Looking at user-generated content from a labor...

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



Digitalization: opportunities and risks

Secrets are liesSharing is caringPrivacy is theft

(from The Circle, Eggers, 2013)



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



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.



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“



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 ?



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)



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



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



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“



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



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



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?

Looking at user-generated content from a labor...

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