{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7","title":"DIGITAL LABOR THE INTERNET AS PLAYGROUND AND FACTORY","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9780415896948","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7","id":"a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7","uuid":"a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7","title":"DIGITAL LABOR THE INTERNET AS PLAYGROUND AND FACTORY","normalized_title":"digitallabortheinternetasplaygroundandfactory","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9780415896948","isbns":["9780415896948","9780415896955","9780203145791"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":267,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/DIGITAL%20LABOR%20THE%20INTERNET%20AS%20PLAYGROUND%20AND%20FACTORY","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7/search"},"page":{"printed_page":190,"pdf_page":197,"physical_index":197,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"9253ae3d2911028b0c727fe8dd4cf94fc04197a5f544496ef5d823931e89ab87"},"chapter":"DIGITAL LABOR","content":"The Violence of Participation\n\nHowever, as Toby Miller (2006) has advocated, digital games scholars need to tend to its medium's political economy, and to “follow the money\"to its less gla orous, less virtual places, such as games console and PC manufacturing plants, g farmer sweatshops, and precious metals reclamation sites—in short, to China. while many players are fairly unaware that their computer hardware is born a dies, or is recycled, in China, they are exceptionally aware of the national, racial, a linguistic identity of gold farmers. Gold farmers are reviled player-workers who position in the gamic economy resembles that of other immigrant groups w cross national borders to work, but, unlike other types of “migrant\" workers, th labors are offshore, and thus invisible—they are “virtual migrants\" (see Anee 2006). However, user-generated content in and around MMOs actively visu izes this process. Machinima fan-produced video production racializes this revil form of gameplay as “Oriental\" in ways that hail earlier visual media such as mu videos and minstrel shows. Gold farming, a burgeoning gray-market labor practi in a disliked and semi-illegal industry that, as Consalvo (2007) notes, may so outstrip the primary games market as a source of revenue, has become racializ as Asian—specifically as Chinese. The impact this racialization has had upon t medium and culture of gaming is tremendous and echoes earlier examples of o line community such as MUDs (multiplayer real-time virtual world) and MO (text-based online virtual reality system), which also encouraged the developme of racialized personae in a supposedly race-free medium.6\n\nA Short History of Racial Identity in Virtual Worlds: From Public to For-Profit\n\nWhile early text-only online social environments such as MUDs and MOOs en bled users to adopt virtual personae or avatars across the lines of race, gend and sexuality in order to experience pleasure, their contemporary counterpar MMOs, put users to work to create profit. Earlier online environments such LambdaMOO were usually run by volunteers and academic institutions such Xerox PARC at Stanford andwere accessed free of charge by users. Though the virtual worlds are the direct ancestors of MMORPGs, there is at least one maj difference: MMORPGs are heavily capitalized entertainment media and are ra idly converging with other digital forms, such as cinema, online commerce, ar advertising (Mortensen 2006). Cross-media franchises such as the Lord of the Rin Star Trek, and Star Wars have all producedsuccessful digital games as well as a tion figures, spin-off novels, and other officially licensed media products. MUI and MOOs employed narratives and imagery from licensed media such as scien fiction novels and films but were not owned or developed for profit. However, Jenkins (2006) notes, participatory media technologies like the Internet, digit video, and video game engines have permitted fans to broadcast their own, uno ficial, unlicensed additions to these franchises, thus changing the political econon of media irrevocably and for the better. The Internet takes pride of place amor these technologies; it is the distribution channel that has permitted fans to broadcast their work for minimal cost and with maximum impact. The mass adoption of the Internet in recent years has led to both an increase in user production and the increased licensing of digital media products, creating a delicate balance between media industries' desire to control their products and fans' desires to contribute to them. While many scholars have noted the democratic, empowering effects of participatory media upon media for users, it can also provide fans with a powerful vector for distributing racializing discourses that reflect the concerns of an online culture obsessed with determiningidentity online through virtual profiling.7\n\n190","previous_page":189,"next_page":191}