digital labor and metaliteracy: students as critical participants in profit-driven social media...
TRANSCRIPT
In an average 48 hours, what do you do online?
Intro Framework Digital Labor Brainstorm
A)Create social media postsB)Comment on articles or postsC)Collect and organize contentD)Read articles or watch videosE)Use a search engine to find
information
To join: Text Framework to 37607To vote: Text a list of your choices (by
letter)
DIGITAL LABOR AND
METALITERACYLauren Wallis
Intro Framework Digital Labor Brainstorm
DIGITAL LABOR AND
METALITERACYStudents as Critical Participants
in Profit-Driven Social Media Environments
Lauren WallisLOEX Fall Focus 2015
Intro Framework Digital Labor Brainstorm
• Lauren uses Google Docs to create and share documents with colleagues
• Lauren browses the Bare Minerals makeup website and purchases one item
• Lauren reads an article about eBooks and libraries that her friend posted on Facebook last week
Do any of these count as work?
Intro Framework Digital Labor Brainstorm
Microsoft Office Cloud Advertisement
Bare Minerals Advertisement
Amazon Fire Kids Edition Advertisement
Lauren’s Facebook Page
Intro Framework BrainstormDigital Labor
Microsoft Office Cloud Advertisement
Bare Minerals Advertisement
Amazon Fire Kids Edition Advertisement
Lauren = $$$ for Facebook
Intro Framework Digital Labor Brainstorm
Is it digital labor? Is digital labor a bad thing?
Intro Framework Digital Labor Brainstorm
Relationship Status: It’s Complicated
Is it digital labor? Is digital labor a bad thing?
Intro Framework Digital Labor Brainstorm
Relationship Status: It’s Complicated
Leisure/CommunityExploitation
Is it digital labor? Is digital labor a bad thing?
Intro Digital Labor BrainstormFramework
ACRL Framework:Information Has Value
Commodity Education/Influence
Intro Digital Labor BrainstormFramework
ACRL Framework:Information Has Value
Commodity Education/InfluenceJournal publishers sell access to libraries
• Another scholar cites
• A student learns something
Scholarly Journal Article
Intro Digital Labor BrainstormFramework
Tech companies collect user data for targeted ads
Inspire friends and family
Just finished the marathon! #nbd #nycmarathon
99
ACRL Framework:Information Has Value
Commodity Education/Influence
Intro Digital Labor BrainstormFramework
Invisible to user
Invisible to user
Just finished the marathon! #nbd #nycmarathon
99
Commodity Education/Influence
ACRL Framework:Information Has Value
Intro Digital Labor BrainstormFramework
Metaliteracy
Just finished the marathon! #nbd #nycmarathon
99
Scholarly Journal Article
Both importa
nt
A lot of potential(especially in academic
context)
Intro Digital Labor BrainstormFramework
How do we help students value the information they create online,
both intentionally and unintentionally?
Intro Digital Labor BrainstormFramework
How do we help students value the information they create online,
both intentionally and unintentionally?
User-Generated Content
User-Generated Data
Intro Framework Digital Labor Brainstorm
First Year Writing Student: Devalues user identity
“I tend to have my phone in my hand if I am ever waiting for someone or eating alone.
It’s as if it’s my only friend when there isn’t anyone around I actually know. I rarely post anything…I just look at what everyone else is posting. For me the internet is a one way
street and traffic is heading in my direction.”
Apathy/no creator identity
Sense of helplessness
$$$$ for Companies
Intro Framework Digital Labor
Searches
Brainstorm
Commodification of User DataUser Actions
Clicks
Posts
Friendships
Metadata and Content
Aggregation and Analysis
Individual Sites and
Across Platforms
Terms of Service
? ?
?
?
Targeted Advertising
Tons of stored data
Spending Predictions
Intro Framework Digital Labor Brainstorm
“If you want to do something evil, put it inside something boring. If Apple put the entire text of Mein Kampf in their user agreement you’d still click agree.”
-John Oliver, Last Week Tonight
Commodification of User Data
Intro Framework Digital Labor Brainstorm
All 5,742 words!
Intro Framework Digital Labor Brainstorm
Effects on Users
..
..
Simple
Leisure/Play?
Unequal Relationships
Between Unequal Partners?
..
..
..
Marxian Exploitation?!
Class, Coercion,Control
Intro Framework Digital Labor Brainstorm
“The privatization and commercialization of the internet reinforces and reproduces the structure of social relations wherein a small group controls the productive resources used by the many and allows economic advantages to accrue from this control.”
-Mark Andrejevic, Estranged Free Labor
Effects on Users
Intro Framework Digital Labor Brainstorm
“Current data-mining practices create an unequal exchange between unequal partners.”
-Jessica Reyman, User Data on the Social Web
Effects on Users
Intro Framework Digital Labor Brainstorm
Intro Framework Digital Labor Brainstorm
User Response
..
..
..
..
..
I guess I don’t really care…
A personalized web experience
is great! I’m giving them my info in order to use the site for free
Intro Framework Digital Labor Brainstorm
First Year Writing Student:
“[An algorithm] refines what appears based upon the people we are friends with, the
articles we link to and share, the tweets we favorite, and the posts we create. Some people
are disturbed by this and feel that the information they receive is now limited, meanwhile other people, including me,
actually appreciate this…”
Recognizes monitoring
and control
Argues it is positive
Intro Framework Digital Labor Brainstorm
First Year Writing Student:
“…I follow the people I follow for a reason, I favorite the tweets I like for a reason, and I share articles I think people would benefit from for a reason. Therefore I am the one
limiting my information because of my actions on social media.”
Illusion of agency
Intro Framework Digital Labor Brainstorm
First Year Writing Student:
“The way I respond to different things on the internet affects what I will see and what I will
know. Is this a bad thing? I am not really sure. Part of me appreciates the fact that I have
filtered results, but part of me is curious about what else could be out there that I am not
able to see.”
Acceptance Ambivalence
Intro Framework Digital Labor
Brainstorm
Assignments and Discussion PromptsInformation Narrative: Take fieldnotes on the ways you engage with information over the course of a week. Identify interesting themes and write a reflection.
Analyze your Ads: Take screenshots of ads you see on different social media platforms or websites. Reflect on how they got there, considering actions you’ve taken online and demographic information that companies know about you.Analyze Privacy Policies: In groups, have students do a rhetorical analysis
of a company’s Terms of Service or Privacy Policy, considering how
the documents use logos, ethos, and pathos. Assign each group a
different company, have groups report their findings to the class.
Facilitate class discussion comparing and contrasting the policies.
Intro Framework Digital Labor
Brainstorm
What could/should this look like at your institution?
How can we help students value the information they create online,
both intentionally and unintentionally?
Intro Framework Digital Labor
Brainstorm
Readings for StudentsDigital Labor“Free Labor: Producing Culture for the Digital Economy,” Tiziana Terranova“From Mega-Machines to Mega-Algorithms,” Jathan Sadowski“You for Sale: Mapping and Sharing the Consumer Genome,” Natasha Singer “Here’s How Much Money You Made for Facebook Last Year,” Dan Frommer
Privacy and Control OnlineData and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect your Data and Control your World, Dan Schneier “Beware Online Filter Bubbles,” Eli Pariser“Facebook’s Zuckerberg Says the Age of Privacy is Over,” Marshall Kirkpatrick
“New Web Code Draws Concern over Privacy Risks, “ Tanzina Vega“Consumers Fundamentally Misunderstand the Online Advertising Marketplace,” Joseph Tudrow, Deirdre Mulligan, Chris Hoofnagle
Intro Framework Digital Labor
Brainstorm
Readings for Students, ContinuedValuing Online Participation“Social Media and Young Adults,” Pew Research Center“What is the One Percent Rule?” Charles Arthur
Extended Implications of Digital Labor“Is Online Surveillance of Black Teenagers the New Stop-and-Frisk?” Rose Hackman“Mining Online Data Could Save Student Lives,” Michael Morris“1984 Was a Warning against Data Mining,” Landon Hurley (student response to Morris article)
“Edward Snowden, Whistle-Blower,” New York Times Editorial Board
Intro Framework Digital Labor
Brainstorm
ReferencesAndrejevic, M. Estranged free labor. (2013). In T. Scholz (Ed.), Digital labor:
Internet as playground and factory (149-164). New York: Routledge.
Konkol, M. (2015). Public archives, new knowledge, and moving beyond the digital humanities/digital pedagogy distinction. Hybrid Pedagogy: A Digital Journal of Learning, Teaching, and Technology.
Mackey, T. P., & Jacobson, T. E. (2014). Metaliteracy : Reinventing information literacy to empower learners. Chicago: ALA.
McDonald, A., & Cranor, L. (2008). The cost of reading privacy policies. Information System: A Journal of Law
and Policy for the Information Society, 4(3), 543-568.
Intro Framework Digital Labor
Brainstorm
References, ContinuedOliver, J. (2014, June 1). Last week tonight with John Oliver: Net neutrality
[Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/fpbOEoRrHyU
Petersen, S. (2008). Loser generated content: From participation to exploitation. First Monday, 13(3).
Reveley, J. (2013). The exploitative web: Misuses of Marx in critical social media studies.Science & Society, 77(4), 512-535.
Reyman, J. (2013). User data on the social web: Authorship, agency, and appropriation. College English 75(5), 513-533.
Van Dijck, J. (2009). Users like you? Theorizing agency in user-generated content. Media, Culture & Society, 31(1), 41.
Intro Framework Digital Labor
Brainstorm
Lauren WallisAssistant Instruction Librarian
Christopher Newport University
Slides: bit.ly/diglabor