A Relational Work Perspective on the Gig Economy: Doing Creative Work on Digital Labour Platforms

Abstract

Based on interviews with 49 visual artists, graphic designers and illustrators working on two leading global digital labour platforms, this article examines how creative workers perform relational work as a means of attenuating labour commodification, precarity, and algorithmic normativity. The article argues that creative work on online labour platforms, rather than being entirely controlled by depersonalised, anonymised and algorithm-driven labour market forces, is also infused in relational infrastructures whose upkeep, solidity and durability depends on the emotional efforts undertaken by workers to match economic transactions and their media of exchange to meaningful client relations. By applying a relational work perspective from economic sociology to the study of platform-mediated gig work, the article elucidates the micro-foundations of creative work in the digital gig economy, including how labour inequalities are produced and reproduced within and around micro-level interpersonal interactions.

Socio‐technical issues in the platform‐mediated gig economy: A systematic literature review: An Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (ARIST) paper

“…Platform governance (B1) is a form of algorithmic management which allows the platforms to observe and shape gig workers' behavior through the use of centralized design (Cant, 2019; Cram et al, 2022), advanced algorithms, and regulations (Alacovska et al, 2022). It functions as an automated manifestation of managerial strategies, enabling platforms to present as a “boss” (Pregenzer et al, 2021).…”

“…Another type of information asymmetry, information deficit (B32) , is different from the lack of information and focuses more on the aspects of accessibility, which means that the information was available and in the possession of the platform but was withheld from the gig workers (Lord et al, 2023). Platforms contribute to information deficits by black‐boxing information about their algorithmic management (Mendonça & Kougiannou, 2023), omitting certain information to restrict workers' choices (Alacovska et al, 2022), and acting as gatekeepers (Chan, 2022), restricting the ability of gig workers to share their profile information outside of the platform (Jarrahi et al, 2021). In the meantime, some opaque membership norms and lack of shared context often make accessible information less trustworthy and more inefficient (Blaising & Dabbish, 2022).…”

‘People don’t buy art, they buy artists’: Robot artists – work, identity, and expertise

“…As the analysis in the above sections shows, the ability to self-promote online and build audiences using social media platforms is an important part of contemporary creative careers (Duffy and Wissinger, 2017; Poell et al, 2022). Moreover, building audience engagement online requires posting strategies which go beyond one-way self-promotion to connecting with audiences and potential clients (Baym, 2015; Alacovska et al, 2022). Returning to Duffy and Wissinger’s (2017) discussion of persona maintenance, attempts to build intimacy with fans can be clearly identified.…”

“…The role of Meller, his aesthetic expertise and networks are crucial in this. Getting engagement and growing an online audience is less imperative in Ai-Da’s case than it is for creative workers more generally (Alacovska et al, 2022; Poell et al, 2022). This is because Ai-Da was created as part of a well-resourced and networked collaborative project.…”

Topic Mining and Future Trend Exploration in Digital Economy Research

“…Economic activities have been reorganized based on platform ecosystems [76], thus overturning the traditional ways of value creation and value distribution. Digital labor platforms have innovated the form of human capital supply, leading to the emergence of the gig economy [77]. Digital media platforms have enriched participatory media content production in China.…”