I'll elaborate on my problems with Terranova, because it is her argument that I found the most interesting. Terranova states that there are masses of digital "slaves" who do a majority of the work for the cloud lords. Services like Facebook, as well as email and blogs, rely on the input of their users in order to continue to be functional. While this is undoubtedly true, I think it is a stretch to call the use such services "labor". After all, these services are being provided, free of charge in most cases, for the consumer. They are tools of convenience, and therefore should not be referred to as tools of free labor.
An example of my argument is what I brought up in class: a suggestion box in the Saga dining hall. Filling out a suggestion form and putting it in the box is not "labor" in the traditional sense. The person filling out the paper does not expect a form of compensation for their work. Rather, they hope that their input, as well as the input of others will streamline their dining experience, and help tailor it to the desires of the consumers. In this sense, the "compensation" for the labor provided is hopefully a better experience, although that is not guaranteed.
I will admit that Professor Dean's example of the people who get to see an early version of a film is a bit more difficult to dissect. After all, the viewers are providing a service that could be accomplished by a paid, trained employee for free. However, after some thought I have come to the conclusion that the viewers compensation is an early screening of the film. To them, being involved with the film making process is a privilege, and not a chore or task. Their input will help other consumers enjoy the movie better, and in this sense it is "labor" from the initial viewers. However I do not think that this constitutes "slave labor" as Terranova puts it.
Really interesting. But I have some questions.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think labor is? It seems from what you've written that you think that labor has to involve drudgery (a chore or a task).
Also, why should the consumer do the work of improving the experience of consumption? Isn't that usually what we pay for, namely, a nice experience of consumption?
With Facebook: it would not exist without the input of users. In fact, it's the same with most of the internet. This is different from, say, films or pants. They exist whether someone sees or wears them.
My definition of labor is any sort of physical or mental exertion that results in the production of a commodity (be it tangible or not) that can be marketed and sold.
ReplyDeleteAnd it's my personal belief that the consumer improves the experience of consumption whether they make an effort or not. The principle of consumer demand determines what is sold, what kind of things are sold, how things are sold etc. By even purchasing a good you are working toward streamlining the experience of consumption for everyone who purchases that good after you.
And I disagree with you on the point of movies. Facebook, like movies are a service. While facebook is unique in the fact that it's content is mostly user based, the fact of the matter is that people are still using it for entertainment. Movies would be nothing if people did not go to see them. Just images on a screen.
And I know that my definition of labor makes the input of data on facebook "labor" (people's data is routinely sold to advertising agencies, therefore making it a commodity). However this is not the original purpose of the data. The data is uploaded to share with your friends, who in turn share their own data. The "labor" is just a byproduct of a social experience.
How does an individual act of buying (purchasing a good) streamline the experience of consumption for everyone who purchases that good thereafter? I'm not quite sure what this means? Does it mean making the transaction proceed in fewer steps? Or does it have something to do with the quality of the product?
ReplyDeleteAnd aren't there points at which companies say, well, a few hundred fatalities a year are a level of acceptable risk?
You might consider examples in the food industry--the e. coli in tomatoes and spinach, the bizarre not quite meat Tacobell tacos, the mutant turkeys and chickens heavily injected with hormones and drugs.
Why do you think of movies as a service? I would guess because they provide entertainment. But movies are not generally considered part of the service sector. There are beautiful, rarely seen films that very few people ever see. Or are you making a distinction here between films as specific works of art and movies as a complex of mass cultural practices?
If no one purchases a good, then the good will be discontinued or reexamined. If many people purchase a good, then it will be considered in demand, and producers will attempt to make this good more accessible to the consumer (eg. the iPhone). By contributing to this spectrum, we are all inadvertently shaping the experience of consumption of everyone.
ReplyDeleteAnd I do think of movies as a service, but I can recognize the difference between film as art and film as entertainment. However, the directors and creative minds behind art films are not the people who are calling in the public to give input on their movies. That is left to the entertaining films, whose primary goal is to make money.
Yes, we all inadvertently contribute to shaping the experience of consumption. This doesn't have to be an improvement, though, it could also be a decline. Or it could just be neutral. But since this is already part of consumption, it seems that there is something extra when the experience is traced, capitalized, or declared itself to be something someone else owns.
ReplyDeleteMovies as a service--in Marxist terms, you are emphasizing the use value of movies. They provide a service, the service of entertainment. That's what they are used for. Yet movies also have an exchange value associated with what it costs to make them.
Back to your first comment: you say the labor is just a byproduct of the experience of FB. But you could say it the other way as well, FB is a product of the labor that goes into it (just like a movie is the product of the labor that goes into it).