Research On Digital Labor Of Chinese Cyber Literature Writer In Terms Of The Political Economy Perspective

This study explores the online literature industry in terms of the political economy perspective,aims to analyze this industry’s nature of control and exploitation concealed by the prosperous development tendency.This research is conducted within the political economy framework and adopts online ethnography to examine specific practice within this industry.Through analyzing the online literature platforms’ mobilization and organizing methods of online writers,and the producing production of online novels,this research discusses the producing mechanism’s impacts on online writers and further explores the alienated features of online writers embodied in the process of working,labors,and producing relations.The concealed controlling mechanisms on digital platforms contain the use of contract-paying mode and the competitive-motivating system,which naturally made the creative production become one of the parts of online literature production process,and thus control and exploit the values of online writers.The whole process of the creation is controlled by the online platforms.Under the control of flexible employment system,the boundaries between life and work are blurred,which commercializes the motivation of production and the cultural products.Furthermore,the participation of audiences in the consumption process of online literature also contributes to the exploitation of writers,and further transforms the risks of generating profit to the writers themselves.Therefore,the welfare cannot be completely guaranteed by the online platforms.Additionally,the digitalized creation process has significantly changed the mode of working,as well as promoted the socialization of the creation.The unique production and organizing methods could monitor and control the creator’s activity without the limitations of time and space.Meanwhile,the digital platforms further blur the actual production relations through the ways of empowering the labor,gratification and so on.Online writer’s identity is becoming more invisible,and the alienation of the producing has been extended the industries to the daily life.