• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.79
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• pp.226-259
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• 2016

Drawing on the autonomist Marxist concepts of 'social factory', 'immaterial labour', and 'precarity', this paper discusses the changed nature of labour, life and social relations in contemporary informational capitalism. More specifically, it first traces back to the early autonomist (operasimo) theories of 'social factory' and 'class composition' and then discusses how these earlier theories were developed into the concept of 'immaterial labour' by a group of later autonomist theorists such as Paolo Virno, Maurizio Lazzarato, Micheal Hardt, and Antonio Negri. Then, it reviews how the concept of immaterial labour was taken up to understand the nature of labour in digital economy within the tradition of Cultural Studies, closely intersecting with the critiques of 'creative labour'. Finally, it discusses how the changed nature of labour is interrelated with the neoliberal labour forces transformations such as casualization of employment and increasing insecurity in employment and life, which the autonomist explores with the concept of 'precarity', the material condition of immaterial labour.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.66
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• pp.211-241
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• 2014

In the era of neoliberalism with high rate of youth unemployment, young college students are forced to believe that the only way to enter the job market is by accepting and participating temporary off-campus apprenticeship, which often disguised as an internship for the creative culture and knowledge. This article discusses that the mode of off-campus apprenticeship, which is supposed to voluntary and participatory, bears in fact a strong resemblance with digital labor. Based on a series of in-depth interviews with college students, this study argues that the apprentice-typed labor denotes a process by which immaterial labor or free labor coincides with self-directed job training. Throughout the digital labor processes young college students are in a constant oscillation between precarity and hope, negotiating their autonomy and social conditions in the neoliberal work environment. The digital labor accumulates students' knowledge and information as a form of commodity, which in turn supports communicative capitalism.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.74
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• pp.7-37
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• 2015

The study explores how the discourses on game addiction, which emphasize diligence and sincerity for labor and self-control, and professional gamers, who are trapped in pleasures of playing games in the virtual world, cohabit in Korean society. Progamers have grown from entertainment industry enlarged along with the current of the economic 'postmodernization,' mentioned by Hardt and Negri(1997; 2001; 2004). Hardt and Negri have elaborated on the economic postmodernization with the notion 'immaterial labor,' which blurs the line between economic (instrumental) actions and humane qualities as well as pertains to the potentiality of resistant practices against the power of modernity. From this perspective, progamers' labor is understood as 'affective labor,' an aspect of immaterial labor with the potentiality of resistance. However, meticulous examination of progamers' labor in this study reveals that progamers control their affects systematically, strategically, and rationally for their materialistic success. Progamers, while performing postmodern mode of labor, are subordinate to modern work ethics, which lead them to lose the potentiality of resistance. Consequently, while the discourses on game addiction and progamers outwardly form sharp contrast to each other, the two indeed are placed in tandem in the vein of modern work ethics of Protestantism.

• Journal of Korea Game Society
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.121-134
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• 2019

This article examines technological innovation's impact on the game production field and on the developers' subjectivity and labor. It focuses on the appearance of the new stage of digitalization via mobile devices during the period when the leading sector of game industry rapidly shifted to Mobile games. Though the in-depth interview with the game developers, this article explores the changes in organizational and management approaches and in the developers' experience and perception of their labor. Given the serious shortage of the related literature, I believe this analysis could provide a new perspective in understanding the gameswork of specific time and location.