Data Work for Beginners: Neoliberal Pedagogies and the Circulation of Platform Labor

Abstract

This article examines how YouTube creators act as neoliberal pedagogues in the circulation of data work platforms. Drawing on a qualitative examination of 43 videos, it investigates how these creators embed entrepreneurial logics and moral discourses into the everyday practices of aspiring workers. We argue that YouTube operates as a paraplatform that mediates how data work is circulated, legitimized, and contested across transnational contexts. The analysis identifies three key dimensions: (1) motivational aesthetics and slogans that frame data work as desirable and morally legitimate; (2) tactics and skills conveyed through step-by-step tutorials that both naturalize and expand the platform labor circuit; and (3) contested discourses in which frustration and disillusionment surface but are often reabsorbed into neoliberal pedagogies. These pedagogies converge into relatively standardized repertoires, revealing how religious and moral frameworks reinforce neoliberal pedagogies. The article theorizes creators as discursive-ideological intermediaries who reproduce individualized survival strategies, absorb critique, and shape worker subjectivities within global circuits of data work.

Keywords

data work platform labor pedagogies circulation

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