Outsourced information: identity and unpaid work in the age of digital journalism

Authors

  • Teresa Cristina Furtado Matos Universidade Federal da Paraíba, Brazil
  • Serge Katembera Rhukuzage Federal University of Paraíba, Brazil

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17231/comsoc.28(2015).2286

Keywords:

Precariousness, outsourcing, information, blog, self-employed work

Abstract

The Age of Information has been extensively studied by Castells, in the late 1980’s. Several of the implications discussed by this author at the time are observable nowadays, specially the ones concerning the tendencies to precariousness that labor activities related to information production present. Due to an increasingly accentuated demand for information, communication companies (such as TV stations and printed and online newspapers) have developed outsourcing methods of production of content. Said methods consist, basically, on the recruitment of a literate elite of professionals, originated from other countries, to produce quality “local news”. In this article, we analyze a concrete case of outsourcing of information, performed by a French blog platform that mainly recruits contributors from Africa. Based on the analysis of the interviews carried out with ten of these bloggers, we show, albeit in an exploratory way, the emerging conflicts that the process of outsourced production of information generates. During the discussion of this subject, we mobilized concepts developed within the field of sociology of work and other recent theoretical productions on the precariousness of informational work.

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Author Biographies

Teresa Cristina Furtado Matos, Universidade Federal da Paraíba, Brazil

PhD in Sociology and is a Professor at the Federal University of Paraiba, in the Centre of Humanities, Literature and Arts. She is a member of the Centre for Afro-Brazilian and Indigenous Studies and Research (NEABI/UFPB) and a member of the Group of Studies and Research in Sociology and Race Relations. Her research interests include the following topics: communications, culture, cinema, conflict and self-image, race relations.

Serge Katembera Rhukuzage, Federal University of Paraíba, Brazil

Graduated in Journalism and Communications. He is currently enrolled in the Masters Program in Sociology of the Federal University of Paraíba (PPGS). He researches the influence of New Technologies of Information and Communication (NICTs) in the democratization of Francophone Africa. He is a member of the network Mondoblog.org.

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Published

2015-12-28

How to Cite

Matos, T. C. F., & Rhukuzage, S. K. (2015). Outsourced information: identity and unpaid work in the age of digital journalism. Comunicação E Sociedade, 28, 359–377. https://doi.org/10.17231/comsoc.28(2015).2286