<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><br><div apple-content-edited="true"> <div><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Hoefler Text; min-height: 14.0px"><br></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">Trebor Scholz has asked me to offer a brief comment as to how my work relates to the conference on "The Internet as Playground and Factory," <a href="https://lists.thing.net/pipermail/idc/2009-June/003445.html">https://lists.thing.net/pipermail/idc/2009-June/003445.html</a></span></font></p> </div> </div><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Hoefler Text'" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><br></span></font></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Hoefler Text'" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">To properly understand the nature and role of “digital labor” requires understanding the nature of current society and how it seems to be evolving. My work on the Attention Economy suggests that the best way to do this is in terms of the emergence of a new, post-capitalist class society. (See , e.g. <a href="http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/519/440">http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/519/440</a> </span></font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Hoefler Text'" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">Btw, I originated the term ‘Attention Economy in the 1980’s, but is now too often used in a way that deviates markedly from what I mean; I am using it in the original way here.) This new class society revolves around the scarcity of the attention available from other human beings (and its desirability, even from immense audiences). The two new classes are then those who have succeeded in getting much more than an equal slice of attention (for brevity I label these people “stars”) and those who obtain less attention than they pay out (“fans”). In other words, I argue we are passing from one dyadic class system (capitalists and worker) revolving around money, routine labor and standardized material goods, though not to a classless society — as Marx had hoped — but instead to a new dyadic class system of stars and fans, revolving around various forms of expression and the attention such expression hopes to garner. </span></font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Hoefler Text'" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">The interplay between these two dyads (the four classes named above) is complex and changing, with alliances and antagonisms springing up in every possible permutation. The same person can certainly be in an old class as well as a new one, and might identify as a member of two as well ). One aspect of digital labor would then be what I call “fan’s work” which is apparently voluntary (unpaid) but supportive of and conditioned by the wishes of one, or more often a few or more stars. </span></font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Hoefler Text'" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">In my view, we are already farther along than it might seem in the transition to the dominance of the new kind of economy. I have a loose calculation ( </span></font></span><span style="text-decoration: underline ; letter-spacing: 0.0px color: #000099"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Hoefler Text'" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><a href="http://goldhaber.org/blog/?p=80">http://goldhaber.org/blog/?p=80</a></span></font></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Hoefler Text'" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"> ) to support that contention. Also, even in the current downturn of the old economy, the attention economy continues to gather strength.</span></font></span></p><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><br></span></font></div><br><br><div apple-content-edited="true"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Hoefler Text; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Michael H. Goldhaber</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><a href="mailto:michael@goldhaber.org">michael@goldhaber.org</a></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><a href="mailto:mgoldh@well.com">mgoldh@well.com</a></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">blog <a href="http://www.goldhaber.org">www.goldhaber.org</a></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">older site, <a href="http://www.well.com/user/mgoldh">www.well.com/user/mgoldh</a></div><div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></span> </div><br></body></html>