1. R I S I E L I S A B E T T A
I U L M U N I V E R S I T Y – M I L A N
E T H N O G R A P H Y A N D Q U A L I T A T I V E R E S E A R C H
C O N F E R E N C E
5 T H E D I T I O N
B E R G A M O , J U N E 5 - 7 , 2 0 1 4
Passionate work.
Characteristics and ambivalences of the digital
work, between high passion and low pay.

2. Framework
The paradigm of free labor (Terranova, 2000) has
settled into everyday life and into the processes and
practices of digital framework
Typical form of work is the set of voluntary and free
activities carried out via the Internet, through an
ambivalent and spontaneous cooperation of
knowledge

3. Framework
Informational capitalism category (in terms of
Fuchs, 2007, 2008b, 2009a)
“Immaterial labour” “that creates immaterial
products, such as knowledge, information,
communication, a relationship, or an emotional
response” (Hardt and Negri 2004)

4. The research
Research aims:
collect experiences of these highly skilled people, engaged in online
work activities, but exposed to the processes of precarious
subjectivation
Research questions:
How do digital and internet workers recount their experiences? How
do they describe the relation between work, leisure and life?
How do knowledge workers represent and deal with their precarious
conditions? What motivation and expectation are related to the
digital (precarious) work?
What kind of rewards and benefits they would expect / receiving?

5. The research
24 digital workers as precarious knowledge workers
(distinguishing ‘www workers’/or Internet workers from the
moltitude of the knowledge labour force is by no means a simple
task)
Qualitative research – narrative approach
14 interview via Skype video call conference,
10 face to face interview
Age between: 26 and 42 years old
12 Female and 12 Male
blogger, digital marketing strategist and social media manager

6. Self-employed working-class fraction
Dynamic category, as many of these individuals shift
from self-employment to temporary labor, unpaid
labor, and back again, and so on
All the research participant are workers performing
precarious job and work as freelancers or one-man
companies (VAT): employed in marketing or web
communication agencies or company.

7. Self-employed working class
"I decided to start almost immediately after graduation, taking
advantage of the system of minimum. But basically I only bill
the agency I work and where I work 8 hours a day “
(Informant, 36 aged, F)
"I've always had notule project contracts and to backup
withholding. Can I call myself a job as a freelance for several
online publications, dealing with content curation in a cross “
(Informant, 30 aged, M)
"I've tried everything: from unpaid internship, paid to that, the
co.co.co the project. Now I have a VAT number. I'm a fake self-
employed say “
(Informant, 39 aged, M)

8. Passion
The act of "produce" has been narrated first of all as
a social and collaborative activity full of sense and
emotions
The investment in terms of passion (“love of their
work”), involvement and realization of own creativity
INTENSE AND PROBLEMATIC
passionate work, in the dual sense of passion, that is
then connected to a suffering.

9. Passion
"I still think of doing the best job in the world because in the
end I produce something other than me, I put that in writing,
however, is published and will remain there for a long, long
time. And if in a few years I want to understand who I was
before, and who are now, I’m going to re-read what I have
written and produced for our client companies… “
(Informant, 28 aged, M)
"I love my job because I can put creativity. Money is one thing,
but doing something that you enjoy and that you realize is
priceless “
(Informant, 29 aged, F)

10. Fusion
Work has also become much more intimate
"You see I like to do this job, because every day you know new
people, create relationships. But put passion in what you do in
the end is a risk. Why then if you take the opportunity to make
you work a lot ... so much like it, is the need to find other
hobbies in your free time? And in the end you do not
understand anything "
"Say that this love for my work has become a wedding. And, as
the saying goes, marriage is the tomb of love! Eventually it
ends up going to bed with the tablet instead of being with my
wife "
(Informant, 37 aged, M)

11. A question of value
"What angers me most is that companies today are living
thanks to social media content manager that we strive to
produce. We know well what value they have! But instead the
company is always ready to belittle: a Facebook page so it can
do all, just to produce these contained herein do a contest and
make them post by users ... "
(Informant, 27 aged, F)
"Since you have to write 3 posts per day for strength,
eventually recycle everything. And then of course we also
involve the users, they are a major source of value for the
company: it is our job to make sure that little comment and
participate in the conversation “
(Informant, 30 aged, M)

12. Complex relation
Prosumer and produsers
In the entanglement of production, circulation,
consumption, material and nonmaterial production,
productive and unproductive labor, the value
creation “becomes an immediate, continuous
process” (Graham, 2000)

13. The ambivalence
on the one hand it emerges as a phenomenon of
"capture" of the passion, emotions and human
relations which exceed the labor relations (Passion
Trap – Murgia, Poggio)
on the other hand, it seems to active online relational
and communicative dynamics that are considered
important as spaces of mutual recognition and self-
representation
“simultaneously voluntarily given and unwanted, enjoyed and
exploited” (Terranova, 2004)

14. The role of passion and human relation
"It's bad to say, but my boss took the opportunity because he
sees how much enthusiasm and involvement it takes me"
(Informant, 31 aged, M)
"I do not have a boss, I have a colleague, perhaps I should say a
friend who does not hesitate to ask favors of favors…“
(Informant, 35 aged, F)

15. No remuneration (in monetary terms)
Investment, namely a return (not merely economic) that
covering other areas of value creation such as
objectification of their creativity, building relationships,
reputation…
"Social networking sites offer you the opportunity to build an online
reputation: every social media manager works to create around
himself a network of contacts. Nobody pays you to do it, but the
network of contacts that you create is an investment for your work
and for the future “ (Informant, 28 aged, M)
"In the beginning you have to do a construction job of your image on
social media. The first goal is visibility. This is the card to make a
career in this field and to knock at the door to other companies. Of
course I expect that once I established my identity on social media, I
will gather the fruits of my labor” (Informant, 34 aged, F)

16. No remuneration (in monetary terms)
Explotation
the awareness of atomization forms and interdiction of work
Self-explotation
concept of exploitation in relation to ‘free’ digital labour by
linking it to force indirectly: inevitability, a sort of (dispute)
complex conception of compulsion

17. The generation of sociality
People put emphasis on the value of the generation
of sociality and relational or affective attributes:
there are two analytic level:
a level of practices, in which the subject feels emotionally
involved in online social networks that enhance
a level of discourse, in which we can recognize here the
underlying ideological rhetoric that through the promise of
change and social improvement, relies on feelings of collective
participation, civil society and civic consciousness (used in the
storytelling aspects about new media).