The Gig Economy

Workers and Media in the Age of Convergence

Brian Dolber, Michelle Rodino-Colocino, Chenjerai Kumanyika, Todd Wolfson, Brian Dolber, Michelle Rodino-Colocino, Chenjerai Kumanyika, Todd Wolfson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781000391350
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Political Economy

This edited collection examines the gig economy in the age of convergence from a critical political economic perspective. Contributions explore how media, technology, and labor are converging to create new modes of production, as well as new modes of resistance.

From rideshare drivers in Los Angeles to domestic workers in Delhi, from sex work to podcasting, this book draws together research that examines the gig economy's exploitation of workers and their resistance. Employing critical theoretical perspectives and methodologies in a variety of national contexts, contributors consider the roles that media, policy, culture, and history, as well as gender, race, and ethnicity play in forging working conditions in the 'gig economy'. Contributors examine the complex and historical relationships between media and gig work integral to capitalism with the aim of exposing and, ultimately, ending exploitation.

This book will appeal to students and scholars examining questions of technology, media, and labor across media and communication studies, information studies, and labor studies as well as activists, journalists, and policymakers.

Index

ableism 133

academia 12, 124, 125, 127, 128, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 240–243, 245–246, 250, 252, 254, 287, 290, 291

ACLU 112

activism 160, 214, 219; editors’ 8, 9–10, 276; gig worker 3–5, 9–13, 256–268, 271–273, 274–277; trade union and labor 54–55, 247, 252, 253; see also organizing, platform

Adams, A. 66

adjunct 239–243, 246, 252, 274–275

affect see affective impacts; labor; precarious

African American 3, 9, 111, 112, 113, 272; see also race; Black workers

Airbnb 107–121; Airbnb Citizen 112–115; brand community 109, 113–115, 117, 119–120; branding strategy 109–112; Chesky, Brian (CEO) 107, 111, 112, 121; founding 107–108; Gebbia, Joe 107; homesharing policy 115–119; Lehane, Chris 110, 115, 118, 121n8, 122n28; political strategy 112–115; racial discrimination 108, 111–112, 115, 121, 122n17, 122n18; revenue 110

algorithmic management see management, algorithmic management

American Association of University Professors (AAUP) 127, 136n28, 275

antiracism 6, 10, 71n32, 127, 252, 253n3, 276

Asian workers 63, 113, 161, 238n10; South Asian workers 20, 226; see also people of color; race

Assembly Bill 5 (AB5) 4, 5, 34, 41–42, 194, 272

assembly lines 86, 178

Audacity to Podcast, The (podcast) 93, 97, 99, 105–106

audience 7, 83, 93–94, 97, 99–104, 105–106, 107, 141, 143–146, 159, 167–168, 170, 182, 184–186, 258

audience commodity see ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• About the Editors
• About the Authors
• Acknowledgments
• I Introduction: The Gig Economy: Workers and Media in the Age of Convergence
• II History: We Were Always Gig Workers
• III Ideology: Thinking Like a Gig Economist
• IV Media: Negotiating the Gig Economy
• V Struggles: Organizing in the Gig Economy
• VI Conclusion: We Are All Gig Workers
• Bibliography
• Index