{"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":35,"pdf_page":42,"physical_index":42,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"33820e8971329a416c6c44d1bb3f7bf8bd0354db9c929b354e5c7e243a1b95f8"},"chapter":"DIGITAL LABOR","content":"The Digital Economy\n\nThe term digital economy emerged in the late 1990s as a way to summarize some of the processes described above. As a term, it seems to describe a formation that intersects on the one hand with the postmodern cultural economy (the media, the university, and the arts) and on the other hand with the information industry (the information and communication complex).Such an intersection of two different fields of production constitutes a challenge to a theoretical and practical engagement with the question of labor—a question that has become marginal for media studies as compared with questions of ownership (within political economy) and consumption (within cultural studies).\n\nWe will distinguish here between the New Economy—“a historical period marker [that] acknowledges its conventional association with Internet companies\"and the digital economy—a less transient phenomenon based on key features of digitized information (its ease of copying and low or zero cost of sharing). In Richard Barbrook's definition, the digital economy is characterized by the emergence of new technologies (computer networks) and new types of workers (the digital artisans).12 According to Barbrook, the digital economy is a mixed economy: it includesa public element (the state's funding of the original research that produced ARPANET, the financialsupport to academicactivities that had a substantial role in shaping the culture of the Internet); a market-driven element (a latecomer that tries to appropriate the digital economy by reintroducing commodification); and a gift economy element (the true expression of the cutting edge of capitalist production that prepares its eventual overcoming into a future anarcho-communism\").\n\nWhat Barbrook proposed was that the vision of politicians and corporate leaders who linked the future of capitalism to the informational commodity involved a basic misunderstanding. Pointing to the world of discussion groups, mailing lists, and the distributed learning of programmers, he suggested that the Internet was far from simply being a new way to sell commodities. The predominance of relationships of collaboration across distance and exchange without money suggested that this was a practiced relationship with a viable and alternativepolitical and economic model.\n\nFree Labor\n\n35","previous_page":null,"next_page":null}