“She’s the communication expert”: digital labor and the implications of datafied relational communication

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the many distinct conceptions of labor at play in the digital media and communication literature. Joining recent studies, it critiques the scarcity of research on the gendered dimension of digital labor and suggests communication as a missing link to understanding the role of everyday interactions in the digital economy. In doing so, it specifies relational communication as a particularly important but also under-researched aspect of social reproductive labor and argues for a re-conceptualization of the sociological concept of “the second shift”, by introducing “the digital shift”. Lastly, the article charts the implications of increasingly datafied digital communication, and debates if and how the commodification and monetization of relational communication can be understood as exploitation that reproduces and reinforces existing inequalities. Thereby, the article pushes feminist critiques from the outskirts to the center of critical data studies.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender roles
• digital labor
• relational communication
• digital media economy
• datafication

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was funded by The Peoples’ Internet project and the Carlsberg Foundation, grant number Carlsbergfondet ;CF16-0001.

Notes on contributors

Signe Sophus Lai

Signe Sophus Lai is an Assistant Professor at the University of Copenhagen, Department of Communication. Her research is placed at the intersection between infrastructure studies, political economy of communication, and critical data studies, and focuses evenly on the role of the internet in everyday life as well as the societal implications of big data, digital infrastructures, and emergent business models. She has previously published on digital communication systems and infrastructures, online tracking, (mobile) datafication, media ethnography, and digital methods. E-mail: [email protected]