Creative control : the ambivalence of work in the culture industries / Michael L. Siciliano

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Siciliano, Michael L., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Creative ability.

Cultural industries.

Creative ability in business.

Physical Description:

1 online resource : illustrations.

Place of Publication:

New York, New York : Columbia University Press, 2021.

Summary:

Workers in cultural industries often say that the best part of their job is the opportunity for creativity. At the same time, profit-minded managers at both traditional firms and digital platforms exhort workers to "be creative." Even as cultural fields hold out the prospect of meaningful employment, they are marked by heightened economic precarity. What does it mean to be creative under contemporary capitalism? And how does the ideology of creativity explain workers' commitment to precarious jobs?Michael L. Siciliano draws on nearly two years of ethnographic research as a participant-observer in a Los Angeles music studio and a multichannel YouTube network to explore the contradictions of creative work. He details how such workplaces feature engaging, dynamic processes that enlist workers in organizational projects and secure their affective investment in ideas of creativity and innovation. Siciliano argues that performing creative labor entails a profound ambivalence: workers experience excitement and aesthetic engagement alongside precarity and alienation. Through close comparative analysis, he presents a theory of creative labor that accounts for the roles of embodiment, power, alienation, and technology in the contemporary workplace. Combining vivid ethnographic detail and keen sociological insight, Creative Control explains why "cool" jobs help us understand how workers can participate in their own exploitation.-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Part I. Introductions

Chapter One Creative Control?

Chapter Two Conflicting Creativities

Part II. SoniCo’s Social Regime

Chapter Three SoniCo’s Positive Pole: Aesthetic Subjectivities and Control

Chapter Four SoniCo’s Negative Pole: Mitigating Precarity and Alienated Judgment

Part III. The Future’s Quantified Regime

Chapter Five The Future’s Positive Pole: Platform Discipline, Transience, and Immersion

Chapter Six The Future’s Negative Pole: Compound Precarity and the (Infra)structure of Alienated Judgment

Part IV. Conclusion

Chapter Seven Toward a Theory of Creative Labor and a Politics of Judgment

METHODOLOGICAL APPENDIX: ATTENDING TO DIFFERENCE IN SIMILARITY AND THE GENDER OF MY ACCESS

NOTES

REFERENCES

INDEX

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

ISBN:

9780231550512

0231550510

OCLC:

1202729998