The Gig Economy : Workers and Media in the Age of Convergence

This edited collection examines the gig economy in the age of convergence from a critical political economic perspective. Contributions explore how media, technology, and labor are converging to create new modes of production, as well as new modes of resistance. From rideshare drivers in Los Angeles to domestic workers in Delhi, from sex work to podcasting, this book draws together research that examines the gig economy’s exploitation of workers and their resistance. Employing critical theoretical perspectives and methodologies in a variety of national contexts, contributors consider the roles that media, policy, culture, and history, as well as gender, race, and ethnicity, play in forging working conditions in the “gig economy.” Contributors examine the complex and historical relationships between media and gig work integral to capitalism with the aim of exposing and, ultimately, ending exploitation. This book will appeal to students and scholars examining questions of technology, media, and labor across media and communication studies, information studies, and labor studies as well as activists, journalists, and policymakers. Cover 1 Half Title 2 Title 4 Copyright 5 Contents 6 About the Editors 9 About the Authors 11 Acknowledgments 16 I Introduction: The Gig Economy: Workers and Media in the Age of Convergence 20 The Gig Economy: Workers and Media in the Age of Convergence 22 II History: We Were Always Gig Workers 36 1 Behind the Wheel and in the Streets: Technological Transformation, Exit, and Voice in the New York City Taxi Industry 38 2 More than a Gig? Ride-hailing in Los Angeles County 53 3 Care in the Platform Economy: Interrogating the Digital Organisation of Domestic Work in India 66 4 Sex Work/Gig Work: A Feminist Analysis of Precarious Domina Labor in the Gig Economy 77 III Ideology: Thinking Like a Gig Economist 92 5 “The Future Demands We All Become Prolific Artists”: Cultural Ideals of Gig Work in Popular Management Literature 94 6 “Uber for Radio?”: Professionalism and Production Cultures in Podcasting 111 7 Good People “Belong Anywhere”: Airbnb’s Emerging Neofascism 126 8 ‘Uber’ University and Labor Recomposition: Struggling Notes on (Dis)organized Academia 143 IV Media: Negotiating the Gig Economy 158 9 “¿Qué hay detrás de todo?”: Opacity, Precarity, and the Unwaged Labor of Latina Audiobook Narrators 160 10 Liquid Assets: Camming and Cashing In on Desire in the Digital Age 178 11 This is Gig Leisure: Games, Gamification, and Gig Labor 196 12 Uprooting Uber: From “Data Fracking” to Data Commons 209 V Struggles: Organizing in the Gig Economy 224 13 Platform Organizing: Tech Worker Struggles and Digital Tools for Labour Movements 226 14 Competition, Collaboration and Combination: Differences in Attitudes to Collective Organization Among Offline and Online Platform Workers 242 15 Precarity Beyond the Gig: From University Halls to Tech Campuses 258 16 The Cycle of Struggle: Food Platform Strikes in the UK 2016–18 275 VI Conclusion: We Are All Gig Workers 288 Conclusion: We Are All Gig Workers 290 Bibliography 298 Index 331