{"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":86,"pdf_page":89,"physical_index":89,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"68976a0cc8c9b9db26074c04a9b274ad01442bc402ef1ae6040f77ffefc2a32a"},"chapter":"Media and New Capitalism in the Digital Age","content":"The blurring of the time and space of work and that of leisure, with the liberating undertones of a workspace that feels like home or a coffee shop, is reiterated in two advertisements for mobile technology. Their analysis also allows a glimpse into the unvoiced and underplayed hegemonic meanings of such blurring. In both, mobility—afforded by network technology—implies more opportunities and more freedom by liberating individuals from the constraints of the traditional workspace. But what is the nature of this freedom? What kind of emancipation does mobile technology promise to deliver?\n\nThe first advertisement, for Verizon Wireless (2004), depicts a woman dressed in a business suit seated on a platform of a train station and working on her laptop. The advertisement’s copy reads, “Even if the train’s late, your work gets out on schedule.” The digerati, the new informational workers, process information rather than matter and are therefore able to break free from the industrial anchors of space and time, from the shop floor of production. But in this freedom, afforded by network technology, lies also its dialectics. Inasmuch as the digerati are liberated from the particular space of work, they also potentially become workers at all times. The mies-en-scène of the advertisement could just as well be the woman’s bedroom before she goes to sleep or a hotel room on her vacation. The digerati, who no longer subscribe to the old dichotomy of work and leisure, work time and playtime, find themselves at work, or in a capacity to work, at potentially all times and all spaces. It is not only the café that penetrates the workspace; it is also work that penetrates the café.\n\nThe opportunity and freedom afforded by mobile technology links leisure to work in a manner that makes their demarcation more flexible and makes it easier for companies to colonize the time of their employees by making the technologies of production (such as mobile phones, laptop computers, and above all, Internet connectivity) available to workers at all times. As the text openly says, “You can always count on Verizon Wireless . . . So keep productivity on schedule across the U.S.” (Verizon Wireless 2004; emphasis mine). The blurring boundaries between work and leisure results in the expansion of productive time and space; mobility turns out to be a new force of production, and freedom turns out, in this case, to be the freedom to work during one’s leisure time.\n\n86\n\nMedia and New Capitalism in the Digital Age","previous_page":85,"next_page":87}