Dynamics of Virtual Work - European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST)

April 8-10, Darmstadt, Germany, first COST Action. Invited as a non-EU COST member, funded by the Australian Academy of Science.

23 years after Arjun Appadurai's essay Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy appeared this COST Action offers a concerted way forward for the discussion of work and labour. Article link While Appadurai's five dimensions of global cultural flows are still relevant -  ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes, financescapes, ideoscapes - the context has changed. The European Union and the US are counterbalanced by the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). Multipolar economies operate at a ridiculously rapid speed, offering less rather than more space for comprehending how the systems fit together. That has produced rather less comfort for regulators and the public interest, as private interests sometimes with the active support of national governments have aggressively encouraged wage / labour arbitrage. Massive profits have become typical of this new context, while government oversight has been minimal.

One thing we know for certain is that labour is under stress and in desperate need of new theory, better insights and public policies that address the challenges of the connected world.

This meeting in Darmstadt marked the start of four years of deliberations. About 50 people attended the discussion. Ursula Huws, Professor of Labour and Globalisation from University of Hertforshire Business School and Christian Fuchs from Communication and Media at The University of Westminster are the chair and deputy chair of the Action.

Below are some of the key issues from the EU agreed Memorandum of Understanding.

 A. ABSTRACT AND KEYWORDS


ICTs have had a major impact on the content and location of work. Digitisation of information has

transformed labour processes whilst telecommunications have enabled jobs to be relocated globally.

But ICTs have also enabled the creation of entirely new types of 'digital' or 'virtual' labour, both

paid and unpaid, shifting the borderline between 'play' and 'work' and creating new types of unpaid

labour connected with consumption and co-creation of services. This affects private life as well as

transforming the nature of work. Because of the gender division of labour, this affects women and

men differently.

The changing geography of virtual work and the emergence of new value-generating virtual

activities have major implications for economic development, skills and innovation policies.

However these are poorly understood because they have been studied in a highly fragmentary way

by isolated researchers.

This Action will distil knowledge to enable policymakers to separate facts from hype and develop

effective strategies to generate new employment and economic development in Europe. It will bring

together experts in the fields of communications, innovation, management, digital media, creative

industries, technology, employment, economics, sociology, geography, gender studies and cultural

studies to consolidate theory, map this emerging field, support early stage researchers and develop

new research agendas.

Here are some comments I made before the meeting that were included in a Press Release from Bond University.

"A Bond University expert on the impact of the internet on society has been invited to take part in a newly established European Union policy group looking at how the virtual workplace will impact the labour market and in the future.

Marcus Breen, Professor of Communication and Creative Media in Bond's Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, will travel to Darmstadt, Germany next month to participate in a high level European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) Concerted Research Action, looking at the emerging field of the virtual workplace.

The invitation is a significant accomplishment for Bond University, not only involving one of its academics in a major international collaborative discussion on an important global issue, but also establishing a formal connection between Bond and the European Union. Professor Breen’s participation is funded by the Australian Academy of Science under a special non-member agreement with the COST Secretariat in Brussels.

Professor Breen said the first meeting of the action group would be defining how it planned to operate and which areas of the international workplace it would cover.

"It will be trying to recommend effective strategies to harness the power of technology and communication businesses to generate new employment and economic development in Europe," he said.

"But we may also be looking at aspects related to the cost of labour and questions which arise about where low cost centres are located.

"It will be making a contribution to the development of policies for the European Union on what governments can and should be doing to regulate the virtual movement of labour from one country to another or one economy to another.

"It will look at how struggling economies are affected by the virtual movement of labour internationally and across borders."

The EU COST group has been formed to consider the impact technology has had on the content and location of the workplace, with digital information transforming labour processes and telecommunications enabling jobs to be relocated globally.

Professor Breen said the deliberations of the action group would have a major impact on government policies in Europe and the rest of the world within the next decade.

He said it had particular implications for the future of the workplace, the future of education, and for economic development, skills and innovation policies.

"These issues have not been studied in a cohesive way, and this group will distil knowledge to enable policymakers to establish facts and develop effective strategies to generate new employment and economic activity," said Pro Breen..

"The public debate has already started on questions about taxation that should be paid by major transnational technology firms and service providers such as Google and Yahoo and the impact of the virtual players on the real, material economies.

"Regional and national governments are already trying to work out how to regulate and manage labour and employment opportunities for working people.

"The objective of this project is to begin the process of delivering recommendations and ideas to the governments of Europe and other parts of the world about the best way to manage the impacts of virtual work."

Professor Breen is about to embark on his own virtual workplace, having been invited to be the editor of the International Journal of Technology, Knowledge and Society, a US based publication which examines innovative theories and practices relating technology to society.

The journal provides a meeting point for technology researchers with a concern for social issues. Professor Breen's involvement as editor will complement his participation in the EU research group."

The Public Interest - a crucial discussion

The Public Interest is NOT what the public is interested in!

What is The Public Interest?

During the heated discussions about media regulation and a proposed Public interest Advocate in Australia over the weeks of March 12 - 21, 2013, the point has been made that there should not be a public interest test for Australian media, in part because no one knows what the public interest is.

The conservative Liberal Party shadow minister for communication Malcolm Turnbull made statements to that effect, while claiming to be a lawyer.

 What is the public interest? (Minister) Conroy couldn’t even tell us what the criteria for public interest was. (ABC Radio Interview)

One would have to suggest that Malcolm Turnbull is not a very good lawyer because the law is driven by the concept of the public interest. All media regulation is driven by the concept that there is a public interest, and it needs to be defended by legally sanctioned institutions lest the excesses of the market be teh only game in town. No one really wants the market to only act in its own self interest.

Here is what Turnbull said in a different place:

... Every single person will have a different view about what is in the public interest. Everyone’s got a different view. Having media mergers dependent on such a subjective, highly political view is really bad law, it’s bad practice and when it’s produced by this Government who’s commitment to media freedom is very very questionable to say the least, it obviously has to be seen for what it is. It is an attempt to regulate the media because they don’t like what you’ve been saying and writing about them.

JOURNALIST:

Is this a basic philosophical issue for you Mr Turnbull and does that mean that if this does get through in the next fortnight that a Coalition government would repeal it?

MALCOLM TURNBULL:

Well I have no doubt that we would seek to repeal any sort of public interest test on media takeovers. I think this is a bad idea at every level. It’s a bad idea from the point of view of freedom of speech. It’s a bad idea from the point of view of keeping governments out of regulating the media. We want the media to be as free as possible and I can say as a former lawyer who used to practice in the area of broadcasting law these sort of generally worded tests, whether you call it public interest or fit and proper person, are impossible to define. And all they do is end up creating very handsome incomes for the legal profession. So it doesn’t tick any box and it is a classic Stephen Conroy thought bubble. (emphasis added)

To argue this case is to enter the world of the knowingly ignorant. As Malcolm Turnbull surely knows, the public interest is the basis not only for the law, it is also the basis for the entire regulatory apparatus of the state in liberal/social democracies. If it is not the basis for regulation the public interest is purely a theoretical smoke screen that does nothing. If that was to be the case, systems of law and regulation, including policing and justice in general would be inoperable. It is a dangerous game to suggest the public interest cannot be defined and that regulation should be denied because it might inhibit business, or "media freedom."

The Public Interest is not what the public is interested in. Unregulated media in a country such as Australia would give even more of this latter category of what the public is interested in- more socially irrelevant "news", more titillation, more opinion pretending to be news, less reporting...

Everyone benefits from a discussion of The Public Interest. To pretend it is too difficult, undefinable, irrelevant, is to leave everyday life to the cowboys, the criminals and the corrupt.

Define The Public Interest - Australian hysteric

Blandishments, blather and bombast emanates from conservative politicians in Australia and their megaphone media organisation News Corporation.

As noted in my blog 13 March 2013:  "The evidence is clear from this coverage why a Public Interest Test is needed in Australia. Surely the coverage by the News Corporation press proves how the public interest is rejected in favour of the status quo."

The opposition to The Public Interest Test proves the need for the test. There is every reason to believe that News Corporation wants to kill off the concept of the public interest. Maybe their extreme opposition arises from the knowledge that in their heart of hearts they know they are manifestly wrong, that they do not serve the public and as such fail to meet some of the standards that journalism seeks to uphold.

The Australian newspaper and the CEO of News Corporation (Australia) Kim Williams have proved themselves to be unregulated libertarian protagonists. They are seeking to maximise neo-classical economic essentialism: the market resolves everything, seems to be their mantra. They refuse to be held accountable. They should think about where this libertarianism got the News of the World, not to mention the unregulated mavens in the UK who are now facing criminal charges for hacking cell phones, allegedly paying off the police and pretending that they could behave without reference to professional standards of journalism,  Oh and News International closed down the newspaper!

What happened to  principles like accountability, public trust and responsibility in media ownership? Jettisoned by a self-serving over reaching colonial media pack, who operate in an uncompetitive marketplace, where there are entire Australian cities with only News Corporation newspapers (Brisbane for example) or in cities dominated by News Corporation (Adelaide).

The argument has been made by News Corporation and conservative politicians that there is a lot of media diversity due to the Internet where the public is served. So why have a Public Interest Test? This is a nice yet flawed legal manoeuvre. Because of its size and influence News Corporation sets the agenda for a considerable amount of discourse in Australia.

Then there is the former columnist Robert Mann's accusations that The Australian newspaper has a : "malign influence" and practices "intellectual dishonesty."  Mann vs The Australian - nice summation  

"First of all I would like to say how sorry I am...it's a matter of great regret to everyone these actions do not live up to the standards that our company aspires to everywhere around the world and it is our determination to both put things right, make sure these things don't happen again... and to be the company that I know we've always aspired to be... I have no knowledge... " James Murdoch. "The most humble day of my life." Rupert Murdoch. Both appearing before the Levenson Inquiry in the UK. Murdoch's answers

Watching the Murdoch evidence it becomes clear that he was not aware of what happens in some of his papers. It seems clear he believes his media organs are well run and ethically run...

The fight by News Corporation against the proposed Public Interest Test is undignified, More importantly it may indicate that the News Corporation neophytes in Australia are overcompensating for their anxiety about pleasing the boss. They are so totally opposed to the Public Interest test that I am embarrassed for them.

I have seen this before by high level media executives in Australia. It happened during the  Prices Surveillance Authority (PSA)  inquiry into the prices of sound recordings in 1990-1991. I saw and heard executives in public meetings screaming, hurling tirades of abuse at the chairperson the the PSA Inquiry, Professor Alan Fells, all part of a performance that reflected what their far-away superiors wanted them to say.Talk about extreme - some of these guys give new meaning to the phrase "corporate shill."

(A full exploration of the PSA Inquiry is available in my book: Rock Dogs: Politics and the Australian Music Industry. Rock Dogs).

The conservative political establishment in Australia is also railing against the Public Interest Test. News and conservative politician seem to be egging each other on. Who wants\the public interest when  you can have the free market?
     

Australian Media Regulation - Public Interest Test

On March 12, 2013 the Federal Government of Australia launched a new policy proposal for regulating the media. It is the official response to the two media inquiries covered previously on this blog: The Convergence Review and the Frankenstein Inquiry. (This mirrors some of the activities and debates now playing out in the UK, following the Levenson Inquiry).

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy put the proposals forward in a press conference, that to my mind at least, did not convey the level of intensity that is required for governments to launch major policy initiatives, especially ones centred around public interest theory.

Indeed, the biggest news in the policy proposal is the idea for a public interest media advocate. Here are some of the points highlighted in the Ministers Press Release:


These reforms include:

• A press standards model which ensures strong self-regulation of the print and online news media.
• The introduction of a Public Interest Test to ensure diversity considerations are taken into account for nationally significant media mergers and acquisitions.
• Modernising the ABC and SBS charters to reflect their online and digital activities.
• Supporting community television services following digital switchover by providing them a permanent allocation of a portion of Channel A.
• Making permanent the 50% reduction in the licence fees paid by commercial television broadcasters, conditional on the broadcast of an additional 1460 hours of Australian content by 2015(Minister Conroy Press Release)

The micro-politics are of some interest because the current Australian parliament has seven members who are independent of the ruling Australian Labor Party (ALP) or the conservative Liberal-National Party coalition. If they support the ALP the legislation will succeed. (The Age coverage)The success of the policy initiative will result in more extreme "journalism" - what must surely be characterised as News Corporation executives embarrassing the profession with ideological tirades against an elected government.

As for News Corporation, what can one say? Sydney's Telegraph, a tabloid, and another News Corp publication, ran its report under the headline, "Julia Gillard's henchman attacks freedom of the press." Then the photo of Conroy dressed in what is generally regarded as the military clothing of Joseph Stalin.

The evidence is clear from this coverage why a Public Interest Test is needed in Australia. Surely the coverage by the News Corporation press proves how the public interest is rejected in favour of the status quo.

This is not to say the Fairfax press has been any better. The Age (Melbourne) and The Sydney Morning Herald are also opposed.    

Prince Harry - a digital case in point

Those many millions of republicans who do not care about royalty and inherited privilege groaned a collective sigh of despair this week as news emerged of military exploits by England's Prince Harry. The reports prompted republicans to say, "What an idiot!"

There were two parts to the reports about his action as an Apache helicopter pilot in the British Army: He admitted to killing Afghans, possibly Taliban  from the safety of his airborne machine, plus he considered his expertise in the theatre of warfare to be informed by his heavy participation with PlayStation game consoles. Here is a case of  cause and effect - a player of computer video games offering a claim to killing skill due to playing computer games.

As readers of this blog and my 2011 book Uprising will know, I am disinclined to play the tired academic game of pretending that technological determinism is unproven. All the evidence suggests that human history is the result of knowledge that translates to innovation through the combined might of technology, industry and business. Cause and effect - albeit uneven.

As my friend and colleague Christian Fuchs has noted,  there is still plenty of debate about technological determinism.New Media and Society I suspect much of it is the result of a conservative  intention to assert the absence of a relationship between human agency and human impact because this would lead to critical engagement with innovation and technology itself. In turn, that would lead to suggestions that human beings generate pollutants which in turn create changed atmospheric conditions and global warming/climate change. Denialists are as they do: backed with major financial  support from the corporations who have a lot to lose from changes in human behavior. There's a nice piece by Robert Mann on denialist strategy in The Monthly magazine. The Monthly

Meanwhile Prince Harry puts the digital pieces together for everyone, perhaps unwittingly. After all, royals are not expected to be intellectuals. They are however expected to be circumspect. The following effort suggests that he knows enough to make sure everyone shares the blame for killing Taliban, Afghans and innocents - the casualties of war.

"If there's people trying to do bad stuff to our guys, then we'll take them out of the game, I suppose," he said. "Take a life to save a life … the squadron's been out here. Everyone's fired a certain amount."Guardian

It was the gaming mention that caught my eye.

The prince, who was in charge of firing the Apache's Hellfire air-to-surface missiles, rockets and 30mm gun, called his job a "joy" in interviews released on Monday.

"It's a joy for me because I'm one of those people who loves playing PlayStation and Xbox, so with my thumbs I like to think I'm probably quite useful," he said. Guardian 

Here we are with a fresh definition of "joy."

I recently argued in "Killing the Thing You Love: Predator Drones, Wilful Neglect and the End of the Internet," that the Internet is rapidly becoming nothing like what it was envisioned. Breen article This is due to a number of forces at work, not least of which is that idiots rip the original meaning from language and redefine it for nefarious and ignorant purposes: Harry describing killing with high technology game-based digital technology as "joy."

Republicans -  at least defend the language!  

It is probably unwise to give the last word to the Taliban, but here goes. In an article in The Guardian headlined Taliban retaliate after Prince Harry compares fighting to a video game, a spokesperson (it's going to be a man!) said::

"I think he has a mental problem, that's why he is saying it is a game," he said. "These kind of people live like diplomats in Afghanistan, they can't risk themselves by standing against the mujahideen." The Guardian

Whatever we make of that - the voice is clear: this is not a game.

Two National Government Inquiries - regulation

Two National Government Inquiries into press and media behavior with one response – regulation. 

The UK and Australian Governments conducted broad ranging investigations into the performance of news organizations and journalists in their respective nations. The final reports are now out: An inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the press (Leveson Report, 29 November 2012 levesoninquiry) and the Report of the Independent Inquiry into the Media and Media Regulation (Finkelstein Report, 28 February 2012 Australian Finkelstein). The Australian report showed its colors by subtitling itself, Report to the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy. It was arguably forward looking, while the UK inquiry was reviewing history. 

Indeed, on 13 July 2011 Prime Minister David Cameron told the UK Parliament the reasons why the inquiry was being held. It was impossible to avoid the role News International and the now defunct News of the World played in bringing about the inquiry.  Leveson’s report started with the PM’speech. In republishing the speech to Parliament Leveson allowed Cameron’s words to repeat the allegation. The first line of Leveson reads, as did the first line of Cameron’s speech to Parliament:

“In recent days, the whole country has been shocked by the revelations of the phone

hacking scandal.” (page 1). Or as they say in Coventry, ‘Hello Rupert!’

 Leveson was directed by the Terms of Reference. And while the case was generated by the straw that broke the camel’s back, phone hacking, the peppering of the report with direct references to News International makes for a sorry tale of journalistic failure at an institutional level. The first part of the report Terms of Reference became its title:

1.       To inquire into the culture, practices, and ethics of the press… (page 4)

It is impossible to miss the point that the target was News International.

The second part of the inquiry will examine the extent of unlawful or improper conduct

at the News of the World and other newspapers… (page 4) …

(c) the extent to which the current policy and regulatory framework has failed

including in relation to data protection; (page 5)…

3. To inquire into the extent of unlawful or improper conduct within News International,

other newspaper organisations and, as appropriate, other organisations within the

media, and by those responsible for holding personal data. (Page 5)

It’s easy to criticise an institution with poor professional practices like News International. It is much more difficult to reform an entire system.

As I have noted previously on the Uprising blog, the challenge for newspaper journalism is digitization. Newspapers and the journalists who work in them are not in a happy place these days. It is pretty easy to see how the phone hacking scandal took place: digital technologies allowed reasonably smart people to gain information that had previously been private and then use that private information to sell newspapers, in public. 

How can a newspaper system be reformed when it is based on sixteenth century technology? 

The response to that question has multiple levels.

The first is that criminal acts have been determined to be just that and the editors and journalists from the News of the World will have to explain their phone hacking behaviour in court. That will be significant because the laws that apply to data in the digital era are not clearly transferable.

Criminals are redefined in the new digital context.  Historical antecedents for criminal redefinitions associated with new technology: when the printing press emerged, when radio started playing popular music and pirate radio stations went offshore…

Here is a hypothetical question: How long will it be before cell phone hacking is legal?

Second, philosophically the challenge is how to deploy jurisprudence in a situation where it is still in formation. The answer is that no one should be treated in the way people were treated in the UK phone hacking scandal. Jurisprudence is a low level solution to the social problems that emerge from the unregulated Internet.  

Third, elsewhere I have written about the way wilful neglect plays out.  Predator Drones, Wilful Neglect 

This is a bigger issue than what we can ever hope to cover, although it may be helpful to assess traditional media in the light of new media and see how wilful neglect is always part of the dilemma of liberalism – what types of human action will civil society tolerate? The challenge of the Internet is that it allows users to overlook previously unacceptable forms of human behaviour because they appear in the Internet context, not the print media context. The Internet offers new opportunities for predatory and pecuniary action, including redefinitions of privacy and publicness. It magnifies and redefines these terms and the concepts associated with them. 

It is hardly surprising then that the UK and Australian inquiries both opted for regulation, as a statutory system of public interest concerns.

Leveson recommended an independent self regulator for the UK…but as I write that is in the process of becoming a system of non statutory regulation. guardian leveson comment1

It is also no surprise that the majority of media owners, practitioners and many journalists have opposed regulation.
In contrast there are those who know the system from the inside and recognise the need for a new method. Please see my blog November 17, 2011 about Eric Beecher’s call for a public press funding system in Australia.Beecher See also Lachlan Murdoch on his grandfather, Keith, Rupert’s father. Lachlan

 In Australia the call was for a system ‘To rectify existing and emerging weaknesses in the current regulatory structures it is recommended that there be established an independent statutory body which may be called the ‘News Media Council’, to oversee the enforcement of standards of the news media…’ (p. 290).

The Australian recommendation set the cat amongst the pigeons as well. This inquiry set out to make sense of new media. In contrast Leveson set out to understand what happened in the phone hacking scandal and where possible offer a political solution to the view that News international has unreasonable influence in the UK. These were two very different inquiries.

 In sharing outcomes that recommended regulation as a solution both inquiries reinforced my view that we need an expanded public education campaign about regulation.      

Australian Cultural Digital Facilitation: Position Paper

Position Paper

 Australian Cultural Digital Facilitation (ACDF)

National Questions of Culture-Commerce-Convergence

The Australian Federal Government’s Convergence Review together with the National Cultural Policy Review have provoked questions about funding and continued public support for the cultural sector. Australian national interest is reflected in cross-party funding over many years for cultural institutions – Australian Film and Television / Screen Australia, Triple J, Australian Broadcasting Corporation and more recently support for new media and creative industries. (See for example http://australia.gov.au/topics/culture-history-and-sport/cultural-institutions). It is a growing and complex set of demands that combines culture with commerce and convergence.

Traditional support for national cultural institutions is coming under pressure and must change in the electronic (that is Internet / digital) environment. Increasing numbers of Australians receive their cultural artefacts – cinema, music, television programming (sport and entertainment) and information services through the Internet.

The digital sector, or Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) is the growth sector of the economy, and severely at risk from foreign content (note especially the US-Australia Free Trade Agreement). Australian cultural producers are disadvantaged. Most content now moves through the ICT network direct to consumers.

Telecommunication firms manage the network, with Telstra as the “incumbent” infrastructure owner dominating and given special treatment by the Federal Government to the tune of $11 bn to support its business.  Telstra is the digital gatekeeper and does not operate in a genuine marketplace, but as a protected (subsidised) provider.

The emergence of the National Broadband Network (NBN), to which Telstra connects along with all telecommunication companies (Optus, Vodaphone and others) will generate massive turnover. (Over and above the estimated current annual $40 bn turnover of the telecom companies).

The NBN growth projections suggest increased costs for consumers as Telstra and the NBN maximise profits. Most of the pressure for content will be from global, read US sources. This will ultimately challenge then undermine local content and creative industry producers.

The question is how to maximise support for Australian culture in this new context. Old and established approaches to funding support are unlikely to be effective as they will be costly, while freighted with traditional appeals from powerful interests.

Australian Cultural Digital Facilitation (ACDF) is the answer –a levy on all telecommunications (arts and culture) content transactions over the network. Just as the telecommunications firms charge consumers for downloads over the Internet, so the Australian Government charge the profit making firms for facilitating the flow of culture over the network.

It is a matter of justice.

The ACDF would levy a 2-5% fee on all telecom providers (not Internet Service Providers). This would include all cultural content transported by all operators using the Australian national telecommunications infrastructure / NBN: rate of levy is equal to 2-5% of gross revenues for wholesale and retail business. The levy would operate on all network traffic – terrestrial, fibre or cloud based digital transport (no exceptions) flowing through the national network. The fee would be only levied once per algorhythmic datum. For example, if a film was stored on a Hollywood server, transported to Australia, moved to a server in Melbourne to be downloaded on to a mobile phone in Broken Hill, the cost of that transaction would be levied one time – at the point it was downloaded by the user. The subscriber’s telecommunication provider would calculate the value of the transaction and pay that fee into an account, to be distributed quarterly to the collection agency.  

 The ACDF will produce the following results:

·      progressively engage the marketplace with culture in Australia;

• guarantee financial support for cultural industries;
• reduce and possibly remove cultural funding demands from Federal and State budgets;
• engage telecoms and ICTs with nation building, but not on their self-interested terms;
• offer an innovative approach to social provisioning;
• connect the telecommunication companies with the Australian public.   

The telecos would pay the fee to an ACDF Authority / Australia Council. Mandated distribution to all sectors of the creative community would be managed by this independent institution.

Marcus Breen