• 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.

• 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.

• Journal of Korean Philosophical Society
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• v.142
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• pp.121-143
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• 2017

This research aims at examining two classist theories of the subject, elaborated by Negri-Hardt and $Ranci{\grave{e}}re$. Negri-Hardt proposed a new subject of the multitude, established by immaterial/biopolitical labor. This subject marks a new constitution of the proletariat which is the subject of Marxist politics. Like the proletariat, the multitude is established by economic objectivity. The democracy of the multitude becomes possible through the production of the 'common'. Economical elements always dominate the subject itself and subjective politics. The subject of the demos, established by Ranciere, is a party which claims its share in the dominating order of power. It is a subject subtracted from the logic of domination. The demos, therefore, is the subject which is constituted at the moment of the refusal of the established order and the place distributed. This refusal means a kind of subjectivity that transforms the dominating order. Then we take demos as the proper political subject subtracted from economical objectivity.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.17 no.8
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• pp.130-143
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• 2017

This study examines the theoretical framework of "B" local union, which conducts "class-oriented" labor movements in contemporary Japan. "Class-oriented" labor movements are active, while they have been residual on the margins of Japanese society and the country's labor movement situation. This research examines a theoretical framework for "class-oriented" labor movements and investigates Williams' "structure of feeling." First, the "structure of feeling" concept is examined. Second, the study compares several theories on the working class of Marxism and alternative subjects of "linguistic turn." Third, this study redefines the "structure of feeling" in terms of the case of "B" local union. The results show that "collective workers-individualize workers" and "workers-non-workers" of "B" local union establish their own labor movements on the material or immaterial space and consider their "structure of feeling" as the "negotiation and contradiction on the class-orientation." Consequently, this study offers a model of their "structure of feeling."

• 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.