Abstract
At one time, sociological studies into the digital economy might have been seen as a niche area. But as our daily lives, our work and our spaces have become shaped by digital technologies, investigating these changes is becoming an important strand of sociological study. The emergence of urgent societal challenges attests to the need to explore the digital economy: the public sphere is now mediated and disrupted by digital media; production and consumption are being reshaped by digital technologies; and new types of digital innovations pose significant disruptive challenges for work and labour.
The three books covered in this review attempt to grapple with key research agendas on the digital economy and digital sociology and provide important insights.
In What Is Digital Sociology?, Neil Selwyn outlines the key debates that are emerging as digital technology becomes more integrated into everyday life. The book looks to explore fundamental questions related to this burgeoning area of study. The underlying question he asks is, is doing sociology in a digital world different? His answer to this question is that digital sociology is not completely new, but ‘an important development in the sociology of the early twenty-first century’ (p. 21).
Stemming from this answer, Selwyn seeks to explore aspects of digital sociology in more detail. The book begins by examining what the key concerns of digital sociology should be. Four particular processes are highlighted: the integration into networks; the expansion of platforms in society; the growing centrality of data; and concerns about algorithms and automation. It then discusses how these processes have been explored within existing sociological thinking, particularly through the work of Marx, Foucault and Science & Technology Studies (STS) scholars.
But digital sociology also potentially provides fertile ground for building new theory. The book highlights important directions being pursued in this respect. At the intersections of media theory, art and digital society, research can provide understanding of the changing nature of the body and subjectivity in a digital world. Important work has also been undertaken through in-depth computational analysis concerning the operation of systems in relation to society. Moreover, the deep integration of digital systems has prompted broader philosophical thinking on the nature of politics and society in an era where ‘planetary scale computation’ orientates our interactions.
Selwyn also argues that the emergence of the digital is not only changing the nature of sociological order but also the nature of sociological scholarship. Digital sociology methodologies are more likely to incorporate analysis of online data, big data and other computational resources. The integration of these approaches with traditional ethnographic and deep analysis is an important area where sociologists can provide insights. More broadly, the ubiquity of digital technology is liable to shift the forms of funding, engagement and even what scholarship means. New opportunities can arise, for example through crowdsourcing funding, online engagement and new directions for sharing research online. However, these in themselves may reinforce the fragmentation of the field and accelerate the decline of stable opportunities that have traditionally been offered in the field.
Adam Arvidsson has been a noted voice exploring various aspects of the digital economy for over a decade. His previous work has included reflections on the nature of entrepreneurship, brands and consumers in a digital world. This is brought together in Changemakers: The Industrious Future of the Digital Economy, which focuses on entrepreneurship in the digital economy, and its relationship to capitalism.
The book begins by examining the digital economy from a long-run historic perspective, chronicling the emergence of industry and capitalism. He argues that since the emergence of computing in the 1970s, capitalism has moved into an era of ‘digital capitalism’ defined by the fragmentation and globalisation of production, particularly driven by the financialisation of the economy. The emergence of tech and digital giants who are extracting huge rents can be seen as an extension of this era, but one that is opening up cracks within the capitalist system itself. Specifically, Arvidsson argues that digital capitalism is bringing precarity to a mass of workers that have previously been able to rely on traditional skills, professions and firms. These are being destabilised.
The latter chapters of the book examine the conditions and opportunities that arise from digital capitalism. It does this centred around the idea of the ‘industrious economy’, a term which harks back to more optimistic perspectives of pre-capitalist economies where firms through guilds, communitarian actions and artisanal production were at the centre of economic relations. Transferring these ideas to the present day, one might see those labour-rich but capital-poor firms in the digital economy as taking similar forms – whether that be start-ups with a social purpose, entrepreneurs engaging in the online commons or the digitalisation of informal clusters of enterprises in the Global South.
Arvidsson positions the industrious economy as a key grouping for analysing the digital economy. These groups might be considered to be operating partially outside core paradigms of capitalism. They potentially provide a space for individuals to seek goals outside a narrow economic rationale, through ethical or creative opportunities and often interlink communities supported by shared commons or networks. But, transformation is not an inevitable outcome of their presence. In light of the expansion of the industrious economy, capitalism has so far been able to draw on these groups as a source of new value capture: ‘capitalism has adapted to this new commons-based industriousness chiefly by developing a unicorn economy able to harvest mass industriousness and transform it into financial rent’ (p. 104).
Examining the trajectories of the industrious economy is then key to understanding future directions of capitalism for Arvidsson. If firms in the industrious economy can transition away from their inhibiting relationships it might offer new potential for more open and equal economies and society more broadly. We already see this at the margins in the way some firms and individuals are looking to build decentralised forms of organisational association, commoning and new technologies that will play a crucial role in shaping any transition.
In sum, other scholarship on post-capitalist society has typically positioned the transition through a more radical break from capitalism (Mason, 2016; Williams and Srnicek, 2015). Arvidsson suggests a more messy path, made up of a patchwork of marginal firms who may evolve to offer something new. While other accounts of post-capitalism have argued that labour will drive such change, Arvidsson suggests that it will rather be firms and entrepreneurs – those in the industrious economy. Interlinked through commons-based interactions, networking technologies and petty capitalist circuits – it will be the industrious economy who are the key class-group to drive change.
Tim Jordan’s The Digital Economy covers a similar area to Arvidsson’s in examining the growth of digital technology from an economic perspective but offers alternative routes to build understanding. To Jordan, common definitions of the digital economy which looks to demarcate information-rich sectors, or to differentiate between the ‘real’ and ‘digital’ economy appear to offer limited analytical insights. This is exemplified by mainstream OECD definitions of the economy that are often used in policy fields. Jordan suggests more purchase will come from an in-depth analysis of ‘practices’. That is, examining how firms involved in digital activities are shaping new types of relations among their users. This perspective then provides a contrast to Arvisson’s book. If Arvidsson’s work tended to focus on the centrality of production as shaping economic processes, Jordan’s practice-based perspectives forefront the integration between social and economic processes, providing more substantial connections with sociology.
While practice approaches are not new, and common for those taking an STS perspective, the approach yields surprisingly novel insights here. The early chapters explore the digital economy through case studies of important economic activities. These examine the practices involved in search, social media, platforms, open-source software and gaming with each chapter exploring the different actors, producers and activities. These accounts question important assumptions that have been made about the digital economy. They highlight the wider range of value capture activities that are part of the digital economy, concentrating not only on advertising but also processes such as disintermediation and the value in commons goods. These accounts also emphasise the delicate balance between firm profits and practices in the digital economy, for example in the potential for rapid user switching as social media accounts become polluted by promotions and as online gaming community activity is exploited.
Based on these case studies of practices, the book progresses to discussing the digital economy more theoretically. In these latter chapters, the book makes important insights. It first goes back to Marx’s theories centred on capitalist capture of value and exploitation in production. Jordan suggests that digital economy practices disrupt key assumptions, particularly in the way the digital economy appears to offer a multiplicity of outcomes. ‘Liking’ a friend’s social media post constitutes an expression of relationship and affect, but at the same time, it contributes to the monetisation of data. Open-source software creation offers opportunities for individuals and communities to learn and explore new ideas, but at the same time, they can be exploited for profit by large tech firms.
By drawing on practice orientations of the earlier chapters, Jordan instead suggests that hybrid accounts of the digital economy can be important, where practices constitute a varied meaning depending on the place, time and context. The forms of information available and the way they move and are available to different actors is particularly important in shaping control and power within these networks. The resultant model Jordan builds of different digital economic practices prompts researchers to reflects on practices in terms of key factors such as value, ownership, profit, activity and monetisation (p. 140). This model could potentially be critiqued in that it dissipates the significant political economy and societal challenges that Marxist orientated accounts explicitly engage with. Nevertheless, the work highlights important theoretical avenues that should be taken further.
Together these three books cover a wealth of different perspectives aligned to the digital economy and digital sociology. Reflecting more broadly on these books, I highlight three important issues that are worthy of further discussion.
Unpacking the Macro Accounts of the Digital Economy
Inspired by celebrated accounts of the impacts of new network technologies (such as those by Daniel Bell and Manuel Castells), there is a temptation for those analysing the digital economy to position society or the economy as being on the cusp of a new era and sweeping changes. This occurs both in mainstream accounts of digital economies, such as Industry 4.0 and automation (Baldwin, 2019; Schwab, 2017) as well as more critical accounts, such as those outlining Surveillance Capitalism and Free Labour (Fuchs, 2010; Zuboff, 2018).
There are, however, critical questions that need to be posed of such broad-brush historical accounts. They often rely on unclear definitions and the cherry-picking of evidence, never mind their alignment with reality (Webster, 2002). In places, similar critiques can be made of Arvidsson’s accounts of historic change. Readers might question assertions that the digital economy is marked by a lack of investment in innovation (p. 31) or that industrial expansion has mainly been driven by capital intensive manufacturing (rather than global fragmentation) (p. 24). Those who have researched the histories of capitalism with reference to colonial powers and uneven development might take issue with the relatively homogeneous accounts of technology-driven change outlined here.
These critiques demonstrate the importance of unpacking such discourses. Acknowledging the broad trajectories of capitalist society is important to explore, but linking these into significant social-economic activities, resistances, demands and aspirations is crucial. This is the focus of The Digital Economy. As Jordan argues, behind the sweeping economic statements and hype of the digital economy there is often a lack of focus – what does it entail? How is it defined? What differences does it make? Jordan’s analysis of digital economy ‘practices’ provides one avenue that begins to pose critical questions about some of the pillars which underlie those big picture accounts.
Prevalent Theories within Digital Sociology and Digital Economy
As discussed by Selwyn, academic discussion of the digital has been remarkably cross-disciplinary, with concepts being readily borrowed across fields such as economics, sociology, information studies and labour studies. This diversity of analysis has been beneficial in spurring lively and varied debates across fields. However, this ‘cut-and-paste’ of theory onto studies has also led to conceptual challenges. All the books reviewed here make an important contribution in this respect, suggesting that there is a need to critically reflect on the potential mismatches of mainstream terminologies within the context of the digital economy.
This is vividly shown in the outstanding latter chapters of Jordan’s book which analyse the conceptualisation of economic patterns in the digital economy. His scepticism towards the uncritical use of base economic terminologies such as profits, labour, producers and consumers is insightful. Jordan argues that much of this language including the focus on ‘exploitation’, ‘profits’ and ‘producers and consumers’ is highly problematic. While such visions align with certain readings of digital economy practices for certain groups, they often underplay a multiplicity of outcomes and explanations that are an outcome in the digital economy.
To move beyond these critiques, Jordan suggests we engage more substantially with the performativity and hybridity of digital economy practices, looking to build a broader model. We should begin ‘with the activities undertaken in the digital economy and then examine how such activities are formed in ways that may produce what we think of as work, labour and leisure’ (p. 128). Consequently, where categories simply do not fit the new realities emerging, moving beyond them has important implications for how we engage with practice and policy.
Moving Beyond the Digital Exploitation Thesis
The early years of research on digital tools and information, influenced by the role of Silicon Valley, were marked by techno-centric and optimistic accounts of the benefits that these new technologies would bring (Brynjolfsson and Kahin, 2002). In reaction to these earlier ‘techno-optimistic’ discourses, there has been a focus on more critical accounts within social-science research in recent years. This is illustrated by Selwyn, for example, in his chapter discussing the tone of the literature of new ‘digital workers’ who face new forms of risk, precarity and exploitation that are a result of the new digital tools and the way they order their activities.
While such challenges are not in doubt, there have been growing calls for work that also begins to outline the new resistances and emancipatory directions that can emerge in the digital economy, particularly more systematically. In this light, Arvidsson’s Changemakers presents an important account. It does just this by repositioning certain groups of entrepreneurs, commonly seen as precarious or exploited as a potential key source of change and resistance within capitalism.
Overall, all three books make important contributions. What Is Digital Sociology? is positioned as a source for graduate students exploring digital sociology, but will be useful for academics who are beginning to look into this area. Changemakers provides a provocative and important account of digital economy entrepreneurship under capitalism, and provides some interesting alternative ideas for those examining post-capitalism. The Digital Economy is an important account of the phenomenon which makes a bold attempt to theorise the processes and practices associated with the digital economy.
As outlined, while very different in their orientation, the key contributions these books make comes from unpacking the previous overly broad macro-accounts. The books also highlight useful approaches to critically reflecting on the theoretical approaches to the digital economy, and begins to explore richer accounts of empowerment and emancipation in the digital economy. These books, therefore, all highlight important directions forward for researchers.
