Friday, 16 December 2016

Wikipedia's Spanish Fork Labour Strike

Throughout the course and throughout the semester of studying imaginaries and materialities, the discussion of free labour and our own personal objectifications and oppositions to shared free media has been underlined as being quite central to the themes of the course. This is not the first time Gehl has been considered as having profound impacts on the ways in which we legitimize our behaviours and actions in the public sphere as well as online. In the article, Gehl’s main points are centred on a few main topics. First and foremost, he speaks most specifically on the idea of free labour, and in this article’s case, the case of Wikipedia and the Spanish Fork Labour Strike is most pervasive. As well, his points are fixated quite dominantly on Marxist theories, and the design of class structure in society, and in particular the political economy of communication and social media. Much of what he discusses in regards to social media is incredibly, “…pervasive and endemic to late capitalism…” (Gehl, 118) Meaning there are those operating and performing the labour, and those managing, owning, and reaping the benefits of the means of production (a bourgeoisie – proletariat distinction). The most salient threads and framing issues of this text are: networked capitalism, labour strikes, and essentially labour rights. In the article, Gehl states, “…historical and sociological studies have shown that class consciousness does not inevitably arise as capitalism polarizes people into the two grand competing groups, owners and workers” (Gehl, 124). People are aware of their stance in society, and people are often attempting to make themselves more stable and fortunate, however, I believe that an altercation to one's rights and ownership of information is far more pervasive than the fact that one is living in a two bedroom or seven bedroom house.

Do you agree that is was right for the worker in Spain to stand forth and present his objections, diminishing the outlook on the entire enterprise, established by the owners and founders of Wikipedia?

No comments:

Post a Comment