Mystification of the Labor Process in Contemporary Consumer Culture

Borchard, Kurt; Dickens, David R.

doi:10.1177/1532708608321396

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…By subsuming the productivity of consumers' immaterial labour, firms are able to ensure that the outputs of such processes become productive labour. Whilst it has been argued that the incorporation of knowledge derived from consumers into organisational processes (‘knowledge workers’) has shifted the balance of power in such a way that organisations need to find alternative means of managing such collaboration (Cote and Pybus, ; Borchard and Dickens, ; Milner, ), there has been little research of this within digital creative contexts.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Co‐creation and ambiguous ownership within virtual communities: the case of the Machinima community

Harwood

Garry

2014

J of Consumer Behaviour

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This research contributes to a gap in our understanding of value and its cocreation by empirically investigating issues related to ambiguities of legal ownership of cocreated outputs from a virtual experience environment and the subsequent consequences of these on value creation. The context is Machinima, the making of original content using the content of computer games engines wherein a games developer and members of a virtual community simultaneously collaborate to generate and distribute content thus potentially creating tension around ownership and authorship. The investigation had three aims. The first objective was to provide a holistic gestalt of how value is cocreated, transformed, transferred and consumed when the roles of consumer and producer become 'blurred'. The second objective was to examine how legal 'ambiguity' of ownership potentially acts as an enabler of creativity within such contexts. The final objective was to develop a better understanding of the social, economic and legal determinants and consequences of such ambiguity on ownership as both an experience and an implicit legal arrangement. Taken holistically, the findings suggest the ambiguous nature of ownership from a legal perspective contributes and informs creative endeavour from both an organisational and community perspective. Within the context of this investigation, ownership ambiguity paradoxically may provide an on-going environment in which value creation processes beneficial to both participant and developer flourish.

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Co‐creation and ambiguous ownership within virtual communities: the case of the Machinima community

Harwood

Garry

2014

J of Consumer Behaviour

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“…We find interventions in the social sphere by proxy of space, as Lefebvre shows by highlighting architectural planning, the specialization of roles in the production of space, and the global fragmentation of spaces of production. In later research, the production of spaces for fun and childhood culture has been analyzed from a global perspective, including the sweatshops manned by children that manufacture goods used for fun by privileged children in the West (Borchard and Dickens, 2008;Langer, 2004). This research clearly highlights issues of interrelatedness of spaces, materially, culturally and politically, and the differentiation of childhood on a global level.…”

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confidence: 99%

The funzone and industrial play: the choreography of childhood spaces in a Swedish context

Cardell

2016

Entertainment and Sports Law Journal

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Over recent years, a cultural industrial branch of play and fun, focused on children, has been established in Swedish cities. Under names such as 'the mischief factory', 'play and mischief land multisport' and 'funhouse', opportunities to consume spaces filled with tools for play, so-called sports zones and celebration milieus with different themes, are offered. Children and their parents as well as schools can stay in these spaces for hours or days, as camps are one of the services provided. In information and advertisements for these businesses, playfulness, speed, parties and celebrations are marked out as key components; everything in a world that is claimed to be created for children. This paper critically investigates the temptations and the activities portrayed within this 'children's culture industry ' (Langer, 2002) by analyzing informational material and advertisements as presented on websites. The study is based on the hypothesis that these spaces offer, encourage and make possible certain forms of social choreography (Hewitt, 2005) that are connected to logics of productive consumption (Lefebvre, 1991). The paper develops a picture of the characteristics of industrial play in what is conceptualized as the 'funzone'. The concept of the funzone is developed with support from research on childhood that has highlighted the tensions between nature and culture during this life phase.

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“…In the simplest form of prosumption, consumers bus their tables at fast food restaurants (Ritzer, 2000). Retailers, such as Build-a-Bear, where customers personalize stuffed animals, and a T-shirt company that reproduces customer-submitted designs, sell creative, “do-it-yourself” (DIY) experiences of prosumption (Borchard & Dickens, 2008; Kozinets, Hemetsberger, & Schau, 2008). Social media, such as Second Life, capitalizes on prosumers’ desires to create new realities or knowledge (Boellstorff, 2008).…”

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confidence: 99%

Artistic Prosumption

Chen

2011

American Behavioral Scientist

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Researchers have called for more studies of how organizations institutionalize the unfamiliar as taken for granted. This study answers this call by examining how an organization has advocated an unfamiliar activity, the prosumption of art. To show how particular means and ends become taken for granted, this research analyzes how the Burning Man organization has promoted a logic advocating the prosumption of art. Using an in-depth ethnographic study of the organization behind Burning Man, a weeklong gathering of 50,000 persons around a ceremonial bonfire of a 40-foot-tall sculpture in the Nevada Black Rock Desert, the author shows how the Burning Man organization codified and advocated what she identifies as an inclusive community logic, a set of beliefs and practices that promote artistic prosumption. Members sought to expand who may produce art by recasting producers and consumers as prosumers, what kind of art is produced by encouraging interactions via prosumption, and how art is consumed by imbuing prosumption with specific meaning via connection. However, conflicts about whether particular actions support or undercut the inclusive community logic have not only challenged the Burning Man organization’s authority to shape prosumption but also forced organizers to clarify the ambiguous contours between appropriate and inappropriate activities. This research makes three contributions: (a) It reveals how an organization can facilitate new conceptions of activities by promulgating a logic that highlights contrasts between not-yet-familiar and conventional means; (b) it delves into how an organization adjudicates among competing conceptions of appropriate activities, illuminating the promotion of presumption specifically and the emergence of a logic generally; and (c) it synthesizes three separate literatures on the sociology of organizations, prosumption, and art.

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Mystification of the Labor Process in Contemporary Consumer Culture

Cited by 4 publications

References 8 publications

Co‐creation and ambiguous ownership within virtual communities: the case of the Machinima community

Co‐creation and ambiguous ownership within virtual communities: the case of the Machinima community

The funzone and industrial play: the choreography of childhood spaces in a Swedish context

Artistic Prosumption

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