{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"8a3d8546-8fbb-485e-b423-37bc08c3284a","title":"Media and New Capitalism in the Digital Age The Spirit of Networks","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781349379743","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"8a3d8546-8fbb-485e-b423-37bc08c3284a","id":"8a3d8546-8fbb-485e-b423-37bc08c3284a","uuid":"8a3d8546-8fbb-485e-b423-37bc08c3284a","title":"Media and New Capitalism in the Digital Age The Spirit of Networks","normalized_title":"mediaandnewcapitalisminthedigitalagethespiritofnetworks","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781349379743","isbns":["9781349379743","9780230106062"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":258,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/8a3d8546-8fbb-485e-b423-37bc08c3284a","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Media%20and%20New%20Capitalism%20in%20the%20Digital%20Age%20The%20Spirit%20of%20Networks","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/8a3d8546-8fbb-485e-b423-37bc08c3284a/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/8a3d8546-8fbb-485e-b423-37bc08c3284a/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/8a3d8546-8fbb-485e-b423-37bc08c3284a","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/8a3d8546-8fbb-485e-b423-37bc08c3284a/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/8a3d8546-8fbb-485e-b423-37bc08c3284a/search"},"page":{"printed_page":178,"pdf_page":180,"physical_index":180,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"43c9343531a0de6b2b1bae7eb00e9ef2d6c9b9ec046cdcb4df8b7e78b10473aa"},"chapter":"Media and New Capitalism in the Digital Age","content":"The emerging discourse on the industrial human at the beginning of the twentieth century was intertwined with practices that in effect created a new type of human, of which Gramsci talked. Rabinbach tells of how “the emergence of a physiological approach to labor coincided with important changes in work during Europe’s second industrial revolution,” which involved the introduction of “electric power, of steel and chemical steel and chemical production, and of the rise of industries producing heavy machinery” (Rabinbach 1992, 122). The new factory introduced new types of workers (unskilled immigrants, leading to rapid turnover) and a new labor process that eliminated craftsmanship and was determined by new technologies (Rabinbach 1992, 123; see also Noble 1984). Discourses, as Foucault has taught us, are practices “that systematically constitute the subjects and objects of which they speak” (Schwandt 2001, 58).\n\nTH<sub>E</sub> INT<sub>E</sub>GRATION OF H<sub>U</sub>MANS INTO N<sub>E</sub>TWORK CAPITA<sub>L</sub>ISM\n\nThis theoretical framework and historical precedents should encourage us to highlight the compatibility of the network human to contemporary capitalism. In light of the detailed description of the digital discourse in the previous chapters of Part II, these should render the compatibility almost self-evident: a network market, network work, and network production require the reconceptualization of humans as commensurable with network technology as informational, flexible, and distributed and as nodes in a techno-human network.\n\nOne of the corollaries of the network human’s inessentiality and flexibility is the understanding of humans as constructed, indeterminate, unstable, and multiple. These can be conceived as prescriptive characteristics for successfully living in the network (and for becoming, in Boltanski and Chiapello’s terms, “a great man,” [2005, 112–21]), as they are a description of the true essence of humans. This can be exemplified with the changing work ethics of the new capitalism. The new, flexible, and networked capitalism demands workers to constantly move between multiple tasks and ad hoc projects that demand multiple and varying skills. The old work ethics of apprenticeship and ever-deepening craftsmanship in a single skill is therefore replaced by an ethics of superficiality and multiplicity (Sennet 2000, 98–117, 2006, 83–115). Under these new circumstances, characteristics such as “proficiency” and “understanding” receive a new meaning. In the aforementioned article by Sherrie Turkle, she introduces us to the subjective experience of thirteen-year-old Tim, a gamer of the virtual reality game SimCity: “The goal [of the game] is to make a successful whole from complex, interrelated parts . . . The game is about making choices and getting feedback . . . [about] zoning restriction and economic development, pollution controls and housing starts” (Turkle 1996).\n\n178\n\nMedia and New Capitalism in the Digital Age","previous_page":177,"next_page":179}