ALICE WASS
Exploring Media
Postdigital Economy: The Meaning of Value
Entry Five
This week’s topic of ‘Postdigital Economy’, explored the meaning of value. Economy is the understanding of value and the trust which is related to value. Postdigital Economy is the awareness of the digital economy; this idea is explored in depth in David Sax’s book ‘The Revenge of Analog’ (2016). Sax explains that as digital technology plays an increasingly large role in our lives, it has caused a postdigital economy to emerge, and this emerging postdigital economy looks towards the future of technology, without forgetting its past. When thinking about how people interact with a postdigital economy, this can be seen though the regular use of online banking apps and the use of contactless payment methods.
Value is seen in our currency, one which was a ‘promissory note’. Which is now no longer an ‘I Owe You’ but its own currency. This suggests a level of trust and engagement, something that is also evident in the currency of Bitcoin. Another way to explore value is through economical cycles, which suggests that debt is valuable to banks and organisations. Economical cycles show that when there are issues surrounding trust and confidence it directly influences our economy. For example, Bitcoin has been rising, however, when there have been negative circumstances around confidence, crashes have happened. A crisis on currency is linked to shorting, which is when an individual constantly changes their money into different currency depending on the value of the currency.
However, when discussing value in a postdigital sense the focus is on the individual’s value to the world. This focus relates to time and effort, and it is through this that an individual finds their value. This is demonstrated in creative fields, such as media, where people produce work and are paid depending on the time and effort it took to create that piece of work. There is therefore a need to understand our own value. This idea of value goes back to the 1880s and 1920s, post-industrial revolutions where there was a desire to return to specialised crafts, where time and effort affected the value of the pieces created. A more current example is through crowdfunding, an individual must determine their value based on the time and effort of the piece they want to create and raise funds accordingly.
These ideas of value have now helped to create new social classes. The first is precariat, these are people who are in an uncertain financial future. An example is, Uber Drivers, as the amount of money they will make is unpredictable, depending on how many lifts they give and how much they charge for them. Another example which I use is Deliveroo, where the financial future of the riders depends upon the amount of people who order through the app and the amount of deliveries that they can make. Another social class that has been created is entreprecariat, this concept has become common today with many people balancing personal passion businesses alongside having part-time jobs to pay the bills. This is common in the creative industry for people who do freelance work.
However, there are weakness around these ideas of value in digital culture. For example, social media is an equalising platform, when using it people do not consider the different values of different voices. This makes the ability to determine value much more difficult. There is also the issue of a requirement to participate, from writing fanfiction or creating fanart, there is the constant need to be contributing which takes up a lot of time and effort which causes exhaustion and is normally unrewarded.
References:
Sax, D. (2016) The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter. PublicAffairs