Preliminary Research of Labour in Chinese Internet Industries

Abstract

Based on the existing research of cultural labour in the western academia, my research tends to explore the working life experiences of labour in Chinese Internet industries. The new forms of labour in the research are divided into three categories: professional labour, paid temporary labour, and free labour. On the one hand, the complex and ambivalent relationships between different categories of labourers are investigated; on the other hand, labourers’ working life experiences are illustrated via in-depth interviews. Practically, this research focuses on workers in a large Internet company providing social networking services, Campus (anonymous). Workers in the research are explored via several aspects, such as working time and payment, working status, experience of autonomy, as well as agency, referring to the negotiation and resistance between labour, company and the state. Theoretically, this research discusses the agency of labour which is largely ignored by the existing research, as well as seeks to contribute a bridge between the existing western research of cultural labour and Chinese new media labour.