Category Archives: Discussion

Realism and Utopianism in Discussions of Digital Labor

All of the readings we did for this week touch on a tension that exists in many forms of Left politics. On the one hand, there is a desire to find sites of possible resistance and encourage the development of an affective basis for modes of activity that exist outside of Capitalism, which seems to be what Barbrook is attempting to do in his discussion of the early open source community. On the other hand, there is the desire to bring injustices into the light—hence, the “Wages for Facebook” manifesto’s attempt to enable a discussion of the exploitative nature of Facebook by referring to people’s use of the service as “work.” One thing I find particularly striking about this juxtaposition is the way in which naming an injustice produced by Capitalism seems to require that we take on the language of Capitalism, referring to an ostensibly personal form of activity as “work,” while Barbrook’s claim that the Internet is “anarcho-communist”—as radical as the terminology of this argument is—seems to imply a much less critical attitude towards the world as it is.

While I am generally more sympathetic to Ptak than Barbrook, I am concerned that interventions like “Wages for Facebook” will only get us so far. Referring to Facebook activity as “work” brings an issue that was hidden to the foreground, but it also seems to go right along with a broad trend in American discourse towards framing more and more activities within Capitalist and managerial categories. Referring to clicking like buttons as “work” and stating that ad-driven services treat users as “products” may serve the interest of social realism, but this rhetorical move could also backfire, feeding right into the madness that, for instance, leads people to obsess over their “personal brands” and use the word “metric” to refer to any sort of standard against something is to be judged, acting as if the entirety of the world worked like a marketing firm.

One writer who has noted this specific issue in oppositional discourse is Theodore Adorno. At the end of his book Minima Moralia, Adorno arrives at a critique of Hegelian dialectic from the perspective of the anti-fascist Left. One of the issues that he raises is the tendency of dialectical thought to inadvertently reinforce the system that it is meant to critique. To use Adorno’s example, the Left must acknowledge that the romantic view of marriage can cover up the exploitative economic relations that underlie the institution. But if we instead reframe marriage as a purely economic arrangement—realistic as this view may be—we can lose sight of the possibility that it could or should be something more. The structural analogy between the two sides of a dialectic, Adorno argues, makes the immediate division of Hegel’s followers into Left and Right factions inevitable—since the vocabulary of pro- and anti-Capitalist writing is necessarily similar, politics comes to be discernable less in the formal character of a work than in the social, institutional, and discursive formations in which it is enmeshed.

We might find an example of this structural analogy between Left and Right in Franco Moretti’s work on the literary marketplace, which we discussed last semester. In a cursory reading, Moretti’s Marxist account of the “slaughterhouse of literature” could easily be mistaken for a Capitalist analysis—the terms of discussion (market, product, consumer) are largely the same. Christopher Prendergast’s accusation that Moretti’s use of evolutionary ideas makes him a Social Darwinist is unfair, but I don’t think it’s too implausible that Moretti’s work could be mistaken for a Social Darwinist project on a cursory reading, given how much his terms of analysis borrow from this viewpoint. The difference is a hair’s breadth.

Adorno responds to this seeming bind with one of his most famous aphorisms: “The only philosophy which can be responsibly practiced in the face of despair is the attempt to contemplate all things as they would present themselves from the standpoint of redemption” (247). This formula suggests a different grounding for criticism that aims for transcendence rather than for “realism” of the sort that borrows its terms from the prevailing order. There are some ways in which this response is problematic, and it certainly dates itself as pre-1968. Adorno’s approach bears a suspicious resemblance to the positivist idea of a “view from nowhere;” and his big problem, of course, is his tendency to presume knowledge of what is best for other people. But I think this formula might still be useful in thinking about our own motivations in undertaking online labor. How would we articulate our reasons for blogging, for contributing to Wikipedia, or for clicking a like button if exploitation finally came to an end? How distorted would our activity appear from this standpoint? Framing the question in this way allows us to name the negative aspects of reality within terms that are not determined by the current order—but unlike the sort of techno-utopianism that peaked in the 1990s, it allows us to keep in mind that the alternative is, and perhaps will always remain, not wholly real.

Digital Labor: Odd Jobs for Fun or Money?

Thoughts on Wikipedia Editing and Digital Labor by Dorothy Howard raises some compelling points about the nature of working in the so-called digital economy. When is digital labor a voluntary, altruistic, creative way to spend free time and when is it an exploitative dead end for people with few other choices? It is inspiring to think about Wikipedia as a collaborative gift to human knowledge constructed by high-minded volunteers who have steady incomes and a bit of time to spare. It is depressing to think about Wikipedia as “hope labor” for people who otherwise earn a little cash delivering pizzas or as a “honey-trap for people on the autism spectrum.” Wikipedia encompasses both the inspiring and depressing aspects of digital labor, but it is free labor for a free resource.

What happens when digital labor is paid? A new market is emerging for “human intelligence tasks” in which humans are employed on a piecework basis to do small tasks which computers cannot do. For example, Amazon Mechanical Turk offers workers pennies per job to do “HITs”or human intelligence tasks such as tagging photos, selecting correct spelling for search terms or choosing the appropriate category for products. HITs might seem like a convenient way to use spare time on the computer to earn some extra money, but the average hourly rate falls well below minimum wage (see Tips for Making Money with Amazon Mechanical Turk). In addition, Amazon Mechanical Turk acts only as a liability-free payment processor (see their conditions of use) in a marketplace which offers workers about as much protection as a street corner meetup for day laborers  (see The Unregulated Work of Mechanical Turk by Nancy Folbre). In contrast, employers have access to a global, on-demand, 24 x 7 workforce and they “pay only when satisfied with the results.”

Another entry into the digital piecework business is a new app called Spare5. Spare5 has an upfront business plan: “We’re very much trying to harness the attention deficit generation” (see New York Times article). It distinguishes itself from Amazon Mechanical Turk by filtering workers for relevant skills (users of the app complete a questionnaire and provide links to their social media pages) and offering employers a more targeted labor pool. Spare5 not only appeals to workers’ desire to make money, but also makes a rather nervy pitch to their desire to join a community of like-minded experts: “Hello, Providers of Insights! We aspire to build a great community of people who enjoy exercising their hobbies, passions and interests in snippets of their free time. Since you are seeking to join this community, we thought we’d lay out the fine print that our lawyers assure us is vital…” (From Spare5 terms of service).

Non-profit organizations including universities, libraries and museums also need workers to perform HITs  to create metadata for digitized collections or to assist in filtering big data for research projects. While some have used paid workers through Amazon Mechanical Turk, others have focused on creating gaming platforms such as Metadata Games, an open source software project developed by Dartmouth College or Building Inspector, a game based on New York City historical maps developed by the New York Public Library. These projects don’t offer the digital workers any money, so instead they offer the fun of playing games plus a strangely nuanced appeal for volunteer help. NYPL encourages “citizen cartographers” to “kill time and make history” by identifying buildings and other details on historical maps of New York City. The slightly mixed message is that you are going to waste your time online in any event, so you should make the most of it and do some volunteer work. Metadata Games makes a more straightforward appeal to workers (“Museums and libraries have digital collections of images, audio, and video files, but there aren’t any descriptions! Through playing our games, players make it possible for these media artifacts to be found and used.”), but the appeal to employers is  nearly identical to the pitch from Spare5 (“Metadata Games allows you to harness the power of players to easily enhance information about your collections.”)

Both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations need to access extremely cheap digital labor. They both seek to  “harness” masses of workers to do human intelligence tasks by paying them pennies or by appealing to their desire to have fun and contribute to a community. What does it mean for an  individual  to decide to provide this cheap labor? The distinction between paid work on exploitative terms and volunteer work for personal enrichment or a social good should be an obvious one, but it seems increasingly hazy. To use Maurizio Lazzarato’s terms, when and how does an individual performing immaterial labor become an “intellectual proletarian”?

 

Knowledge costs: the business of creating lifelong learners…

“All that time we lavish on convincing students that scholarship matters is wasted if we can’t be bothered to make it accessible to graduates for something less than, say, $45.00 per article.” – Barbara Fister

Barbara Fister’s statement (Fister, an MVP in academic library land) hits the nail on the head for me. Why do students citizens relinquish the right to access information once they leave the academy? Why trouble with teaching at all if knowledge access is reserved for a privileged few years in college only?

Ashley Dawson sums up the teetering system of scholarly production and dissemination as follows:

“The upshot is an increasingly Darwinian world of frenetic competition and commodification in which scholars illogically hand over their hard-won knowledge virtually for free to presses that then limit the circulation of that knowledge through various forms of copyright in order to maintain the precarious revenue stream that keeps them in business.”

Open access is an ethical issue, a money/labor issue, and a political issue.

While the open access movement (led voraciously by librarians) soldiers on for free/unrestricted access to scholarship, academic capitalism and the traditional academic tableau (scholar hermit gifts esoteric work in print monograph or gold standard journal article) continues to snake through the system of tenure and promotion. The result is that a majority of academics are held hostage at a time of great shifts in knowledge production, increased collaboration, digital transformation, and new modes of information dissemination. The traditional formula for measuring scholarly accomplishments no longer fits and it is difficult to measure scholarly work when notions of authorship and knowledge production are changing- this is mainly because the system is incredibly inflexible and has relied far too much on unpaid, immaterial labor. It’s not like scholars have ever been paid to do peer review.

Open Access comes at a cost
Creating, editing, presenting, and preserving the work is not free and we’re at a difficult moment where a lot of this labor risks going virtually unnoticed and unremunerated. In the case of several new open access initiatives at CUNY, Academic Works, the University’s institutional repository, and the development of open educational resources (OERs) as alternative course materials at various CUNY campuses, much of the support and administration is planned to be absorbed by CUNY’s 28 or so academic libraries but it remains to be seen how exactly libraries will find the resources to do this.

As a participant in an OER pilot at my CUNY campus, I am also concerned about the amount of awareness and marketing that still needs to be done around open access issues. It’s also a delicate matter depending on who you talk to. Librarians tend to be among the most invested in the movement, and so it’s important to grasp the different concerns around this major shift in scholarly communication. Throw in intellectual property, copyright, and licensing, and you’ve got one complicated discussion.

A Question about Elements in our Final Projects

I need some clarification on the following: If I develop a study to evaluate the app, that study (research design and methodology) would be the proof of concept, yes?   Also, is the proposal for this course a business proposal or a research proposal?  They have different templates.  Biz = sections like company services, products & services, market analysis, and strategy/ implementation, while a research proposal = a lit review, study rationale, research design and methodology and analysis.  It would seem that my project is a better fit for a research proposal, but then where does an environmental scan come in?  Is the lit review and environmental scan essentially the same thing?

Question on Project Abstracts/Short Proposals due March 18

I’d like to have some more information about what we need to do for this assignment. I know that we need to prepare “at least two different project proposals that each have at least two scope variations: one full and a reduced version.” What should the proposals include and what should we be prepared to present/discuss in class? Thanks.

Integrating Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome Into The Workplace

Wikipedia’s article on “High-Functioning Autism and Asperger’s Editor’s” was very insightful in terms of describing who these people are.

The article describes how these individuals are different and explained some of these differences at length.  It is good to know that these individuals are employed in the “real world”, have rights within workplaces, and have a sense of autonomy.

The article indicated that all of Wikipedia’s employees (neurotypical, autistic and Aspergers), are expected to be creative in their problem solving.  This concept of finding different ways to approach and solve problems are often applied to the ways we use technology.  It seems to me that because these high-functioning individuals “like to fix things” and are good with “data storage, processing, indexing and have rapid access” (memory) they could be innovatively inclined.

Now that many more individuals are born into the autism/Asperger categories, and information around their conditions is widely available on line, is it possible that greater understanding can help pave the way to help these individuals become contributors in all areas of society?  I wonder if this is the case how technology might be utilized, given their unique abilities, and how they might be trained to utilize their skill sets.

In the article “The 36 People Who Run Wikipedia” Stephen Lurie notes how the impossible is quite possible – success can happen when lots, and lots of people come together to make or build something, and in this case every single human being can share in the sum of all knowledge”!  Given their interactions at Wikipedia, and their way of “knowing stuff”, it is apparent that these individuals likely enjoy their work as much as others do, gain a sense of pride and I imagine are quite satisfied with their contributions.  In fact, the article calls for a certain “gentleness” when some fact they know may not be quite right.

I wonder if any of the Wiki Stewards are on the autism spectrum.

Wikipedia’s article indicates that autistic individuals are called out around behavioral issues, so given that skill set, it seems there are less reasons for autism/Asperger people to not be engaged within other communities.