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The Handbook of Digital Labor

Jack Linchuan Qiu (Edited by), Qiu (Author), Shinjoung Yeo (Edited by), Richard Maxwell (Edited by)

9781119981800, Wiley

Hardback, published 12 May 2025

464 pages
28 x 19 x 2.9 cm, 1.134 kg

Provides a global perspective on labor and technology, exploring resistance, solidarity, and alternatives in digital capitalism

The Handbook of Digital Labor critically examines how digital technologies are reshaping work and employment around the globe. Bridging historical and contemporary perspectives, this timely volume explores the dynamics of labor within digital capitalism using a critical framework that illuminates the systemic challenges faced by workers across diverse sectors. Dozens of contributing authors address key challenges including surveillance, inequality, and environmental exploitation, while highlighting innovative forms of resistance and organizing.

Organized into four sections—Working-Class Resistance, Digital Capitalism and Alternatives, Laboring under Digital Capitalism, and Theorizing Digital Labor—the Handbook offers a nuanced understanding of how workers navigate the intersection of technological advancement and capitalist development. In-depth chapters cover topics ranging from platform work to AI-driven labor processes—shedding light on the realities of digital labor.

Equipping readers with the tools to critically engage with labor struggles across diverse industries and geographies, the Handbook of Digital Labor:

  • Offers interdisciplinary insights from leading scholars in media, communication, labor studies, political economy, as well as unionists, activists, and other on-the-ground practitioners
  • Presents both historical and contemporary analyses of labor conditions under digital capitalism
  • Advocates for actionable strategies to empower labor movements and build equitable and sustainable alternatives
  • Features real-world case studies of worker resistance and solidarity across platforms and industries

Emphasizing both theory and praxis, the Handbook of Digital Labor is ideal for advanced undergraduate and graduate students, junior faculty, and researchers in media studies, labor sociology, and public policy. It is a vital resource for courses on digital labor, political economy, and social change within communications and technology programs. Labor organizers, policymakers, and industry professionals will find it an indispensable guide to navigating the complexities of work in the digital age.

Notes on Contributors x

Acknowledgments xviii

Introduction xix
Jack Linchuan Qiu, ShinJoung Yeo, and Richard Maxwell

Section I Working-Class Resistance 1

1 The Laboring of Labor Communication Research 3
Vincent Mosco

2 The Party's Over: Organizing Across the Contracting Divide at Google 18
Seamus B. Grayer and Enda Brophy

3 Organizing the Unorganized: The Case of Korean Truck Drivers—An Interview with Wol-san Liem 38
ShinJoung Yeo

4 "The Coal Machine/What Will a Coal Miner Do?" Automation, Financialization, and Union Mobilization in Underground US Coal Mining 57
Ericka Wills

5 Pathways to Worker Empowerment in the Digital Age: A Comparative Analysis of Unions and Co-operatives 77
Greig de Peuter and Nicole S. Cohen

Section II Digital Capitalism and Alternatives 97

6 Digital Capitalism in the 2020s: Dividing the World 99
Dan Schiller

7 Labor and Surveillance: The Productivity of Being Watched 119
Mark Andrejevic

8 "We Don't Need Unions at Amazon.com": Historical Context and the Struggle to Organize an E-Commerce Giant 132
Timothy J. Minchin

9 From "Barefoot Electrician" to "Electronic Supervisor": Technology and Labor Politics in the Information Industry of China 158
Hongzhe Wang and Changwen Chen

10 Cybersyn: Into Alternative Digital Futures, Through a Chilean Rear-view Mirror 179
Jie Xiong

11 Regional Disadvantage: The Ongoing Exodus from Silicon Valley 201
Melissa Gregg

Section III Laboring under Digital Capitalism 217

12 Global Inequalities in the Production of Artificial Intelligence: A Four-Country Study on Data Work 219
Antonio A. Casilli, Paola Tubaro, Maxime Cornet, Clément Le Ludec, Juana Torres-Cierpe, and Matheus Viana Braz

13 Platform-mediated Informal Employment, the State, and Labor Politics in China 233
Jenny Chan

14 "There is No Future in this Business." Further Platformization of Ride-hailing Service in China and the State's Intervening Policies under the COVID-19 Outbreak 248
Yanning Huang, Hanlin Chen, Qinyi Chen, Ruotong Jia, Jiaming Liu, Xueer Yan, and Yushu Yin

15 "It's Not A Job That You Can Take Off": Freedom and Precarity of Sex Workers in the Platform Economy 264
Margherita Di Cicco

16 "Calibrated Servitude": Agency, Relational Practice, and Postcolonial Dynamics in Cloudwork 290
Cheryll Ruth R. Soriano

17 The Digital Hustle: Precarity Beyond Platforms 307
Julia Ticona

18 Control and Flexibility in the Age of Globalized Production 324
Intan Suwandi

Section IV Theorizing Digital Labor 349

19 Digital Labor and Digital Capitalism: A Critical Political Economy Perspective 351
Christian Fuchs

20 Digital Labor and the Domestic Sphere 372
Leopoldina Fortunati and Arlen Austin

21 Labor and Value 392
Adam Arvidsson

22 Circuits of Labor: A Holistic Model for the Making and Unmaking of Class Through the iPhone 403
Jack Linchuan Qiu, Melissa Gregg, and Kate Crawford

Index 421

Subject Areas: Electronics & communications engineering [TJ]
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