Digital Labour Authors Institutions And The New Media
From Grand Forum
Project Leaders
| Leader: | Samuel Trosow |
| Co-Leader: | Bart Simon |
PNIsCNIs |
Description
Digital Labour: Authors, Institutions and the New Media addresses the accelerating and interrelated changes in the organization of computerized and networked work and the institutional settings in which it takes place. It examines how these changes affect the creation, production, distribution, and re-use of intellectual goods within a variety of domains and how the individuals, groups, organizations and institutions involved in these processes fare (Huws, 2003, 2008; Mosco & McKercher, 2007, 2008)
The project will continue to study four domains of digital labour: (1) Game production (the domain of programming and design in game development) (2) music production (the domain of creating, performing, recording and distributing musical works); (3)teaching (particularly in the post-secondary sector)and librarianship (which is undergoing changes associated with the increased digitization of collections and services; and (4) journalism.
It is also a goal of the project to add an additional domain in the area of design and visual arts.
A goal of this project is to highlight and call special attention to the changing nature of the labour process in all of these domains as these issues often remain hidden in much academic and policy related discussion. While digital innovation can bring about benefits for workers in the workplace and for citizens in the broader public, these changes can also produce precarious conditions which may also affect their sense of viability as citizens. Similarly, changes brought about by digital innovation may also be disruptive for institutions.
Cutting across all four domains are issues surrounding authorship and creativity. While Western notions of intellectual property tend to conceptualize the author/inventor in an individualistic sense; in the digital environment, intellectual goods are becoming increasingly dispersed into larger projects or subject to re-use or transformation by other co-authors. The old dichotomies between producer and consumer are also breaking down as more content is user-generated
Along with the diffusion of new technologies, the old dichotomies between the author/creator/producer and the consumer/user/audience are breaking down as more people now have the potential of becoming creators. These developments challenge old business models, established organizational forms and the rules themselves governing the ownership and control of intellectual creations, and account for much of the tension in contemporary intellectual property policy debates.
The intention of the project is thus to provide an occasion for a unique convergence of empirical research, theoretical analysis, practical organization experience, and policy development with respect to digitalization and intellectual labour and the settings in which they take place.
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Publications
- "A Post-Secondary Writing Course That Students Will Line Up to Take: Fan Fiction Makes the Grade" forthcoming in Fan Culture: Theory and Practice. Eds. Lynn Zubernis and Katherine Larsen.
- Digital Creation and Creativity in Little Big Planet
- Fair Dealing
- From Seven Years to 360 Degrees
- Guilty: Student Victims and Ann Coulter's Assault on the University of Western Ontario
- Mobilizing the Audience Commodity: Digital Labour in a Wireless World
- Primitive Accumulation, The Social Common, And The Contractual Lockdown Of Recording Artists At TheThreshold Of Digitalization
- The Canadian Video Game Industry and University Partnerships: Collaborative Opportunities and Barriers
- The copyright policy paradox: Overcoming competing agendas within the digital labour movement" Ephemera: Theory and Politics in Organization Volume 10, issue 3/4.
- The Firm Foundation of Organizational Flexibility: The 360 Contract in the Digitalizing Record Industry
- Should universities keep using Learning Management Systems such as Blackboard?
- "The Right of Publicity in the Digital Age"
- "Turbulent Times: Forging a Copyright Policy the University Can Live With"
- Cultivating Independent Game Development In Montreal
- Digital Divide: A Discursive Move Away From The Real Inequities
- Games And Narrative: An Analytic Framework Revisited
- Playing With Simulated Animals: Nintendogs As Companion Species
- The Copyright Policy Paradox: Overcoming Competing Agendas Within The Digital Labour Movement
- The Academic Grind: Digital Game Labour in Canada and Post-Secondary Education at the Bleeding Edge (dissertation)
- Collaborative Opportunities in the Digital Economy: A Canadian Perspective
- Reflections on the Use of Social Media Technologies to Support Student Learning
- The Academic Grind: Digital Game Labour in Canada and Post-Secondary Education at the Bleeding Edge
- Mobilizing User-Generated Content For Canada’s Digital Advantage
- Generating user-generated content for Canada's Digital Advantage
Artifacts
- New labour in libraries: The post-Fordist public library
- Public librarians as knowledge workers in the knowledge economy
- Services in challenging times: Immaterial labour in the library
- The copyright policy paradox: Overcoming competing agendas within the digital labour movement
- When citizens become consumer-producers: Immaterial labour and the unpaid work of patrons in the library as place and virtual space
- "They're Watching What You're Watching: The Entertainment Industry's Use of Social Media"
- Digital Pedagogy Handbook: Critical Strategies for Emergent Learning (book)
- Draft of article on online news media and race issues
- Draft of article on social media newsroom practices in Canada
- Theory Survey
- Website/Annotated bibligraphy on the question of Digital Labor in the newsroom (with all HQPS)
- Draft of article on online commenting policies in Canadian newspapers and the gap between editorial and public opinion
- Mobilizing User-Generated Content for Canada's Digital Advantage
- The Self and Commodity
Activities
- Attendee - Worldviews International Conference on Media and Higher Education in the 21st Century
- Montreal Games Incubator
- Prince of Arcade 2011
- British Copyright
- Canadian Copyright in a Changing Political Environment
- Canadian Copyright, DRM and eBooks: A Primer for Librarians
- Computer Games and Canada's Digital Economy: The Role of Post Secondary Institutions in Promoting Innovation
- Copyright and Academia
- Copyright in Canada: Updates and Action
- Current Trends in Library Education and Curriculum
- Games and Canada's Digital Economy.
- Growing the ICT Industry, Insights from latest Canadian Research
- IP and Education: Copyright, licensing and fair dealing in educational institutions
- Paper Presentation at the Canadian Game Studies Association
- Paper Presentation at the Digital Games Research Association Conference
- Presenter - mediations Graduate Student Speaker Series
- Taking Indie Seriously
- Collaborative Opportunities for Academia and the Gaming Industry: A Canadian Perspective
- Creating Hybrid Spaces for Game Development
- Another Look at Bill C-32 and the Access Copyright Tariff: Still Double Trouble for Higher Education
- Conference presentation at Dis/Locating Law, 21 October 2011
- Owen Livermore on Digital Game Labour in Canada
- Personalizing Social Media: The Bias of Ubiquitous Connectivity
- Presenter - 24th Annual Western Graduate Research Forum
- Institute on Entertainment and Business Law
- New Deals in Canadian Entertainment Law
- Teaching Assistant - "MIT 1200 - Media and Society"
- Teaching Assistant - "MIT 1700: Information and Its Contexts"
Press
Awards
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