Digital Labor and Metaliteracy: Students as Critical Participants in Profit-Driven Social Media Environments

In an average 48 hours, what do you do online?
Intro Framework Digital Labor Brainstorm
A)Create social media posts
B)Comment on articles or posts
C)Collect and organize content
D)Read articles or watch videos
E) Use a search engine to find information
To join: Text Framework to 37607
To vote: Text a list of your choices (by letter)
DIGITAL
LABOR AND
METALITERACY
Lauren
Wallis

DIGITAL
LABOR AND
METALITERACY
Students as Critical Participants
in Profit-Driven
Social Media
Environments
Lauren Wallis
LOEX Fall Focus 2015

• Lauren uses Google Docs to create and
share documents with colleagues
• Lauren browses the Bare Minerals makeup
website and purchases one item
• Lauren reads an article about eBooks and
libraries that her friend posted on
Facebook last week
Do any of these count as work?

Microsoft
Office Cloud
Advertisement
Bare Minerals
Advertisement
Amazon Fire
Kids Edition
Advertisement
Lauren’s Facebook Page

Intro Framework BrainstormDigital Labor
Microsoft
Office Cloud
Advertisement
Bare Minerals
Advertisement
Amazon Fire
Kids Edition
Advertisement
Lauren = $$$ for Facebook

Is it digital labor?
Is digital labor a bad thing?

Relationship Status: It’s Complicated

Relationship Status: It’s Complicated
Leisure/Community
Exploitation

Intro Digital Labor BrainstormFramework
ACRL Framework:
Information Has Value
Commodity Education/Influence

ACRL Framework:
Journal publishers
sell access to
libraries
• Another scholar
cites
• A student learns
something
Scholarly Journal Article

Tech companies
collect user data
for targeted ads
Inspire friends
and family

Just finished the
marathon!
#nbd #nycmarathon
99
ACRL Framework:

Invisible to user Invisible to user

Just finished the
marathon!
#nbd #nycmarathon
99
ACRL Framework:

Metaliteracy

Just finished the
marathon!
#nbd #nycmarathon
99
Scholarly Journal Article
Both
important
A lot of potential
(especially in academic context)

How do we help students value
the information they create online,
both intentionally and unintentionally?

How do we help students value
User-Generated
Content
User-Generated
Data

First Year Writing Student: Devalues
user identity
“I tend to have my phone in my hand if I am ever
waiting for someone or eating alone. It’s as if it’s my
only friend when there isn’t anyone around I actually
know. I rarely post anything…I just look at what
everyone else is posting. For me the internet is a one
way street and traffic is heading in my direction.”
Apathy/no
creator
identity
Sense of
helplessness

Commodification of User Data
Metadata
and Content
Aggregation
and Analysis
Individual
Sites and
Across
Platforms
Terms of
Service
? ?
?
?

“If you want to do something evil, put it
inside something boring. If Apple put the
entire text of Mein Kampf in their user
agreement you’d still click agree.”
-John Oliver, Last Week Tonight
Commodification of User Data

All 5,742 words!

Effects on Users
..

..

Simple
Leisure/Play?
Unequal
Relationships
Between Unequal
Partners?

..
..
..
Marxian
Exploitation?!
Class,
Coercion,
Control

“The privatization and commercialization of the
internet reinforces and reproduces the structure of
social relations wherein a small group controls the
productive resources used by the many and allows
economic advantages to accrue from this control.”
-Mark Andrejevic, Estranged Free Labor
Effects on Users

“Current data-mining practices create an
unequal exchange between unequal partners.”
-Jessica Reyman, User Data on the Social Web
Effects on Users

User Response
..

..

..

..
..
I guess I don’t
really care…
A personalized
web experience
is great!
I’m giving them
my info in order to
use the site for free

First Year Writing Student:
“[An algorithm] refines what appears based upon the
people we are friends with, the articles we link to and
share, the tweets we favorite, and the posts we create.
Some people are disturbed by this and feel that the
information they receive is now limited, meanwhile
other people, including me, actually appreciate this…”
Recognizes
monitoring
and control
Argues it
is positive

“…I follow the people I follow for a reason, I favorite
the tweets I like for a reason, and I share articles I
think people would benefit from for a reason.
Therefore I am the one limiting my information
because of my actions on social media.”
Illusion
of agency

“The way I respond to different things on the internet
affects what I will see and what I will know.
Is this a bad thing? I am not really sure.
Part of me appreciates the fact that I have filtered
results, but part of me is curious about what else could
be out there that I am not able to see.”
Acceptance Ambivalence

Assignments and Discussion Prompts
Information Narrative: Take fieldnotes on the ways you engage with
information over the course of a week. Identify interesting themes
and write a reflection.
Analyze your Ads: Take screenshots of ads you see on different social media
platforms or websites. Reflect on how they got there, considering actions
you’ve taken online and demographic information that companies know
about you.
Analyze Privacy Policies: In groups, have students do a rhetorical analysis
of a company’s Terms of Service or Privacy Policy, considering how
the documents use logos, ethos, and pathos. Assign each group a
different company, have groups report their findings to the class.
Facilitate class discussion comparing and contrasting the policies.

What could/should this
look like at your institution?
How can we help students value

Readings for Students
Digital Labor
“Free Labor: Producing Culture for the Digital Economy,” Tiziana Terranova
“From Mega-Machines to Mega-Algorithms,” Jathan Sadowski
“You for Sale: Mapping and Sharing the Consumer Genome,” Natasha Singer
“Here’s How Much Money You Made for Facebook Last Year,” Dan Frommer
Privacy and Control Online
Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect your Data and Control your
World, Dan Schneier
“Beware Online Filter Bubbles,” Eli Pariser
“Facebook’s Zuckerberg Says the Age of Privacy is Over,” Marshall Kirkpatrick
“New Web Code Draws Concern over Privacy Risks, “ Tanzina Vega
“Consumers Fundamentally Misunderstand the Online Advertising
Marketplace,” Joseph Tudrow, Deirdre Mulligan, Chris Hoofnagle

Readings for Students, Continued
Valuing Online Participation
“Social Media and Young Adults,” Pew Research Center
“What is the One Percent Rule?” Charles Arthur
Extended Implications of Digital Labor
“Is Online Surveillance of Black Teenagers the New Stop-and-Frisk?”
Rose Hackman
“Mining Online Data Could Save Student Lives,” Michael Morris
“1984 Was a Warning against Data Mining,” Landon Hurley
(student response to Morris article)
“Edward Snowden, Whistle-Blower,” New York Times Editorial Board

References
Andrejevic, M. Estranged free labor. (2013). In T. Scholz (Ed.), Digital labor:
Internet as playground and factory (149-164). New York:
Routledge.
Konkol, M. (2015). Public archives, new knowledge, and moving beyond the
digital humanities/digital pedagogy distinction. Hybrid Pedagogy: A
Digital Journal of Learning, Teaching, and Technology.
Mackey, T. P., & Jacobson, T. E. (2014). Metaliteracy : Reinventing
information literacy to empower learners. Chicago: ALA.
McDonald, A., & Cranor, L. (2008). The cost of reading privacy
policies. Information System: A Journal of Law and Policy
for the Information Society, 4(3), 543-568.

References, Continued
Oliver, J. (2014, June 1). Last week tonight with John Oliver: Net neutrality
[Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/fpbOEoRrHyU
Petersen, S. (2008). Loser generated content: From participation to
exploitation. First Monday, 13(3).
Reveley, J. (2013). The exploitative web: Misuses of Marx in critical social
media studies.Science & Society, 77(4), 512-535.
Reyman, J. (2013). User data on the social web: Authorship, agency, and
appropriation. College English 75(5), 513-533.
Van Dijck, J. (2009). Users like you? Theorizing agency in user-
generated content. Media, Culture & Society, 31(1), 41.

Lauren Wallis
Assistant Instruction Librarian
Christopher Newport
University
@LaurenMWallis
lauren.wallis@cnu.edu
Slides: bit.ly/diglabor

Digital Labor and Metaliteracy: Students as Critical Participants in Profit-Driven Social Media Environments

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