Digital Democracies Institute Speaker Series – Brooke Erin Duffy
January 15 @ 12:30 pm - 1:30 pm
You are invited to join the inaugural session of the Digital Democracies Speaker Spring Speaker Series, featuring Brooke Erin Duffy (Cornell University).
The Visibility Bind: Platform Labor, Precarity, and Resistance in the Creator Economy
In the aftermath of the global pandemic, Big Tech companies have touted the Creator Economy as an Entrepreneurial Promised Land for self-enterprising artists, entertainers, and information intermediaries. But this image is belied by the precarious–even perilous–realities of platform-dependent labor. Drawing upon more than 100 interviews, I illuminate the source of their plight: a platformed visibility bind. In a labor market where algorithms are key arbiters of success (and failure), creators struggle to defy the imminent threat of invisibility. But they must also navigate the risks of hypervisibility—ranging from burnout and cultural appropriation to trolling and targeted harassment. The consequences of this bind are, I argue, amplified for marginalized creators—including women, people of color, and members of the LGBTQ+ community.
Crucially, though, some creators are strategically harnessing their platform in/visibility to call attention to platform injustices and wider labor issues. The talk closes by considering creator-led pursuits of labor solidarity, activism, and resistance.
Brooke Erin Duffy is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at Cornell University, where she is also a member of the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies faculty. Her research interests include digital and social media industries; gender, identity, and inequality; and the impact of new technologies on creative work and labor. She’s the author of two monographs on gender and cultural production, including (Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love: Gender, Social Media, and Aspirational Work (Yale University Press, 2017), which draws upon research with fashion bloggers, YouTubers, and Instagrammers to explore the culture and politics of the digital labor. In addition, she is co-author of the newly released book Platforms & Cultural Production (Polity, 2021).
Date: January 15, 12.30 – 1.30pm PST
Venue: Digital Democracies Institute, TASC2, room 7460, SFU Burnaby campus and on Zoom.
Contact us to access the Zoom link.