Why Liquidity Has Become the Norm: Transmedia Work as Recognition Work

• In Event: Mediated Recognition: Agency, Paradoxes and Struggles for Visibility

Abstract

This paper advances recognition theory and transmediatization as frameworks for gaining a deeper understanding of why liquidity has become the norm in contemporary work environments. The coming of an age of liquidity has been professed by thinkers since the 1990s, most notably Bauman who portrayed “liquid life” as a dominant feature of late capitalist societies. The sphere of work constitutes an epicentre of this shift. Scholars from different fields have shown how new technologies, business models and organizational ideologies invoke growing flexibility and adaptability on behalf of workers/employees across professional divisions. Recently, much attention has also been paid to how mobile media technologies for collaboration, networking and “prosumption” contribute not just to spatial and temporal flexibility but also, ultimately, to the collapsing of work and social life at large. This general trend can be seen both in relatively privileged settings where high degrees of emotional investments are expected and in the expanding sector of low-paid, precarious labour. While we know much about the structural forces behind these transformations, there is still a need for research on how the “liquidity norm” unfolds at the level of everyday practice. This paper argues, firstly, that scholarship on liquidization should pay more attention to the role of social recognition, and the risk of “recognition deficit”, as a motivational factor behind people’s inclination to adapt and make sacrifices in relation to changing working conditions (beyond the obvious need to make a living). Being flexible, also in the eyes of others, is a key aspect of contemporary recognition work. Secondly, the paper argues that the normalization of liquidity goes hand in hand with the shift from mass media to “transmedia ecologies”. Transmediatization points to a new order of technological dependence, where transmedia devices and platforms are indispensible for mastering liquidity and for gaining social recognition. The paper thus suggests a synergetic relationship between (1) the liquidity norm, (2) transmediatized working conditions, and (3) recognition work. This “triangle of liquidization” is illustrated through empirical examples taken from fieldwork among cultural entrepreneurs in Sweden and mobile professionals within the United Nations system.

Author

• Andre Jansson, Karlstad University