It‘s on the Cards: Emerging Employment Relationships in Online Poker

Holts, Kaire; Surugiu, Romina

doi:10.1057/978-1-137-47919-8_5

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…One aspect beyond these fragmented processes is the mechanism by which customers' positionality weakens workers' bargaining power. In particular, the fusion of love and labour, and play and work documented by studies of virtual workers (Holts & Surugiu, 2016;Tai & Hu, 2018) has rendered wage theft more invisible and social accountability more challenging. Many workers find it exceedingly difficult to justify demands for higher wages and labour protection to a less sympathetic public.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fragmented Control of Platform Game Work in China

Zhao

2023

Econ. labour relat. rev.

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This article adopts a labour process theory approach to analysing distinct circuits of labour control in platform video game work in China, a novel manifestation of the platform economy rooted in the special formation of Chinese gaming infrastructure as well as in precarious labour regimes. Platform game work encompasses a broad range of online video game services such as live game streaming, paid boosting, and game companion, matching customers’ demands to workers who provide entertainment or assist play. Platform game work has drawn an estimated seven million young workers into precarious employment during the past decade. The article outlines three interwoven features defining the fragmented control of platform game work: the crucial function of extra-platform intermediaries in regulating labour processes; the deployment of relationship labour in order matching and community management; and the mutual reinforcement of platform diversity and fast-moving platform architecture. These three features co-create a decentralised yet resilient structure organised by a network of platform and non-platform, human and machine agencies. Positioning platform game work in the broad spectrum of gig work, the article illuminates new modes of labour control and workers’ embedded agency, adding to the nascent literature on diverse labour regimes and subjectivities in the platform economy.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fragmented Control of Platform Game Work in China

Zhao

2023

Econ. labour relat. rev.

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“…Bonnie Ruberg’s (2016) analysis of amateur online pornography proposes that digital labour scholars have not recognised it as a form of digital labour because it is considered too much fun to be valued as work. Research suggests this is also true of gaming (Holts and Surugiu, 2016), gambling (Kerr, 2016) and fashion blogging (Duffy and Hund, 2015). I argue, however, that in all its forms, sex work is devalued as non-work, ‘bad’ work or illegitimate work due to the social stigma experienced in varying degrees by sex workers (Sanders, 2018) and the quasi-criminalised context of sex work in the UK (Sanders and Hardy, 2012; Campbell et al , 2018).…”

Section: The Interplay Between Digital and Sexual Labourmentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenging the Invisibility of Sex Work in Digital Labour Politics

Rand¹

2019

Feminist Review

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This article adds to the debate on digital labour by including sexual labour, a feminised form of work that is traditionally excluded from official labour statistics and mainstream labour politics because of the embedded sociolegal, cultural and political context that defines female sexual labour as illegitimate work. This exclusion has been extended to digital labour politics. This article draws on a four-year multi-method qualitative study in the UK, which in part focused on sex work mediated and managed by digital platforms. Drawing on and adding to the literature on women’s digital entrepreneurialism, I argue that digital sex workers embody an ‘entrepreneurial subjectivity’ and narrate ideals of flexibility and choice. However, on closer inspection, digital platforms shape and manage the labour so that agency over labour practices and processes become coerced choices.

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Gambling as Work: A Study of German Poker Players

Weidner

2023

J Gambl Stud

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The study addresses the question whether professional gamblers can be considered an occupational group from a sociological perspective. It combines survey data on poker players from the German state North Rhine-Westphalia with sociological theory in order to explain the oxymoron of professional gambling. The descriptive analysis of the survey data is supplemented by ego-centric network data of the poker players to analyze whether hobby and professional players maintain different forms of social relationships. Even when semiprofessionals and professional players are grouped together for the purpose of comparative analysis, they fulfill the criteria of occupational groups according to Salaman’s major work on the topic. The study points to the fact that more research on occupational groups outside of the common fields is needed and bridges the gap between the literature on serious leisure and sociological research on professions and professionalization.

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It‘s on the Cards: Emerging Employment Relationships in Online Poker

Cited by 4 publications

References 24 publications

Fragmented Control of Platform Game Work in China

Fragmented Control of Platform Game Work in China

Challenging the Invisibility of Sex Work in Digital Labour Politics

Gambling as Work: A Study of German Poker Players

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