Working In/With New Media

Working from home, when you feel like it, getting paid, on tasks you choose? Sounds like the dream job! Well working for new media websites such as mechanical turks.com and worth1000.com is very much like this. These new media technologies are extremely flexible and global reaching and have started to replace traditional work structures. It allows businesses to access a global workforce at the touch of a finger and get results just as fast. What’s the catch?

Gill (2007) mentions the informality of the workforce has become a concern due to compulsive sociality whereby employees are constantly under pressure and can never leave work behind. The lack of record of your work history on sites such as these pushes employees to rely on networking opportunities even within social settings (Zittrain, 2009). Castells (1999) discusses this changing structure as a move towards a 'network society' whereby work is more project based and contract specific and thus job opportunities are faster and shorter resulting in this unstable employment. 

Are the opportunities presented by these new media technologies worth the risk of losing a stable and structured workforce for one that ultimately could change daily? 

For more information on the changing structures see Micaela Amabile

References

Zittrain, J. 2009. “Minds for Sale.” YouTube video, posted November 16. Accessed April 12, 2012. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dw3h-rae3uo&feature=youtu.be

Gill, R. 2007. Techonobohemians or the new Cybertariat? New Media work in Amsterdam a decade after the web. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures. Accessed April 12, 2012. http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/

Castells, M. 1999. “An Introduction to the Information Age”. In The Media Reader: Continuity & Transformation, edited by Hugh Mackay & Tim O'Sullivan, 398-410. London: Sage. Accessed April 11, 2012. https://qutvirtual2.qut.edu.au/portal/pls/portal/olt_material_search_p?p_unit_code=KCB206