital domain, the embeddedness of practices needs to be reconsidered in favor of concepts that account for the peculiarities of digitality and its unprecedented degree of context autonomy.
Abstract: The pervasive diffusion of digital media has introduced profound changes to social practices, challenging established notions of embeddedness and context. Based on our case study on the BBC's Digital Media Initiative, we further explore these changes in the domain of video craft editing for television broadcast brought about by the digitization of the video production process. As craft editing is mediated by digital images, its contextual embeddedness is transformed by context-independent standards of computation and metadata resulting in the erosion of the contextual boundaries of the practice. Given our findings, we argue that in the digital domain, the embeddedness of practices needs to be reconsidered in favor of concepts that account for the peculiarities of digitality and its unprecedented degree of context autonomy.
TL;DR: The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media as discussed by the authors is a history with a theoretical framework and a political vision of social media, which aims to help the reader "understand social media's high-mindedness".
Abstract: The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media is a history with a theoretical framework and a political vision. The author intends to help the reader “understand social media's hi...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors address the concern among some Western scholars that the concept of translation in the European tradition is narrower than in some other cultures so that the spread of Western concepts and theories to the rest of the world is threatening biodiversity.
Abstract: Taking China as a case in point, this paper addresses the concern among some Western scholars that the concept of translation in the European tradition is narrower than in some other cultures so that the spread of Western concepts and theories to the rest of the world is threatening “biodiversity”. A re-examination of the evidence presented shows that this claim is based on a series of misinterpretation of ‘fanyi,’ the Chinese word for ‘translation’. In fact, the traditional concept of translation in China used to be very narrow and rigid. It gradually loosened up only after the transfer of Western translation theories into China, which challenged traditional thinking. Ironically, the concern of the few Chinese scholars who resist Westernization is that the process has put an end to uniformity. As a result of the transfer of Western academic norms and ‘pure’ translation theories, translation research in China has become more sophisticated. The influence of Western ideas in China has caused some concern about Eurocentrism mainly among Western scholars. This concern, however, might itself be Eurocentric since Sinocentrism is the major cause for concern among most Chinese scholars.
TL;DR: This article identifies the material components of embedded information and explicate the processes by which objectual and social practices shape the adoption of theories across the network, creating knowledge-in-practice.
Abstract: In this article, we explore the meanings of objectual practice that are revealed by examining embedded information structures and performativity. We conceptualize a network of practice as a nexus of interconnected practice, formed around materially mediated interdependencies across communities of practice. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork of archaeology research, conducted across multiple research disciplines and communities of practice, we identify the material components of embedded information and explicate the processes by which objectual and social practices shape the adoption of theories across the network, creating knowledge-in-practice. We conceptualize knowledge construction as a product of the constant tension between contextualization and decontextualization embeddedness and disembeddedness. Our findings demonstrate the mechanisms by which exploratory interactions with the information embedded in things research objects produce breakdowns that reveal inconsistencies within current theories.
TL;DR: A tension between commitment to standardization and the constitutive and situated social fact requirements of human comprehension is explored and an ethnographic study of an information system design team meeting is worked through.
Abstract: This article considers challenges to getting information systems to recognize “objects” in other information systems. We explore a tension between commitment to standardization and the constitutive and situated social fact requirements of human comprehension and work through an ethnographic study of an information system design team meeting.2 Facilitating interoperability between systems is an important challenge currently facing design teams. Our study elucidates—in the design team's own words—problems that design teams confront with “object” and “concept” certainty, practical “use” and “language”: with defining what they call a “What” when data objects must cross boundaries. The refrain “What is the ‘What’?” punctuates the meeting. Although human use and comprehension frame their concerns, they treat meaning, practical use, and language as “technical” and “philosophical” issues. The social issues they acknowledge are confined to “governance.” Given their reliance on performed social objects, including “role” and “identity”, at key points in their discussion, however, and the importance of “language” and “concepts” to their concerns, we point out social dimensions of their task, suggesting that a broader understanding of the importance of constitutive practices and their situated character in achieving information objects—and social objects more generally—could change the team's perception of their options.
TL;DR: The analysis shows how the worth and meaning of archival records and the work of archivists are constituted in a complex interplay of quasi-institutionalized orders ofarchival work, their associated but often conflicting regimes of worth and information, and changing local intermediary practices.
Abstract: Through interviews of Nordic archives professionals, this article explicates the transformation and complexities of the worth and meaning of archival records and archival work. The analysis shows how the worth and meaning of archival records and the work of archivists are constituted in a complex interplay of quasi-institutionalized orders of archival work, their associated but often conflicting regimes of worth and information, and changing local intermediary practices.
TL;DR: Ten case studies of policies and programs promoting ICT and broadband access for persons with disabilities in the leading economies of the Asia-Pacific region are examined in order to identify factors behind programs that succeed on the basis of effectiveness and cost efficiency.
Abstract: Despite the promise of broadband to improve the lives of persons with disabilities, there are wide disparities in access and usage between disabled and nondisabled populations. This article examines ten case studies of policies and programs promoting ICT and broadband access for persons with disabilities in the leading economies of the Asia-Pacific region, in order to identify factors behind programs that succeed on the basis of effectiveness and cost efficiency.
TL;DR: The impact of the Internet on translation e research within the framework of translation competence models (PACTE 2005; Gopferich 2009), as well as socio-constructivist approaches to translation education (Kiraly 2012; 2000) are reviewed.
Abstract: Within the context of the global digital revolution, translation in professional settings cannot be understood without the Internet, as a communicative, documentary, and productivity tool (Cronin 2013; Jimenez-Crespo 2013). Similarly, translation training has been revolutionized by the wide range of possibilities afforded by the Internet. This paper reviews the impact of the Internet on translation e research within the framework of translation competence models (PACTE 2005; Gopferich 2009), as well as socio-constructivist approaches to translation education (Kiraly 2012; 2000). Its impact has been felt in two areas: (1) how translation is taught and (2) how the world of translation has been changed by the Internet. Related to the first area is the rapid increase in the number of online and hybrid programs offered and in the use of online teaching platforms in classroom-based contexts. Related to the second area, a wide range of new opportunities has arisen, such as: (1) those related to the Internet as a communicative platform, (2) those related to the use of the Internet during translation tasks, both in terms of cloud-based translation memory and human-aided machine translation, as well as the use of the Internet for ‘external support’ (Alves and Liparini 2009) to solve translation problems, and (3) the emergence of new translation modalities such as web localization, new textual genres, such as social networking sites or tweets, as well as new translation practices, such as online crowdsourcing and volunteer translation communities.
TL;DR: In this paper, a special issue deals with how the multivalent involvement of information and communication technologies in social practice alters this basic problematic and includes six research articles that investigate particular social practices and the ways each of these practices are refigured by the deepening involvement of Information and Communication technologies.
Abstract: This introduction outlines the problematic that has served as the basis for this special issue. Interaction weaves the fabric of social life in the form of events that are usually embedded in a series of particulars, variously referred to as contexts or situations. At the same time, actors, and the contexts in which they are embedded, are constituted by social rules, role systems, and normative frameworks that transcend situated encounters. Furthermore, most interactive events involve a range of resources and technological capabilities that recur across contexts and situations. This special issue deals with how the multivalent involvement of information and communication technologies in social practice alters this basic problematic. It entails six research articles that investigate particular social practices and the ways each of these practices are refigured by the deepening involvement of information and communication technologies. This special issue also features an invited perspective piece by distinguished philosopher Albert Borgmann.
TL;DR: The analysis shows digital divides at the caste level, and shows that old and new technologies diffuse differently among castes.
Abstract: This study examined how caste influences adoption of information and communication technologies. It entailed a survey of 2750 farmers, who were interviewed in person, in rural Punjab Pakistan, and two different methods for data analysis—data mining and indices-based statistical analysis. The analysis shows digital divides at the caste level. Furthermore, it shows that old and new technologies diffuse differently among castes.
TL;DR: This perspective explores the production of user-generated content by contrasting two analyses that are convergent in some respects, divergent in others and suggests recentering the debate not around individuals and their labor, but on the web of affective connections between them.
Abstract: This perspective explores the production of user-generated content by contrasting two analyses that are convergent in some respects, divergent in others. In our first line of analysis we use the work of Negri (1996) and Moulier-Boutang (2007) on “cognitive capitalism” to extend some elements explored by Fuchs (2010; 2012) and Arvidsson and Colleoni (2012) on labor and value. This approach foregrounds the adaptability of capitalism and suggests that workers are endowed with “an inventive subjective power” that simultaneously influences and reproduces the mode of production. Our second line of analysis explores the later work of Andre Gorz (1997; 2003), who invites us to imagine a society in which social relationships would no longer be determined by the laws of the market, a postmarket utopia. This approach points to the importance of collective organization and relational value production of user-generated content and suggests recentering the debate not around individuals and their labor, but on the web o...