Marisol Sandoval

Theoretical Foundations of the Web: Cognition, Communication, and Co-Operation. Towards an Understanding of Web 1.0, 2.0, 3.0

Christian Fuchs *, Wolfgang Hofkirchner, Matthias S chafranek, Celina Raffl, Marisol Sandoval and Robert Bichler Unified Theory of Information Research Group, ICTS University of Salzburg, Sigmund Haffner Gasse 18, 5020 Salzburg, Austria; E-Mails: wolfgang.hofkirchner@sbg.ac.at (W.H.); matthias.schafranek@sbg.ac.at (M.S.); celina.raffl@sbg.ac.at (C.R.); marisol.sandoval@sbg.ac.at (M.S.); robert.bichler@uti.at (R.B.) * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: christian.fuchs@sbg.ac.at; Tel.: +43 662 8044 – 4823. Received: 13 November 2009; in revised form: 17 February 2010 / Accepted: 18 February 2010 / Published: 19 February 2010 Abstract: Currently, there is much talk of Web 2.0 and Social Software. A common understanding of these notions is not yet in existence. The question of what makes Social Software social has thus far also remained unacknowledged. In this paper we provide a theoretical understanding of these notions by outlining a model of the Web as a techno-social system that enhances human cognition towards communication and co-operation. According to this understanding, we identify three qualities of the Web, namely Web 1.0 as a Web of cognition, Web 2.0 as a Web of human communication, and Web 3.0 as a Web of co-operation. We use the terms Web 1.0, Web 2.0, Web 3.0 not in a technical sense, but for describing and characterizing the social dynamics and information processes that are part of the Internet. Keywords: World Wide Web; social theory; cognition; communication; co-operation; Social Software; Web 1.0; Web 2.0; Web 3.0

Fighting Precarity with Co-operation? Worker Co-operatives in the Cultural Sector

This paper explores avenues for resistance to precarious and exploited labour in the cultural sector. It investigates the potential of worker co-operatives to help improve working conditions and radically reimagine cultural work. The concept of worker co-ops focuses on democratising ownership and decision-making power. It challenges class divisions and promises to empower workers by giving them more control over their working lives. However, co-ops are constrained by competitive market pressures, creating tensions between economic necessity and political goals. Examining current debates on co-operatives the article explores co-ops as a radical pre-figurative political project, mobilised in a reformist attempt to create a more ethical capitalism or be integrated into neoliberal discourses of entrepreneurship and individual responsibility. It goes on to discuss the potentials and limitations of worker co-ops by looking at precariousness, inequality and individualisation of cultural sector work arguing that radical co-ops can play an important role within a larger movement that mobilises collectivity to confront neoliberal individualisation and capitalist realism.

From CSR to RSC A Contribution to the Critique of the Political Economy of Corporate Social Responsibility

The task of this paper is to trace the academic discourse on corporate social responsibility (CSR) by discussing how CSR approaches and models relate profit goals and social goals of the corporation. I show that CSR approaches that dominate the academic discourse either instrumentalize the social, idealize the corporate, or separate the corporate from the social. Based on a critical political economy perspective I argue that it is necessary to consider mutual interrelations between profit goals and social goals. This perspective reveals an antagonism between the corporate and the social that points to the impossibility of CSR. Critical CSR research thus far has failed to draw the necessary conclusions from its own analysis: despite acknowledging the structural flaws of the concept of CSR, critics have hardly made any attempts to overcome it. I argue that despite its ideological character CSR contains a rational element. Realizing this rational kernel however requires going beyond CSR. I therefore suggest a new concept that turns CSR off its head and places it upon its feet.

Corporate Social (Ir)Responsibility in Media and Communication Industries

Abstract Microsoft is the most socially responsible company in the world, followed by Google on rank 2 and The Walt Disney Company on rank 3 – at least according to the perceptions of 47,000 people from 15 countries that participated in a survey conducted by the consultancy firm Reputation Institute. In this paper I take a critical look at Corporate Social Responsibility in media and communication industries. Within the debate on CSR media are often only discussed in regard to their role of raising awareness and enabling public debate about corporate social responsibility. What is missing are theoretical and empirical studies about the corporate social (ir)responsibility of media and communication companies themselves. This paper contributes to overcoming this blind spot. First I systematically describe four different ways of relating profit goals and social gaols of media and communication companies. I argue for a dialectical perspective that considers how profit interests and social responsibilities mutually shape each other. Such a perspective can draw on a critical political economy of media and communication. Based on this approach I take a closer look at Microsoft, Google and The Walt Disney Company and show that their actual practices do not correspond to their reputation. This analysis points at flaws in the concept CSR. I argue that despite these limitations CSR still contains a rational element that can however only be realised by going beyond CSR. I therefore suggest a new concept that turns CSR off its head and places it upon its feet.

What would Rosa do?: Co-operatives and radical politics

The question of what co-operatives can contribute to the left is explored in the light of Rosa Luxemburg’s apparent rejection of reformist organisations in her ‘Reform or revolution’, written at the beginning of the early twentieth century. Drawing on interviews with worker co-operatives in the UK cultural industries, Sandoval teases out the politics of working in co-ops, and shows that, although the kinds of co-ops she is discussing tend to operate at the small-scale prefigurative level, they help open up the political spaces on which bigger political action can build - although this undoubtedly requires making connections both between individual co-ops and between co-ops and the wider left. Her conclusion is that different times require different tactics, and that, though Luxemburg would not have seen much value in co-ops solely as a form of prefigurative politics, she would have valued them if they could at the same time contribute to advancing the greater goal of building a radical alternative.

From passionate labour to compassionate work: Cultural co-ops, do what you love and social change

This article focuses on the relation between work and pleasure in the cultural sector. I first unpack the concept of passionate work, situating it within four possible ways of relating work and pleasure. I argue that the work ethic of do what you love, contrary to what it promises, limits the prospects of loveable work. As part of a neoliberal work culture, do what you love transfers the battleground from society onto the self. It favours self-management over politics. Drawing on findings from interview research with members of worker co-operatives in the UK cultural industries, I then go on to explore the relation between work and pleasure within cultural co-ops. I discuss how cultural co-ops might inspire and contribute to a movement for transforming the future of work by turning the desire for loveable work from a matter of individual transformation and competition into a practice of co-operation and social change.

The Hands and Brains of Digital Culture: Arguments for an Inclusive Approach to Cultural Labour

Since the early 1970s theories of the “information revolution” (Dyer-Witheford 1999) have celebrated techno-scientific development as an essential driving force of fundamental socio-economic transformations, allegedly leading to a new society that overcomes the negative features of industrial capitalism. Peter Drucker’s “age of discontinuity” (1969), Zbigniew Brzezinski’s “technetronic era” (1970), Daniel Bell’s “post-industrial society” (1974), Marc Porat’s “information economy” (1977) and Alvin Toffler’s “third wave” (1980) put forward a vision of a society organized around knowledge and information in which creativity, equality and the prevalence of high-skilled knowledge work would replace alienated and exploited labour (Dyer-Witheford 1999, 25). More recently, Richard Florida has continued these debates, arguing that based on technology, talent and tolerance the “creative class” would be “the mobilising force today — the leading force at the beachhead of social, cultural, and economic change” (Florida 2012, xv) bringing in its wake a clean and green, sustainable, open and tolerant “creative economy” (Florida 2012, x).