digital labour
From mineral mining to data mining: Understanding the global commodity chain of internet communications
Context
This is fairly hefty book by almost any measures. It weighs in at over 400 pages, retails for almost £100 (hardback) and undertakes to review and theorise the many and varied forms of labour that contribute to Internet based, digital media commodities. Empirically it ranges from the ‘work’ of Facebook users updating statuses and posting cat videos, to rare earth miners and smartphone production line workers, who create the material tools and technologies that allow us to access social network sites.
Control and becoming in the neoliberal teaching machine
In the first part of a scathing series of posts for the New Left Project focused on the ‘Big Society’ sham, Emma Dowling writes:
