[iDC] Introduction: The Internet as Playground and Factory

[Jesse Drew]

Hi all.  I am new to this list and was asked to introduce myself.

My name is Jesse Drew and I am currently Director and Associate  
Professor of Technocultural Studies at the University of California at  
Davis.  My interest in this discussion stems from much of what led me  
to academia in the first place.  For many years I was active in labor  
activism, primarily as a shop-floor organizer in industrial plants and  
warehouses.  I saw firsthand how computer technologies were debasing  
the labor process through “minutes times motion” and “just-in-time”  
strategies.  Later, as an assembly line worker in a Silicon Valley  
electronics plant, I became interested in how advanced communications  
were laying the groundwork for the global assembly line.  I wound up  
getting a degree in electronics but then veered sharply into the media  
arts, and the impact technology and culture have on the working  
class.  I have a strong affinity as a “maker” and have participated in  
producing films, videos and interactive media pieces over the years  
that critique the culture industry.  I have also written for alt  
culture publications and was a collective member of a ‘zine called  
Processed World that critiqued the brave new world of work in the  
information age.  I have contributed chapters to anthologies on  
technology, labor and culture and am currently working on a book that  
contextualizes contemporary trends in democratic communications.  A  
chapter in the book is based on 120 interviews with activists in six   
US industrial unions on how the internet is being used to globalize  
the labor movement.  I look forward to this discussion and finding out  
more about you all!

-Jesse







Jesse Drew, Ph.D.
Director, Technocultural Studies
University of California at Davis
Art Building, Room 316
One Shields Avenue
Davis, CA 95616

530-752-9674
jdrew at ucdavis.edu