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<div>Hi everyone,</div><div><br></div><div>So glad to be able to read up on what everyone else is working on. I can’t wait to speak to you all face to face!</div><div><br></div><div>A bit about me: My name is Austin Walker, and I’m currently doing dissertation work at the Media Studies program at the University of Western Ontario. My diss work (and the focus of my portion of the panel I’ll be joining featuring Audrey Watters, Matthew Tiessen, Laura Portwood-Stacer, Daniel Greene, and Daniel Joseph), focuses on a the many contemporary intersections between digital play and digital labour. Some of this blurring of work and play occurs in the work place, as I outline <a href="http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2014/08/working-for-the-love-of-the-game-the-problems-with.html" target="_parent">here</a>, but much of it occurs in emerging leisure-spaces. Chief among these in my current investigation is Twitch.tv, the “livestreaming” service recently purchased by Amazon for $1B USD. You can find some of my writing on Twitch <a href="http://library.queensu.ca/ojs/index.php/surveillance-and-society/article/view/postures/posture" target="_parent">here </a>and <a href="http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2014/07/the-rise-of-twitchtv-talking-shop-with-twitchtvs-v.html" target="_parent">here</a>. </div><div><br></div><div>I’ll <em>also</em> be at #DL14 representing UWO’s Digital Labour Group, specifically the branch working with the Writer's Guild of Canada to determine the impact that web series and online content streaming have had on the rates of writers and other creative labourers. </div><div><br></div><div>Hope to see you all there!</div><div><br></div><div>-Austin Walker<br></div><em>
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