ABSTRACT

This chapter looks at the labour involved in crowdfunding and crowdsourcing. Crowdfunding can be intense and exhausting, and it is also a type of work that many journalists are not used to, as they have to become entrepreneurs. Crowdfunding also changes how journalists approach their work, requiring them to be transparent and open about stories they are pursuing. Similarly, crowdsourcing also involves a different approach to storytelling. It can also be very labour-intense and involves a great deal of openness and transparency throughout the process.

This chapter will consider the labour of the donors in crowdfunding. While crowdfunding is often positioned as empowering for donors, in that they get to fund work they find interesting, this chapter asks the reader to consider how the audience is “commodified” through crowdfunding, using Dallas Smythe’s concepts of the audience commodity (Smythe, 1981). Similarly, this chapter examines how audiences are working for free when journalists crowdsource. While this could be framed as an opportunity for people to participate in an important part of democracy, it is still a form of labour that needs to be considered when taking a wide lens approach to looking at how journalism gets made.