Creative Writing Paper
Write carefully crafted a short essay (Max 840 words long)
Font: Times New Roman
Size: 12
- Use Office/Word; run its word count command and put this number down at
the end of each essay. It’s important not to go either under or over the word
limit.
- Mark absolutely clearly which essay prompts you are selecting, either by noting
the number at the opening of each response, or by typing out the question
itself. (Do not include this question in your word count however.)
Important tips as you draft your responses:
- Use specific examples/evidence drawn from the readings to substantiate your
points in each response.
- Dive into answering the prompt; no need for intro and conclusion paragraphs.
Remember this is a short answer response, not an actual essay. Choose at least two of our internet authors (Terranova’s Wikipedia: An Info-Communist Manifesto and Firer-Blaess & Fuchs’ Free Labor Producing Culture for the Digital Economy)
- When citing the course readings, use this simple in-text format: (Gudeman: 21;
or, Mauss: 48). No need to include Works Cited or Bibliography.
- Be prudent in your use of quotations. Where possible, paraphrase and cite as
above. Save quotations for specially stressing a point you are already making
yourself in your own prose. Choose at least two of our internet authors (Terranova’s Wikipedia: An Info-Communist Manifesto and Firer-Blaess & Fuchs’ Free Labor Producing Culture for the Digital Economy) In other words, it is best to use quotes to underline
your own logic, rather than to take a step for you in the logic of your essay.
(TurnItIn is enabled and which catch such plagiarism). Choose at least two of our internet authors (Terranova’s Wikipedia: An Info-Communist Manifesto and Firer-Blaess & Fuchs’ Free Labor Producing Culture for the Digital Economy)
Prompt:
Choose at least two of our internet authors (Terranova’s Wikipedia: An Info-Communist Manifesto and Firer-Blaess & Fuchs’ Free Labor Producing Culture for the Digital Economy) and discuss their main ideas(“Collective minds” and “Info-communism & Wikipedia”) using Stephen Gudeman’s contrast between high relationship societies and high market societies.
Infocommunism & Wikipedia and Collective Minds
In their work Wikipedia: An Info-communist Manifesto, the authors, Christina Fuchs and Sylvain Firer-Blaess, principally examine Wikipedia’s political economy. Specifically, info-communism and Wikipedia form the fundamental theme of the exposition. The authors, in their work, explore the lengths to which Wikipedia embraces the info-communist mode of production in complete disregard of the prevalent capitalist market within which it exists. Choose at least two of our internet authors (Terranova’s Wikipedia: An Info-Communist Manifesto and Firer-Blaess & Fuchs’ Free Labor Producing Culture for the Digital Economy) In the book Free Labor: Producing Culture for the Digital Economy, the author, Tiziana Terranova, examines a raft of issues. However, she is specifically interested in the collective idea of the digital economy. Choose at least two of our internet authors (Terranova’s Wikipedia: An Info-Communist Manifesto and Firer-Blaess & Fuchs’ Free Labor Producing Culture for the Digital Economy) She particularly examines the manner in which the internet “connects to the autonomist “social factory”” (Terranova: 34). The main ideas as presented in the above-mentioned works could be interrogated via the lenses of Stephen Gudeman’s high relationship societies and high-market societies as expounded in his work Anthropology and Economy. Choose at least two of our internet authors (Terranova’s Wikipedia: An Info-Communist Manifesto and Firer-Blaess & Fuchs’ Free Labor Producing Culture for the Digital Economy)
Christina Fuchs and Sylvain Firer-Blaess posited that the mode of production of Wikipedia resembles Marx’s and Engel’s conception of communism. Similarly, the impacts of the society as well as the influences of “exploitation” and “inequality” that are synonymous with capitalism affect this mode of production (Fuchs and Fire-Blaess: 88). Choose at least two of our internet authors (Terranova’s Wikipedia: An Info-Communist Manifesto and Firer-Blaess & Fuchs’ Free Labor Producing Culture for the Digital Economy) The contrasts as evidenced in the above points are analogous to the contrasts that Gudeman offers in his work. According to an empirical analysis of the same, there is a sequence of contrasts predicated upon paired binaries of the market and the house on one hand, as well as the self-interested and the mutual on the other one. Indeed, the analogy regarding the house being to mutuality like the market is to self-interest plays a central role in Gudeman’s work. Choose at least two of our internet authors (Terranova’s Wikipedia: An Info-Communist Manifesto and Firer-Blaess & Fuchs’ Free Labor Producing Culture for the Digital Economy) In comparison to Fuchs’ and Fire-Blaess’ work, there is a similarity between the two. In the high-relationship societies and high-market societies, Gudeman avers that “In high market economies, their imbalance and separation undermine the viability of the house economy on which markets paradoxically depend.” (Gudeman: 3). This connection between competitive markets and house economy is akin to the one presented by Fuchs and Fire-Blaess who argue that whilst Wikipedia is a semiautonomous society, it is still dependent on the society for it to achieve its purposes. Choose at least two of our internet authors (Terranova’s Wikipedia: An Info-Communist Manifesto and Firer-Blaess & Fuchs’ Free Labor Producing Culture for the Digital Economy) Perhaps the influence of exploitation and inequality on Wikipedia best compares to the connection between the influence of mutuality and self-interest in the two economies. Indeed, it could be argued that self-interest and mutuality as presented by Gudeman are similar, in spirit, to exploitation and inequality.
According to Gudeman, there are community and house spheres, both of which are at the fore of the market spheres of metafinance, finance, and commerce, and the house segment of the economy. Choose at least two of our internet authors (Terranova’s Wikipedia: An Info-Communist Manifesto and Firer-Blaess & Fuchs’ Free Labor Producing Culture for the Digital Economy) In the house economy societies, also known as “high-relationship societies”, the aspect of mutuality plays a fundamental role in influencing action. Such a relationship is not different from the info-communism mode of production that Wikipedia employs. In the info-communist production “both the relations of production and the productive forces are fully socialized—they are based on common ownership of the means of production and collaborative work.” (Fuchs and Fire-Blaisse: 90). Therefore, the examination of infocommunist mode of production as demonstrated by Fuchs and Fire-Blaisse can occur via the prism of Gudeman’s exploration of the house economy. Choose at least two of our internet authors (Terranova’s Wikipedia: An Info-Communist Manifesto and Firer-Blaess & Fuchs’ Free Labor Producing Culture for the Digital Economy)
In an interrogation of Terranova’s work, she recapitulates the notion of digital economy by proffering the standpoint that it gives a coordinated approach of collective intelligence, which promotes satisfaction via work. She maintains that “the internet’s collective intelligence encompass the work of writing/reading/managing and participating in mailin lists/Web sites/chatlines” (Terranova: 42). As a consequence, it is not ” a free-floating postindustrial utopia, but in full mutually consisting interaction with late capitalism, especially… global venture capital” (Terranova: 43). Choose at least two of our internet authors (Terranova’s Wikipedia: An Info-Communist Manifesto and Firer-Blaess & Fuchs’ Free Labor Producing Culture for the Digital Economy) She further contends that whether one is talking about the collective mind or hive mind, the internet offers greater collective potential, flexibility and reactiveness. According to her, the cyberutopian, cyberlibertarian interpretation is consistent with one of “general intellect” which vouches for autonomy. She then goes ahead and offers the conflict herein by stating that whereas companies might attempt to extricate value from the collective labor mind, Marxists would like it to remain as a liberatory project. This again goes back to the aspects of mutualism and self-interest as found in Gudeman’s work. Indeed, just like Gudeman, Terranova’s take on collective mind appears to be pegged on concepts of Marxism and communism. Choose at least two of our internet authors (Terranova’s Wikipedia: An Info-Communist Manifesto and Firer-Blaess & Fuchs’ Free Labor Producing Culture for the Digital Economy) The company, in a classic high market societies’ fashion, is only interested in furthering its own objectives by exploiting the collective mind of the labor force. In the company’s case, only its self-interest matters and it achieves this by using the collective mind of its internet-savvy workforce. The same thing happens in high-market societies wherein self-interest is the crucial motive. However, the Marxists desire to use the collective mind of the labor forced in a liberatory way. Choose at least two of our internet authors (Terranova’s Wikipedia: An Info-Communist Manifesto and Firer-Blaess & Fuchs’ Free Labor Producing Culture for the Digital Economy)In this manner, all the parties to the interaction will benefit and there will be no feelings of inequality. However, just like in collective mind labor, such desires are not achievable since “the market realm dominates the house economy ideologically and through material practice” (Gudeman: 3). Choose at least two of our internet authors (Terranova’s Wikipedia: An Info-Communist Manifesto and Firer-Blaess & Fuchs’ Free Labor Producing Culture for the Digital Economy)