Table Of ContentFeminism, Labour and Digital Media
There is a contradiction at the heart of digital media. We use commercial
platforms to express our identity, to build community and to engage polit-
ically. At the same time, our status updates, tweets, videos, photographs
and music files are free content for these sites. We are also generating an
almost endless supply of user data that can be mined, re-purposed and sold
to advertisers. As users of the commercial web, we are socially and creatively
engaged, but also labourers, exploited by the companies that provide our
communication platforms. How do we reconcile these contradictions?
Feminism, Labour and Digital Media argues for using the work of
Marxist feminist theorists about the role of domestic work in capitalism to
explore these competing dynamics of consumer labour. It uses the concept
of the Digital Housewife to outline the relationship between the work we
do online and the unpaid sphere of social reproduction. It demonstrates
how feminist perspectives expand our critique of consumer labour in digital
media. In doing so, the Digital Housewife returns feminist inquiry from the
margins and places it at the heart of critical digital media analysis.
Kylie Jarrett is Lecturer in the Department of Media Studies at the National
University of Ireland Maynooth. With Ken Hillis and Michael Petit, she is
co-author of Google and the Culture of Search and has researched a range
of commercial web platforms such as eBay, YouTube and Facebook.
This publication was supported by a grant from the National University of
Ireland.
Routledge Studies in New Media and Cyberculture
1 Cyberpop 9 Mobile Technology and Place
Digital Lifestyles and Edited by Gerard Goggin and
Commodity Culture Rowan Wilken
Sidney Eve Matrix
10 Wordplay and the Discourse of
2 The Internet in China Video Games
Cyberspace and Civil Society Analyzing Words, Design,
Zixue Tai and Play
Christopher A. Paul
3 Racing Cyberculture
Minoritarian Art and Cultural 11 Latin American Identity in
Politics on the Internet Online Cultural Production
Christopher L. McGahan Claire Taylor and Thea Pitman
4 Decoding Liberation 12 Mobile Media Practices,
The Promise of Free and Open Presence and Politics
Source Software The Challenge of Being
Samir Chopra and Scott D. Seamlessly Mobile
Dexter Edited by Kathleen M.
Cumiskey and Larissa Hjorth
5 Gaming Cultures and Place in
Asia-Pacific 13 The Public Space of Social Media
Edited by Larissa Hjorth and Connected Cultures of the
Dean Chan Network Society
Thérèse F. Tierney
6 Virtual English
Queer Internets and Digital 14 Researching Virtual Worlds
Creolization Methodologies for Studying
Jillana B. Enteen Emergent Practices
Edited by Ursula Plesner and
7 Disability and New Media Louise Phillips
Katie Ellis and Mike Kent
15 Digital Gaming Re-imagines the
8 Creating Second Lives Middle Ages
Community, Identity and Edited by Daniel T. Kline
Spatiality as Constructions of
the Virtual 16 Social Media, Social Genres
Edited by Astrid Ensslin and Making Sense of the Ordinary
Eben Muse Stine Lomborg
17 The Culture of Digital Fighting 26 The Promiscuity of Network
Games Culture
Performances and Practice Queer Theory and Digital Media
Todd Harper Robert Payne
18 Cyberactivism on the 27 Global Media, Biopolitics,
Participatory Web and Affect
Edited by Martha McCaughey Politicizing Bodily Vulnerability
Britta Timm Knudsen and
19 Policy and Marketing Strategies Carsten Stage
for Digital Media
Edited by Yu-li Liu and Robert 28 Digital Audiobooks
G. Picard New Media, Users, and
Experiences
20 Place and Politics in Latin Iben Have and Birgitte
American Digital Culture Stougaard Pedersen
Location and Latin American
Net Art 29 Locating Emerging Media
Claire Taylor Edited by Germaine R.
Halegoua and Ben Aslinger
21 Online Games, Social
Narratives 30 Girls’ Feminist Blogging in a
Esther MacCallum-Stewart Postfeminist Age
Jessalynn Keller
22 Locative Media
Edited by Rowan Wilken and 31 Indigenous People and Mobile
Gerard Goggin Technologies
Edited by Laurel Evelyn
23 Online Evaluation of Creativity Dyson, Stephen Grant and Max
and the Arts Hendriks
Edited by Hiesun Cecilia Suhr
32 Citizen Participation and
24 Theories of the Mobile Internet Political Communication in a
Materialities and Imaginaries Digital World
Edited by Andrew Herman, Jan Edited by Alex Frame and
Hadlaw and Thom Swiss Gilles Brachotte
25 The Ubiquitous Internet 33 Feminism, Labour and
User and Industry Perspectives Digital Media
Edited by Anja Bechmann and The Digital Housewife
Stine Lomborg Kylie Jarrett
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Feminism, Labour and
Digital Media
The Digital Housewife
Kylie Jarrett
First published 2016
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2016 Taylor & Francis
The right of Kylie Jarrett to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Jarrett, Kylie.
Title: Feminism, labour and digital media: the digital housewife /
by Kylie Jarrett.
Description: 1 Edition. | New York: Routledge, 2016. | Series: Routledge
studies in new media and cyberculture; 33 | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015027343
Subjects: LCSH: Information society—Social aspects. | Alienation (Social
psychology) | Feminism. | Social media.
Classification: LCC HM851.J377 2016 | DDC 303.48/33—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015027343
ISBN: 978-1-138-85579-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-72011-1 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by codeMantra
For Janet.
I should have listened when you told me my mother was my
best friend.
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Contents
Acknowledgements xi
Introduction: From the Mechanical Turk to the Digital Housewife 1
1 Sexts from Marxists and Other Stories from Digital
Media’s Social Factory 27
2 My Marxist Feminist Dialectic Brings All the Boys
to the Yard: A Feminist Critique of the Social Factory 52
3 Who Says Facebook Friends Are Not Your Real Friends?
Alienation and Exploitation in Digital Media 76
4 Gifts, Commodities and the Economics of Affect 113
5 I Can Haz False Consciousness? Social Reproduction
and Affective Consumer Labour 145
Conclusion: Beyond Consumer Labour 164
Index 177
