Crowdsourcing: Labour Struggles Revisited?

Abstract

Phenomena such as Wikipedia and open source software are great examples of cultural activity that, on the surface, attempt to be more based on pleasures and rewards of co-operation rather than competition. It is most certain the case that firms in the digital era, increasingly seek to draw upon the participation of their users and consumers in the production process. In his book Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business, Jeff Howe argues how crowdsourcing1, which activates the transformative power of contemporary technology to liberate the creative potentials within us all, is increasingly being applied by businesses to harness these creative potentials for profits (2008). However, such celebratory accounts have not been without their critics. According to Hesmondhalgh, “too many of these discussions of transformations associated with new digital media rely on caricatured portrayals of supposedly bypassed eras” (2010, pp.268). A dominant theme within critical analyses of digital media is that they involve unpaid work on the part of participants. For instance, Tiziana Terranova wrote about the phenomena of 'free labour' (2000). Various recent critical accounts have suggested that work in the cultural industries involves labour that is characterised by high degrees of autonomy and creativity, but also by overwork, casualisation and precariousness (Ross, 2003). This suggests that work in the cultural industries is also characterised by exploitation of the workers. However, there are also critics such as Cova et al. (2011), who question whether the term 'labor' or 'labour' is descriptive of the kinds of activities and contributions that take place on UGC sites. Moreover, most of the crowdsourcing literature uses the term amateurs or amateurism to refer to the crowd. However, labelling the crowd as mere amateurs or hobbyists undermines the fact that large amounts of work and expert knowledge are exerted by crowds for relatively little reward (Brabham, 2012). This then has critical implications for labour rights in the digital age and possibly presents us with labour struggles distinctive to the digital age. So what does crowdsourcing represent us with? Is it a phenomena characterized by terms such as collectivism, collaboration, and participation, or does it represent us with new labour struggles? Or is it a phenomena characterized by all the above?