ABSTRACT

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.

part I|15 pages

Introduction

chapter |13 pages

The Gig Economy

Workers and Media in the Age of Convergence

part II|55 pages

History

chapter 1|15 pages

Behind the Wheel and in the Streets

Technological Transformation, Exit, and Voice in the New York City Taxi Industry

chapter 2|13 pages

More Than a Gig?

Ride-hailing in Los Angeles County

chapter 3|11 pages

Care in the Platform Economy

Interrogating the Digital Organisation of Domestic Work in India

chapter 4|14 pages

Sex Work/Gig Work

A Feminist Analysis of Precarious Domina Labor in the Gig Economy

part III|65 pages

Ideology

chapter 5|17 pages

“The Future Demands We All Become Prolific Artists”

Cultural Ideals of Gig Work in Popular Management Literature

chapter 6|15 pages

“Uber for Radio?”

Professionalism and Production Cultures in Podcasting

chapter 7|17 pages

Good People “Belong Anywhere”

Airbnb’s Emerging Neofascism

chapter 8|14 pages

‘Uber’ University and Labor Recomposition

Struggling Notes on (Dis)organized Academia

part IV|65 pages

Media

chapter 9|18 pages

“¿Qué hay detrás de todo?”

Opacity, Precarity, and the Unwaged Labor of Latina Audiobook Narrators

chapter 10|18 pages

Liquid Assets

Camming and Cashing In on Desire in the Digital Age

chapter 11|13 pages

This is Gig Leisure

Games, Gamification, and Gig Labor

chapter 12|14 pages

Uprooting Uber

From “Data Fracking” to Data Commons

part V|64 pages

Struggles

chapter 13|16 pages

Platform Organizing

Tech Worker Struggles and Digital Tools for Labour Movements

chapter 14|16 pages

Competition, Collaboration and Combination

Differences in Attitudes to Collective Organization Among Offline and Online Platform Workers

chapter 15|17 pages

Precarity Beyond the Gig

From University Halls to Tech Campuses

chapter 16|13 pages

The Cycle of Struggle

Food Platform Strikes in the UK 2016–18

part VI|10 pages

Conclusion

chapter |8 pages

Conclusion

We Are All Gig Workers