Social media labour and cultural work

Social Media Labour and Cultural Work

Karen Patel

1. Social media informs artistic process and the creation of cultural products

2. Social media use punctuates artists’ daily rhythms of work

3. Expertise is performed by artists in a relational manner, through associations with others, retweeting endorsements, and mutual aid.

Social media and artistic practice

Labour• Cultural labour: “all the work which goes into enabling the

communication media as traditionally understood (television, the press, film, recordings, etc.). Cultural labor usually includes media labor but also includes work in “the arts”, performing or otherwise.” (Hesmondhalgh, 2015:38)

• Digital labour: “can be defined as all the work that goes into the computer mediated experience” (Hesmondhalgh, 2015:38)

• Relational labour: “regular, ongoing communication with audiences over time to build social relationships that foster paid work” (Baym, 2015:16)

Expertise?

A social process, involving a generally positive consensus about someone’s knowledge and competency within a particular field. This is substantiated by reputation, which is forged through relevant working relationships and associations with others.

Adapted from Candace Jones (2002)

• Institutional context (the context of the user, their background and career trajectory)

• Signalling content (the aesthetic style of social media text and images, exhibiting the requisite skills in both their social media posts and presentation of their art, and career relevant connections and interactions on social media)

• Signalling strategies (using social media affordances such as retweets to enhance status, the type of relationships pursued and how they are manifest on social media, and strategic approaches to impression management on social media).

Signalling expertise framework

Mutual aid

Development of “bottom-up infrastructures to support independent work” (de Peuter and Cohen, 2015:306)

Associations and endorsements

“The way it comes up on Instagram, it's like a stream of images, isn't it? I always feel like the pattern and the way it looks represents me. You'd be able to look at a painting that I was doing now, and you'd be able to look at all of those images, and see what my inspiration has been. So it's kind of like a big, ongoing mood board.”

(Cherie)

Inspiration

“That’s what I attribute a lot of my success to, just constantly talking about my practice on the internet and talking about it other ways, so especially with digital art…it is a very new thing. A lot of people don’t really know about it that much, like the ins and the outs, so just like with art in general, especially contemporary art, people spend a lot of time explaining it, and through writing tutorials, writing about my artwork, whether it’s through 140 characters on Twitter or in long form blog posts”

(Anthony)

Creation

“I felt really uncomfortable doing it. I know I don’t have a lot of followers, and a couple of people have liked or commented or something but I felt like I was being watched, so I stopped doing it. I didn’t like the feeling of exposing the process to the world.”

(Jason)

Creation

“I have writing friends who have programmes which actually turn the internet off, so they don’t get distracted. And I think distraction is one of our biggest problems, when we’re working we’re on the computer so click one more button and you’re on the internet again.

Sometimes I feel a bit guilty and think I should just turn it off and do something else.”

(Lisa)

Distraction

“If I miss a day I get really upset with myself, it’s really stupid. I am under no pressure whatsoever to do it, it’s only self-imposed. But because I’ve been doing it for so long and so regularly, it’s kind of like taking tablets in the morning, if you miss one you’d wish you had taken it.”

(Patrick)

“It’s like taking tablets in the morning”

EXPERTISEConclusion

(For artists who use social media)

Cultural labour +

Digital labour +

Relational labour

= Social media labour

Thank [email protected]

http://karenpatelresearch.wordpress.com@KarenPatel