UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Creative Control
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Creative Control: Labor, Management, and Technology in the U.S. Culture Industries A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology by Michael Louis Siciliano 2017 © Copyright by Michael Louis Siciliano 2017 ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION Creative Control: Labor, Management, and Technology in the U.S. Culture Industries by Michael Louis Siciliano Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology University of California, Los Angeles, 2017 Professor Ching Kwan Lee, Chair Engaging with the sociologies of work and culture along with technology and media studies, this dissertation is a comparative ethnographic study of work in more conventional, project-based media production (e.g., film, television, and music production) and platform-based media production (i.e., YouTube content) in the U.S. I draw upon 20 months of participant observation and 84 interviews conducted within two organizations: an owner-managed music recording studio (project-based) and a multi-channel YouTube network (platform-based). Studying the labor processes of these two organizations, I ask how these workers come to be attached to their precarious conditions of employment. In answering this question, I provide a theory of creative labor akin to theories of manual and emotional labor. In constructing a theory of creative labor, I address key concepts in the sociology of work including social control over work, labor precarity, alienation, and, to a lesser extent, resistance to control. Though these cases may limit the generalization of this theory to the United States, concepts and insights developed along the way ii may be widely applicable to other forms of work in knowledge or information industries as well as other forms of platform-based employment. I find that in both cases, managers exert control over work by managing how work feels. This includes managing interpersonal relationships and managing the material, aesthetic dimension of the workplace, which includes technology. Likewise, workers appear alienated from their capacity for judgment, rather than from their bodies or their emotions as in manual or emotional labor. While project-based and platform-based media production bear many similarities, they do differ. I find that platform-based work tends to be more heavily regulated by metrics constructed by the platform. This form of quantified control differs from prior modes of technical control (i.e., the mechanized assembly-line) or simple measures of output insofar as metrics do not reflect the interests of management and management does not control the calculation and formulation of these metrics. Instead, infrastructural technology (i.e., the platform) materializes the interests of its owners – in this case, the interests of global capital. As such, the platform subordinates both management and labor to the interests of global capital. With regard to sociological theory, this project contributes to the sociologies of work and culture by highlighting the sensual, aesthetic dimension of the workplace as a form of control or power over the labor process and by providing the beginnings of a theory of creative labor. As such this contributes to theories of social control over work, typologies of labor, and research on socio- material structures that produce the felt, sensorial experience of social life. Unlike the majority of research on work in the culture industries, this dissertation examines the working days of employees in both routine (i.e., office staff) and expressive jobs (i.e., production personnel and onscreen talent). Rather than focus solely on the “stars,” my study insists on recognizing and highlighting the oft- ignored, workers that comprise the majority of employees within the culture industries. iii The dissertation of Michael Louis Siciliano is approved. Edward Walker Stefan Bargheer Christopher Kelty Ching Kwan Lee, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2017 iv For Huberta and John Siciliano v Table of Contents List of Tables and Figures………………………………………………………………………....vii Acknowledgments………………………………………………………………………………..viii VITA…………………………………………………………………………………………….....x Part 1: Introduction Chapter 1: Creativity in the Labor Process?........……………………………………....…………….1 Chapter 2: Class, Platform, and Creativity in the Culture Industries……………………………......30 Part 2: Creativity, Inc. Chapter 3: Disappearing into the Object: Aesthetic Subjectivities & Control……………………...61 Chapter 4: Terrifyingly Creative: Mitigating Precarity and Alienated Judgment…………………...107 Part 3: The Future Chapter 5: The Platform and the “Content Refinery”: Discipline, Transience, and Immersion…...145 Chapter 6: “Slopping the Trough”: Precarity and Alienated Judgment Revisited…………………219 Conclusion Chapter 7: Toward a Theory of Creative Labor…………………………………………………..247 Appendices………………………………………………………………………………………262 References………….……………………………………………………………………………264 vi List of Figures and Tables Table 1.1 Cases of Media Production……………………………………………………………...14 Table 1.2 Two Regimes of Creative Labor at Creativity, Inc. and The Future…………….……….15 Figure 2.1 One of YouTube’s many public invitations to be creative in West Los Angeles………...45 Table 2.1 Class and Creativity……………………………………………………………………..60 Table 3.1 Years Worked as an Audio Engineer by gender………………………………………....67 Figure 3.1 Organizational Structure of Creativity, Inc………....…………………………………...68 Table 3.2 Office Worker Tenure by Gender……………………………………………………....69 Table 3.3 Control & Technology at CI…………………………………………………………...101 Figure 5.1 The Future and Platform-based Production…………………………………………..149 Figure 5.2 The Future’s Subscribers per Channel in Thousands………………………………….153 Table 5.1 Years producing content for YouTube by gender……………………………………...154 Figure 5.3 YouTube Creator Studio’s Analytics Interface for the author’s channel……………….156 Table 5.2 Firm tenure at The Future by gender……………………………………………….….189 Table 6.1 Tactics of Mitigating Precarity & the Dominating Sources of Judgment……………….243 Table A.1 Employment and wages in the United States………………………………………….262 Table B.1 Revenue and employment in U.S. digital media industries, 2007-2012………………....263 Table B.2 Revenue and employment in U.S. sound industries, 2007-2012………………………..263 Table B.3 Employees’ Gender in Sound and Information Industries, 1990-2010………………....263 Table B.4 Largest occupational groups in U.S. media & information industries, 2014……………263 vii Acknowledgments I am forever indebted to all of the members of the company’s that I call The Future and Creativity, Inc. Without them, this dissertation would not be possible. This is especially true of all of the people involved at Creativity, Inc. and the many audio engineers and YouTube creators that invited me, a sociologist whom they did not know, into their workplaces and their homes. I would like to thank my committee, especially Ching Kwan Lee for providing ceaseless and robust support for this project from the beginning. Of all my committee members, C.K. has been both my strongest critic and my strongest supporter and so I thank her for her rigorous criticism, her tireless reading of drafts, and for tolerating my fondness for critical social and cultural theory. Likewise, Edward Walker’s guidance in matters of organizational theory along with his encouragement of research related to organizational technology shaped the early stages of this project. Stefan Bargheer, especially in later stages, provided careful critique and encouragement with regard to my focus on materiality and material culture. Finally, this project benefitted from Christopher Kelty’s expertise in the domain of technology studies and several discussions had in his Part.Lab. This dissertation also benefitted from time spent talking, however briefly, about this project with Gabriel Rossman, Melissa Gregg, Steven Vallas, Hannah Landecker, Nina Eliasoph and her students at the University of Southern California, David Halle, and Zsuzsa Berend. Though less direct in influence, William Mazzarella’s course on Commodity Aesthetics at the University of Chicago ignited my interest in society’s aesthetic dimension and thus provided something of a starting point for this project. Among my friends, peers, and fellow travelers, I would like to start by thanking Patrick Reilly. His shared interest in creative labor led us to have numerous, invaluable discussions and, in a way, his research provides an economic counterpoint to my own approach to work in the culture viii industries. Likewise, Neil Gong continues to share my interest in the body in society and so I thank him for his suggestions regarding Foucault and his support. I thank Eli Wilson for reading drafts of my chapters and Alexandre Frenette for his encouragement and advice in the early development of Chapter 3. I’ve also benefitted from the support of my fellow media sociologists Gary Yeritsian and Joan Donovan. Most importantly, Alexandra Lippman provided immense emotional and intellectual support during many of the more difficult portions of fieldwork and writing. In addition to being my best friend, Alexandra introduced me to sound studies and the many modes of sensually investigating the aesthetic landscapes of my fieldsites. To refashion the opening passage of André Breton’s Nadja, I am, like a ghost, defined by my haunts. Though they will never read this, I would like to thank the many baristas that served me innumerable cups of black coffee while I wrote substantial portions of this