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Digitalisation Concepts - Coggle Diagram
Digitalisation Concepts
Digitalisation
The increasing use of digital technologies (software, platforms, AI, algorithms, robotics) to organise, monitor and carry out work tasks, often reshaping employment relations, job content and control over labour
Embedded in capitalist strategies of cost reductions and labour control
Affects who works, how they work, and on what terms they work
Automation
the use of machines, robots and software to perform tasks previously done by humans, potentially reducing the amount of human labour required
Leads to fears of a “workless future”
Eradication of large numbers of jobs
Fuelled by advances in artificial intelligence and robotics
Calls for radical policy changes such as introduction of universal basic income
Spencer (2018)
Recent “mass automation” debates claim work will disappear, but Spencer argues that under capitalism technology is more likely to change and expand work than eliminate it
Technological Determinism
the view that technology develops autonomously and has fixed, inevitable effects on work and society, with little role for social relations, institutions or politics
Deterministic narratives claim that automation will inevitably lead to:
mass unemployment or, conversely,
that digital tools will automatically liberate workers and create flexible, meaningful jobs
Criticisms
it ignores how employers, states and workers actively choose how technologies are designed, implemented and regulated
The history of industrialisation shows that similar technologies produce very different labour outcomes across countries and periods, depending on labour law, union strength and political choices.
Deterministic stories about a “workless future” therefore obscure the role of power and conflict in shaping the labour process.
Socially-shaped Technology
Sees technology as designed and used within specific capitalist relations of power, class and institutions; its effects on work depend on who owns and controls it and on labour’s collective power
Kassem
Understanding digitalisation requires a “historical materialist” foundation that situates technologies within capitalism’s trajectory, evolving class relations and labour’s agency, rather than treating them as exogenous forces
Digitalisation is always mediated by institutions and struggles, and that workers are not passive recipients of technological change
Platform Capitalism
A form of capitalism where leading firms (Uber, Amazon, Google, etc.) operate digital platforms that mediate interactions between users, workers and businesses, extracting and monetising data, and pursuing market dominance rather than just direct ownership of assets
Rahman & Thelen
Platform firms use data + algorithms to act as “market-makers” and control access
They rely on “patient” investor capital plus an investor–consumer alliance that is often hostile to labour
They build on earlier trends: financialisation, outsourcing, fissuring, but push them further
They extend them by coordinating work through apps and APIs rather than internal hierarchies
Gig Economy/Platform Work
Forms of on-demand, task-based work coordinated via digital platforms, where workers are often treated as independent contractors, with irregular hours, unstable income and limited employment rights
Such work offers are flexible, but flexibility is often one-sided
workers face volatile demand, income insecurity and a lack of basic employment rights such as sick pay, paid holidays or guaranteed minimum hours
Spencer (2018)
Argues that these platforms combine “modern” digital technologies with “old” labour market practices, reproducing low-paid, unregulated and intensified work at the bottom of the labour market
Fissured Workplace
What looks like one firm is actually a web of subcontractors, franchises, temp agencies and platform-mediated workers, so lead firms control work but offload legal and financial responsibility for workers
makes it harder to enforce labour standards or organise collectively
Accountability is diffused and workers may have multiple, shifting employers
Rahman & Thelen
The mid-twentieth-century “internal labour market” firm, which offered relatively stable, standard employment, was progressively replaced by a “network of contracts” model that relies heavily on outsourcing and contingent work
Digital Taylorism
the use of algorithms and digital systems to allocate tasks, monitor workers in real time, set performance targets and discipline workers, often reducing autonomy and intensifying work.
Kassem Study of Amazon Warehouses
Shows a “hyper-Taylorised” division of labour in which workers’ movements, task times and even “time off task” are tracked continuously by scanners and software, enabling management to intensify pace and sanction perceived underperformance
Spencer (2018)
Contemporary technologies allow work to be monitored on a moment-by-moment basis, extending Taylorist principles of standardisation and control into new domains and turning work into a “robot-like” experience
Job Quality
The overall standard of working conditions, usually assessed across dimensions such as pay, security, hours, intensity, autonomy, skills, progression, and worker voice/representation
Spencer (2018)
Digital technologies are already being used “to create a more disposable, insecure and exploited workforce” and that the principal threat of automation lies in the erosion of job quality rather than in straightforward technological unemployment
Surveillance Capitalism
A form of capitalism where companies capture and monetise vast amounts of behavioural data, using it to predict and modify behaviour, with technology subordinated to “means of behavioural modification” rather than just production
Zuboff
Digital platforms and workplace systems generate detailed data on workers’ locations, productivity, interactions and even biometric information, enabling employers to monitor, evaluate and nudge employees in increasingly intrusive ways
Cyber-Proletariat
the emerging class of workers whose labour is organised and controlled through digital technologies, including warehouse workers, gig drivers, clickworkers and other digitally managed, often low-paid and precarious workers
These workers often occupy precarious, low-paid positions at the bottom of global value chains, performing repetitive tasks directed by algorithms and remote managers
Concept challenges celebratory narratives of digital capitalism as an economy of high-skill, creative tech jobs by foregrounding the large numbers of workers in digitally mediated but highly degraded roles
Precarious Work
Standard Employment
full-time, open-ended jobs with stable hours and benefits
Non-standard Employment
temporary, part-time, zero-hours, or self-employed/contractor roles with unstable hours, income and weaker rights