Two sides of the fourth wall: YouTube as modern work and its impact on young people's futures

第四堵墙的两侧：YouTube 作为现代工作及其对年轻人未来的影响

• 批准号: 2446044
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Kent
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2020 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2446044
• 关键词: Two; sides; fourth; wall; YouTube

This research is concerned with new forms of digital work. It focuses on the digital space of YouTube both as a site of work and a source of influence in shaping young people's imaginations of their future working lives. It seeks to document young people's experiences as they engage with income-generating YouTube content as producers and consumers, and ascertain the impact of the digital culture supported by YouTube on young people's future (work) orientations. Despite the strength of its online presence, YouTube is a particularly understudied digital platform (Rieder, 2015). This is a significant gap in the literature given the recognised importance of digital culture in young people's lives and one that this project seeks to address. First, the research takes as a starting point that income-generating YouTube content creation is a contemporary form of work that has rapidly emerged as a 'normalised' activity for generations of young people. It seeks to explore in what ways the socio-economic activities and relations of YouTube content producers rest on and/or challenge dominant sociological understandings of work, for instance in relation to Castells' (2004) notion of 'selfprogrammable labour' which may capture the adaptability of YouTubers' work and Hardt and Negri's (2000) conceptualisation of 'immaterial labour', especially its 'affective' dimension. The project will document YouTube content creation and map successful trajectories towards income generation as well as the experience of decline of former success and interview YouTubers to understand their world of work. This will include attention to how YouTubers mobilise digital social relations to secure success.YouTube is taken as an instance of 24/7 networked society, 'always on', always connected or connectable, always available to work or consume (Hassan & Purser, 2007, p.3). This research will investigate the spatio-temporal relations of YouTubers' work and thereby make a contribution to contemporary questions of space-time compression arising from new communication technologies. This strand of the project will generate new insight into both the work practices of YouTube entrepreneurs, the content they produce, and their development of social capital with 'consumers'.Indeed, a second strand of the project focuses on the YouTubers' audience who engage with content through comment and via video viewing (Burgess & Green, 2009, p.94) to understand young people's perceptions of this activity/work and what this affective labour does to them as they imagine their own futures. In so doing, the project gathers data from both sides of the digital screen (the producer and the consumer) to understand this immaterial labour that 'flags the conflation of production and consumption' (Cote & Pybus, 2007, p. 94).Overall, this research will investigate how the phenomenon of digital work is (along with other developments, notably in the gig economy) shaping the world of work, particularly through the growth of digital social capital. In addition, it will analyse how this phenomenon is changing perceptions of the world of work for young people, influencing their understanding of this kind of labour and their orientations towards the future. The project will be carried out through a range of qualitative research tools: online observation of live interactions, content analysis of YouTube content, interviews, video diaries (from consumers) and focus groups. It will make an original contribution to the sociology of work and our understanding of digital culture (networks and social capital in particular) through empirical analysis of YouTube as a form of work and its impact on young people and their future orientations.

这项研究涉及数字工作的新形式。它侧重于YouTube的数字空间，它既是一个工作场所，也是塑造年轻人对其未来工作生活想象力的一个影响力来源。它试图记录年轻人作为制作者和消费者参与YouTube创收内容的经历，并确定YouTube支持的数字文化对年轻人未来（工作）方向的影响。尽管YouTube的在线业务很强大，但它是一个特别缺乏研究的数字平台（里德尔，2015）。鉴于数字文化在年轻人生活中的重要性已得到公认，这是文献中的一个重大空白，也是本项目寻求解决的问题。首先，这项研究的出发点是，创收的YouTube内容创作是一种当代形式的工作，已迅速成为一代又一代年轻人的“正常化”活动。它试图探索YouTube内容制作者的社会经济活动和关系以何种方式依赖于和/或挑战主流社会学对工作的理解，例如Castells（2004）的“可自我编程的劳动”概念，这可能会抓住YouTube工作的适应性，以及Hardt和Negri（2000）的“非物质劳动”概念，特别是其“情感”维度。该项目将记录YouTube的内容创作，绘制创收的成功轨迹，以及以前成功的衰落经历，并采访YouTube用户，了解他们的工作世界。这将包括对YouTube用户如何调动数字社会关系以确保成功的关注。YouTube被视为24/7网络社会的一个实例，"永远在线"，永远连接或可连接，永远可以工作或消费（哈桑& Purser，2007，第3页）。这项研究将调查YouTubers工作的时空关系，从而为新通信技术引起的时空压缩的当代问题做出贡献。该项目的这一部分将对YouTube创业者的工作实践、他们制作的内容以及他们与“消费者”的社会资本发展产生新的见解。事实上，该项目的第二部分关注的是通过评论和视频观看与内容互动的YouTube用户（伯吉斯和绿色，2009年，第94页）了解年轻人对这项活动/工作的看法，以及这种情感劳动在他们想象自己的未来时对他们的影响。在这样做的过程中，该项目从数字屏幕的两侧收集数据（生产者和消费者）理解这种非物质劳动，“标志着生产和消费的融合”（Cote & Pybus，2007年，第94页）。总的来说，本研究将探讨数字工作现象是如何（沿着其他发展，特别是在零工经济中）塑造工作世界，特别是通过数字社会资本的增长。此外，它将分析这一现象如何改变青年人对工作世界的看法，影响他们对这类劳动的理解及其对未来的取向。该项目将通过一系列定性研究工具进行：在线观察现场互动、YouTube内容的内容分析、访谈、视频日记（来自消费者）和焦点小组。它将通过对YouTube作为一种工作形式及其对年轻人及其未来方向的影响的实证分析，为工作社会学和我们对数字文化（特别是网络和社会资本）的理解做出原创性贡献。