Digital Labor: The Internet as Playground and Factory

Digital Labor calls on the reader to examine the shifting sites of labor markets to the Internet through the lens of their political, technological, and historical making. Internet users currently create most of the content that makes up the web: they search, link, tweet, and post updates—leaving their "deep" data exposed. Meanwhile, governments listen in, and big corporations track, analyze, and predict users’ interests and habits.

This unique collection of essays provides a wide-ranging account of the dark side of the Internet. It claims that the divide between leisure time and work has vanished so that every aspect of life drives the digital economy. The book reveals the anatomy of playbor (play/labor), the lure of exploitation and the potential for empowerment. Ultimately, the 14 thought-provoking chapters in this volume ask how users can politicize their troubled complicity, create public alternatives to the centralized social web, and thrive online.

Contributors: Mark Andrejevic, Ayhan Aytes, Michel Bauwens, Jonathan Beller, Patricia Ticineto Clough, Sean Cubitt, Jodi Dean, Abigail De Kosnik, Julian Dibbell, Christian Fuchs, Lisa Nakamura, Andrew Ross, Ned Rossiter, Trebor Scholz, Tizania Terranova, McKenzie Wark, and Soenke Zehle

"Almost 20 years since we were promised a new era of creativity, connectivity, and commerce by the rise of the World Wide Web, we are finally able to ask hard questions about how digital ecosystems have affected human capabilities. This book is essential to any effort to make sense of the digital economy and its effects on real people around the world." —Siva Vaidhyanathan, author of The Googlization of Everything—and Why We Should Worry

"Internet business models increasingly rely on the uncompensated and crowd-sourced contributions of individuals. This important book brings together leading thinkers to shine a much needed and critical light on what this practice means for the future of markets, freedom, and individual autonomy." —Laura DeNardis, author of Protocol Politics: The Globalization of Internet Governance

Trebor Scholz is Associate Professor of Culture and Media at The New School.