Folie 1 User generated content: Impacts on work and labor: Policy implicationsBrussels Feb. 24 and 25 2015
Pamela Meil | ISF München
Introduction to the workshop
Looking at user-generated contentfrom a labor perspective
Pamela MeilInstititute for Social Science Research, Munich
Folie 2 User generated content: Impacts on work and labor: Policy implicationsBrussels Feb. 24 and 25 2015
Pamela Meil | ISF München
Digitalization: opportunities and risks
Secrets are liesSharing is caringPrivacy is theft
(from The Circle, Eggers, 2013)
Folie 3 User generated content: Impacts on work and labor: Policy implicationsBrussels Feb. 24 and 25 2015
Pamela Meil | ISF München
Public andprivate
Divisive andUniting
What is user-generated content?
A world of opposing positions, perspectives and contradictions
Liberating andconstraining
Commodifying orSocietal Use
Values (commons)
User-generated content- what is it?
□ What does it mean for work and employment?
□ A common definition…
Users are active internet contributors, who put in a „certain amount of creative effort“ which is„created outside of professional routines andplatforms“ and is published in some context (from
OECD Report 2007)
These definitions make media, content, and cultural industriesthe most heavily hit by user-generated content (UGC).
Issues that affect workers, often creative workers, in theseindustries are a major focus when looking at work and laborimpacts caused by UGC.
Defining and Framing User-generated Content
□ Using broader concepts of UGC naturally expands the scopeof work and labor potentially affected by it.
1. „User Innovation“
Innovation by intermediate users (firms, individuals or user communities) rather than suppliers (producers or manufacturers) Bogers et al. 2010
2. „Crowdsourcing“
The act of a company or institution taking a function once performed byemployees and outsourcing it…in the form of an open call. Both bypeer production, but also by…individuals. The crucial prerequisite is … the open call and the large network of potential laborers. Howe 2006
The user receives …economic rewards, social recognition, development ofskills, while the crowdsourcer obtains what the user has brought tothe venture…
The many sides of user-generated content (3)
UGC in diverse Sectors
Marketing Tourism
Creative IndustriesJournalism, Music, Publishing, TV, Film, Photography
IT
User generated content as a form of peer production orcooperative work
Wikipedia Travel blogsOpen Source
Software
Opinions andReviews ofProducts
Folie 7 User generated content: Impacts on work and labor: Policy implicationsBrussels Feb. 24 and 25 2015
Pamela Meil | ISF München
The Many Sides of UGC
Some Examples:
UGC is actively used in marketing:
An advertisement promoting the use of UGC using theadvertiser´s technical platform:
Produces genuine, authentic content
Adds credibility to a brand´s reputation
Reinforces relationships with customers
Encourages customer loyalty (and, in turn, sales)
Fosters a personal connection with the brand
Empowers users by giving them a „voice“
Saves marketers time on content writing
Interactive role between customer and producer/supplier –changing the status of customer
Promoting the outsourcing of marketing specialists´ work tocustomers.
Folie 8 User generated content: Impacts on work and labor: Policy implicationsBrussels Feb. 24 and 25 2015
Pamela Meil | ISF München
The Many Sides of UGC (2)
Examples continued…
„Web-based forums that facilitate user (or customer) innovation(virtual customer environment) help companies partner with theircustomers in various phases of development and value creationactivities.“
…“T-shirt“ manufacturing company relies on the contribution of onlinecommunity members in the design process. Including a group ofvolunteer designers who submit designs and vote on the design ofothers. In addition to free exposure, designers are providedmonetary incentives….Magee 2008
„User Innovation“
Folie 9 User generated content: Impacts on work and labor: Policy implicationsBrussels Feb. 24 and 25 2015
Pamela Meil | ISF München
Diverse Aspects of UGC – Diverse Effects on Labor
Defining and framing the various sides user-generated content…
Questions relevant for work and labor
What value does UGC create and for whom?
How does it change the rules of ownership or property?
Does it mainly create societal use values (commons) or
does it mainly produce products (commodities, services,
creative effort) for profit?
Taking Sides
□ Sides are quickly taken on issues surrounding digitalizationand virtual processes:
Value creation, profits, worker displacement, deprofessionalizationLack of protection for intellectual property
Innovation, crafts production, democratization, alternative formsof entry into profession
UGC: Diverse Effects; Diverse Perspectives
Blurring Boundaries
Those involved in this process are portrayed as creative individuals.
How accurate is this picture?
Are the actors involved actually part of a complex division of labor?
Blurring boundaries
□ The digital environment has made us all both usergenerators (producers) and consumers.
□ The boundaries between production, distribution, andconsumption are blurring for a variety of reasons.
„Traditional organizations are bypassed via peer to peerand many to many“
Traditional organizations are bypassed therebyderegulating work; endangering intellectual propertyrights; profiting from unpaid labor
ConsumptionProduction
Distribution
User
Value Chains
□ Digital production, distribution and consumption are part of:
Value Chains
In which „real“ work is often combined with „virtual“ work
Which are being restructured in a global market in whichemerging economies are taking on an increasingly growingrole
Various forms of integrating actors (customers, businesspartners, regular employees, unpaid labor) takes place in theprocess of value creation
□ How are jobs affected across the value chain ?
Folie 14 User generated content: Impacts on work and labor: Policy implicationsBrussels Feb. 24 and 25 2015
Pamela Meil | ISF München
Value Chains
Production Storage Distribution Consumption
How are value chains configured?
Who owns which parts?
What is outsourced? To whom? Paid or Unpaid?
How does user-generated content impact on the
configuration of the chain?
What is the resulting division of labor?
„Digital Shift“ Distribution, Intermediaries, and Content arebeing rearticulated (J.P. Simon)
Folie 15 User generated content: Impacts on work and labor: Policy implicationsBrussels Feb. 24 and 25 2015
Pamela Meil | ISF München
Beyond user-generated content
Concentration of activities – production and distribution
Concentration of companies – huge conglomerates
that dominate in the production and distribution
of commodities – goods and services – in a variety
of sectors, also many creative industries
Operating outside of given regulatory or institutionalframeworks
?Labor protection and labor rightsFair and enforceable contracts
Labor´s Perspective
□ What are UGC´s impacts on Labor and Work?
Which workers or actors are affected?
Which sectors or industries?
How are labor practices affected?
Working conditions and work organization
Employment relations
Regulation practices or potential
Remuneration
Working contracts
Intellectual property
Author´s rights
Folie 17 User generated content: Impacts on work and labor: Policy implicationsBrussels Feb. 24 and 25 2015
Pamela Meil | ISF München
Impacts on Work and Labor (1)
Levels of analysis for policy implications and policy action
Individuals
Groups – i.e. professions, occupations
Classes – „Cybertariat“; „Precariat“; Knowledge workers
Collectives – Professional organizations; actors guilds;
Initiatives to promote fair wages,
remuneration, protect copyrights;
Internet communities
Institutions – Regulatory institutions; Unions;
National, Regional, EU Frameworks
Folie 18 User generated content: Impacts on work and labor: Policy implicationsBrussels Feb. 24 and 25 2015
Pamela Meil | ISF München
Impacts on Work and Labor (2)
Trends in working conditions identified in empirical studies,
especially for creative workers
Forms of unpaid or low paid work increases
e.g. internships
Precariousness (temporary work; piece work)
Freelance work
Overwork
Intransparent Evaluation or Recognition Methods
Labor Markets
□ How does UGC impact on the or a „labor market“?
– Organizing a unique „unbounded“ labor market
– What is the basis of the labor market?
• Credentials?
• Occupational identity?
• Professionalism?
• Qualifications?
– Where is the labor market?
• Open space
• Digital space
• Institutional space
• Regulated space
– Absence of internal labor market
– Where does work take place? Office, Home, Anywhere (mobile)
Labor Markets in the Creative Industries
□ „Careers (also before digitalization) in the culturalindustries tend to be chaotic and are not characterized byinternal labor markets“ Hesmondhalgh and Baker 2010
□ „Consequently cultural workers generally frame andorganize their careers around the field rather than the firm“
Folie 21 User generated content: Impacts on work and labor: Policy implicationsBrussels Feb. 24 and 25 2015
Pamela Meil | ISF München
Framing the challenges for labor
Shape context
Promote commons
In which economic actors (MNCs in ICT, Media,Publishing, Music, etc.) operate and distributegoods and services RATHER THAN ONLY THE IN THE OTHER DIRECTION
Promote communities of cooperation, whichare not only based on unpaid labor or profitmaximizing
ProtectWorkers
Fair remunerationProtect intellectual propertyMaintain professionalism in occupationsFair and enforceable contracts
Folie 22 User generated content: Impacts on work and labor: Policy implicationsBrussels Feb. 24 and 25 2015
Pamela Meil | ISF München
Labor´s response
Two simultaneous strategies arising from developmentsin user-generated content for labor
Shifts in employmentrelationship
Regulation efforts
Agreements for particularoccupations or collectives
Agreements in particularInstitutional contexts
Authors´ unionsJournalists´ unionsSectoral agreements
Copyright legislationContract negotiations at countryor regional level
Loyalty and commitment from laborshifts to „the content and meaning ofwork“
From bureaucratic stabilityto market transaction for allactors
Folie 23 User generated content: Impacts on work and labor: Policy implicationsBrussels Feb. 24 and 25 2015
Pamela Meil | ISF München
Labor´s response: a two-edged sword
Worker´s loyalty shifts to „fields“ or occupations, to communities of labor, away from loyalties toemployers or firms
Changing the underlying pacts or principles of traditionalFordist or even Post-Fordist employment relationships –the basis for institutionalized contract agreements
A challenge, for organized labor, but also for employersand firms
Pre-existing and ongoing challenge for creative workers,further driven by user-generated content: A lesson forothers?