Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
others and a desire to make their mark on the world in some way. Therefore, their
effort is not 'labour' at all in the Marxist sense, and so they cannot be 'exploited' in
the manner of a supermarket employee. Nevertheless, of course, the vast amounts of
online creative work produced in this way
are
exploited, en masse, to make a profi t
for the companies that host them - but this is an exploitation of aggregated content,
rather than of individual workers, because they are not
working
in that sense.
The desire of people making things because they want to is much better under-
stood as part of a human need to shape our environment to our own needs and pref-
erences (Illich
1973
), as part of a resistance to being positioned as a consumer
(Gauntlett
2011
), and as a central plank of human happiness - as economist Richard
Layard says, summarising piles of data on human activities and satisfactions: 'Prod
any happy person and you will fi nd a project' (Layard
2006
: 73).
This self-motivated activity is not
brought about
by the internet, but the ways in
which the internet enables people to share creative things, and have conversations
around them, work as a signifi cant boost to amateur creativity (Gauntlett et al.
2012
). This helps to foster an environment which is more about being a maker and
a thinker, less about being an 'audience' and a consumer, and this can only be a
good thing.
2.2.4
The Distribution and Funding Possibilities of the
Internet Are Better than the Traditional Models
As a word, 'distribution' doesn't sound like something to get excited about. But
distribution is just a word for how we get stuff to people, and, as suggested above,
the internet is an incredibly effi cient way of getting stuff to people - anything you
can transport digitally anyway: brilliant for songs, videos, or stories, although not so
good for actual cats or bananas. The delightfulness of this effi ciency is especially
noticeable to anyone who has tried to distribute physical publications or products
themselves (Gauntlett
2000
: 13).
For things that can be conveyed digitally, such as texts, videos, poems, pictures,
and songs, we now have remarkably simple tools for getting them out and about.
There is still the big problem of getting people to look at your stuff. That's not to be
underestimated - but it's not the killer blow that some critics (Fenton
2012
, again,
and others) seem to think it is. The online world offers many ways of drawing atten-
tion to your interesting stuff, and building networks around it, or having communi-
ties talk about it.
In terms of how creative work is funded or can be fi nancially supported and then
exchanged, fi rst of all, we should acknowledge that it's nice that much of this can
just be done for free. You can make your own animation, video, song, or blog post
in your 'spare time', and it doesn't really cost anything. That's wonderful.
(Admittedly there are some costs of equipment and internet access, but these are
costs which have
already
been borne by a substantial proportion of the population
