Alessandro Gandini
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 213619 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Alessandro Gandini |
| PRENOMES | Alessandro |
| SOBRENOME | Gandini |
| ASSINATURA | GANDINI A |
| AFILIAÇÕES | University of Milan |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7705-7625 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 31 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 372 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 30 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 1 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2015 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2025 |
| ÍNDICE H | 8 |
Neo-artisans ‘Out of Town’
Calls to ‘disconnect from work’ have become increasingly prominent in recent years. Within this framework, neo-craft occupations emerged as an attractive option for workers in search of meaningful work. While these have been primarily investigated as an urban phenomenon, less is known about neo-craft activities located outside the city and in non-urban settings. Based on large-scale qualitative research in the European Union, this article illustr…
Empirical approaches to infrastructures for datafication
This article introduces a special issue exploring emerging empirical approaches to studying infrastructures for datafication and their social, political, and economic implications. The merits of empirical research on infrastructures for datafication are drawn out across seven articles offering diverse methodological entry points to develop our understanding of how datafication processes operate across everyday life settings, sectors, and institut…
Neo-craft Work as Meaningful Work
This article illustrates the most common trajectories that bring workers of different walks of life to undertake a career in ‘neo-craft’ work. This is a postindustrial form of craft work whereby manual occupations that are traditionally considered to be low-status, or performed by the working class, are transformed into ‘cool’ jobs through the infusion of craft principles. Based on extensive qualitative research in the European Union, we show how…
The Platformisation of Consumer Culture
This book offers a unique methodological guide for social and marketing scholars interested in understanding and using digital methods to explore the processes of platformisation of consumer culture unfolding on digital media. The book introduces the reader to key digital methods concepts, strategies, and techniques through a set of ad hoc case studies focused on the most prominent digital platforms (such as Facebook, Spotify, or TripAdvisor) as …
Déjà brew
Work Is not Working Anymore? The Rise of Anti-work Demands across Online Spaces in the Coronavirus Pandemic
Following the pandemic outbreak, discussions about the meaning of work have grown larger in the Western public debate. Within this setting, online spaces have emerged as a privileged environment for such discussions: particularly, the lively Reddit’s online community r/antiwork, where millions of users gather daily to discuss work-related matters. Based on ethnographic content analysis of a set of posts from r/antiwork, the article critically dis…
Platform- ised ’ work? The case of neo-craft work
In relation to work, the term ‘platformisation’ has gained popularity to indicate the various ways in which a digital platform gets to mediate, organise, intervene in, or otherwise facilitate some work activity. Yet, the intervention of digital platforms into work today increasingly involves activities that are not immediately related to the digital sphere, where different kinds of platforms have become part and parcel of the cultures and practic…
Subjectivity and algorithmic imaginaries
The notion of algorithmic imaginaries has been affirmed as an important heuristic to understand the functioning of social media algorithms through the account of users’ individual and collective experiences. Yet, the relationship between algorithmic imaginaries and users’ subjective engagement with social media, considering the personalised circulation of content on these platforms, demands further expansion. To fill this gap, the article introdu…
Another work routine is possible’
The article discusses the opinions and perceptions of knowledge workers in Italy concerning the shift to remote work during the first countrywide lockdown (March–May 2020) imposed to contain the Covid-19 outbreak. Prior to the pandemic, remote work arrangements in the Italian context were not common. Thanks to a set of 35 interviews to workers who experienced significant disruption to their usual working routine because of the health crisis, we s…
Dating Apps
Dating apps promise a ‘digital fix’ to the ‘messy’ matter of love by means of datafication and algorithmic matching, realising a platformisation of romance commonly understood through notions of a market’s rationality and efficiency. Reflecting on the findings of a small-scale qualitative research on the use of dating apps among young adults in London, we problematise this view and argue that the specific form of marketisation articulated by dati…
The platformization of gender and sexual identities
Online pornography, like other forms of cultural production, is increasingly subject to processes of platformization. While research has focused on the diffusion of online pornography and its broader implications, less attention has been paid to the algorithmic infrastructures through which platforms distribute and manage pornographic content, and how this might reiterate socially embedded views and perspectives. To fill this gap, we consider how…
Still ‘fire in the (full) belly’? Anti-establishment rhetoric before and after government participation
Scholars argued that anti-establishment parties use a populist rhetoric that appeals to the worst instincts of people. Indeed, populist politicians are often viewed as charismatic leaders that have fire in their belly. While in the past these parties heavily relied on anti-establishment platforms and communication rhetoric, their increasing electoral success along with the growing duties linked with government membership transform them into more …
Automating Trust with the Blockchain? A Critical Investigation of “Blockchain 2.0” Cultures
This article discusses the cultural conceptions of trust underpinning the experimentation of blockchain startup applications beyond the financial sector. Based on qualitative research undertaken in the context of the so-called “Blockchain 2.0” scene, we show how a peculiar conception of trust, which blends the libertarian views of blockchain inventors with the neoliberal culture of competition and meritocracy that is typical of the startup world,…
Digital labour
Since the early 2000s, the expression ‘digital labour’ has identified an influential theoretical proposition in the Marxist critique of the political economy of digital media, which sees the leisure-driven, unpaid activities of social media users as unremunerated forms of work contributing to Internet companies’ profits. Over the years, however, this expression has evolved into an umbrella term, used to describe a variety of practices and instanc…
P2P (Peer to Peer)
The term “peer to peer” – commonly abbreviated as P2P – is characterized by a double meaning. In everyday popular culture, this expression is typically associated with the illegal sharing of copyrighted creative material such as music or film, which emerged in the late 1990s to early 2000s through services such as Napster and similar others. Nonetheless, “peer to peer” consists in much more than just file‐sharing practices. Characterized by an em…
From archive cultures to ephemeral content, and back
Despite growing interest, there is a shortage of research about the methods and challenges that concern researching ephemeral digital content. To fill this gap, the article discusses two research strategies to study Instagram Stories. These allow users to share moments of their everyday lives in a documentary and narrative style; their peculiar feature is ephemerality, as each Story lasts for 24 hours. The article (a) explores how to bypass the I…
The Field as a Black Box
This article aims to provide a detailed rendering of the struggles we experienced while undertaking ethnographic research for the study of music curators working at online music streaming platforms. Based on the field notes generated during a multi-sited ethnography, the article will critically discuss the 'black boxing' strategies employed by these platforms in order to protect themselves from public scrutiny, and how media scholars can countera…
Hubs vs Networks in the Creative Economy
The third wave of coworking
Coworking spaces have been affirmed in recent years as a mainstream, ‘neo-corporate’ model of flexible work in post-recession, urban knowledge economies. However, there is growing evidence of spaces that apply the discourses and practices of the coworking movement in ways that are alternative to the neo-corporate paradigm, both in urban and non-urban contexts. Exploring the ethos and practices of an urban co-operative space in London and a rural …
First Week Is Editorial, Second Week Is Algorithmic
This article investigates the logics that underpin music curation, and particularly the work of music curators, working at digital music streaming platforms. Based on ethnographic research that combines participant observation and a set of interviews with key informants, the article questions the relationship between algorithmic and human curation and the specific workings of music curation as a form of platform gatekeeping. We argue that music s…
Researching YouTube
‘Researching YouTube’ introduces the special issue of Convergence which arose out of an international academic conference on YouTube that was held in London at Middlesex University in September 2016. The conference aimed to generate a robust overview of YouTube’s changing character and significance after its first ten years of development by creating a productive dialogue between speakers from different disciplines and cultures, and between YouTu…
Labour process theory and the gig economy
What are the distinctive traits that characterize work(ing) through (and for) a digital platform? In the burgeoning debate on the 'gig economy', a critical examination that comprehensively addresses this issue beyond specific examples or case studies is currently missing. This article uses labour process theory - an important Marxist approach in the study of relations of production in industrial capitalism - to address this gap. Supported by empi…
Sharing our way into the future
This brief, conclusive essay outlines the challenges that lie ahead of sociology as a discipline in its approach towards the 'sharing economy' and its emergent practices. Using the research displayed in the monograph, we offer a set of reflections that should read as a call to arms for sociological research to embrace the 'sharing turn' in a comprehensive manner
Sharing what? The 'sharing economy' in the sociological debate
This essay introduces the subject and interpretative perspective of the monograph 'Unboxing the Sharing Economy', and is divided into three parts. The first part illustrates the evolution of the concept of the 'sharing economy' and the main analytical implications. The second part outlines the key findings of a systematic review of the literature, which indicates both that academic research on the sharing economy has expanded considerably since 2…
Collaborative Production in the Creative Industries
In recent years research into creative labour and cultural work has usually addressed the politics of production in these fields, but the sociotechnical and aesthetic dimensions of collaborative creative work have been somewhat overlooked. This book aims to address this gap. Through case studies that range from TV showrunning to independent publishing, from the film industry to social media platforms such as Tumblr and Wattpad, this collection de…
Labour process theory and the gig economy
What are the distinctive traits that characterize work(ing) through (and for) a digital platform? In the burgeoning debate on the 'gig economy', a critical examination that comprehensively addresses this issue beyond specific examples or case studies is currently missing. This article uses labour process theory - an important Marxist approach in the study of relations of production in industrial capitalism - to address this gap. Supported by empi…
Follow the algorithm
This article presents an exploratory study of the network of associations among 22,141 YouTube music videos retrieved by ‘following’ the platform's recommender algorithm, which automatically suggests a list of ‘related videos’ to the user in response to the video currently being viewed. As YouTube's recommendations are predominantly based on users’ aggregated practices of sequential viewing, this study aims to inductively reconstruct the resultin…
First Week Is Editorial, Second Week Is Algorithmic
This article investigates the logics that underpin music curation, and particularly the work of music curators, working at digital music streaming platforms. Based on ethnographic research that combines participant observation and a set of interviews with key informants, the article questions the relationship between algorithmic and human curation and the specific workings of music curation as a form of platform gatekeeping. We argue that music s…
The Field as a Black Box
This article aims to provide a detailed rendering of the struggles we experienced while undertaking ethnographic research for the study of music curators working at online music streaming platforms. Based on the field notes generated during a multi-sited ethnography, the article will critically discuss the 'black boxing' strategies employed by these platforms in order to protect themselves from public scrutiny, and how media scholars can countera…
The third wave of coworking
Coworking spaces have been affirmed in recent years as a mainstream, ‘neo-corporate’ model of flexible work in post-recession, urban knowledge economies. However, there is growing evidence of spaces that apply the discourses and practices of the coworking movement in ways that are alternative to the neo-corporate paradigm, both in urban and non-urban contexts. Exploring the ethos and practices of an urban co-operative space in London and a rural …
Digital labour
Since the early 2000s, the expression ‘digital labour’ has identified an influential theoretical proposition in the Marxist critique of the political economy of digital media, which sees the leisure-driven, unpaid activities of social media users as unremunerated forms of work contributing to Internet companies’ profits. Over the years, however, this expression has evolved into an umbrella term, used to describe a variety of practices and instanc…
From archive cultures to ephemeral content, and back
Despite growing interest, there is a shortage of research about the methods and challenges that concern researching ephemeral digital content. To fill this gap, the article discusses two research strategies to study Instagram Stories. These allow users to share moments of their everyday lives in a documentary and narrative style; their peculiar feature is ephemerality, as each Story lasts for 24 hours. The article (a) explores how to bypass the I…
The platformization of gender and sexual identities
Online pornography, like other forms of cultural production, is increasingly subject to processes of platformization. While research has focused on the diffusion of online pornography and its broader implications, less attention has been paid to the algorithmic infrastructures through which platforms distribute and manage pornographic content, and how this might reiterate socially embedded views and perspectives. To fill this gap, we consider how…
Sharing what? The 'sharing economy' in the sociological debate
This essay introduces the subject and interpretative perspective of the monograph 'Unboxing the Sharing Economy', and is divided into three parts. The first part illustrates the evolution of the concept of the 'sharing economy' and the main analytical implications. The second part outlines the key findings of a systematic review of the literature, which indicates both that academic research on the sharing economy has expanded considerably since 2…
Platform- ised ’ work? The case of neo-craft work
In relation to work, the term ‘platformisation’ has gained popularity to indicate the various ways in which a digital platform gets to mediate, organise, intervene in, or otherwise facilitate some work activity. Yet, the intervention of digital platforms into work today increasingly involves activities that are not immediately related to the digital sphere, where different kinds of platforms have become part and parcel of the cultures and practic…
Another work routine is possible’
The article discusses the opinions and perceptions of knowledge workers in Italy concerning the shift to remote work during the first countrywide lockdown (March–May 2020) imposed to contain the Covid-19 outbreak. Prior to the pandemic, remote work arrangements in the Italian context were not common. Thanks to a set of 35 interviews to workers who experienced significant disruption to their usual working routine because of the health crisis, we s…
Automating Trust with the Blockchain? A Critical Investigation of “Blockchain 2.0” Cultures
This article discusses the cultural conceptions of trust underpinning the experimentation of blockchain startup applications beyond the financial sector. Based on qualitative research undertaken in the context of the so-called “Blockchain 2.0” scene, we show how a peculiar conception of trust, which blends the libertarian views of blockchain inventors with the neoliberal culture of competition and meritocracy that is typical of the startup world,…
Production Studies, The Sequel!
This chapter examines the National Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters (NARTB) discourses of self-regulation leading up to the implementation of the 1952 Television Code, which attempted to answer television's vocal critics by constructing a paradigm for wholesome content. The NAB's propaganda consistently projects an image of a stable and antagonistic relationship with the government, but this belies the complexities of their day-to…
The Reputation Economy
This book is concerned with providing a critical understanding of how knowledge work is changing with the integration of digital technologies into processes of production and organisation. It starts from the fun- damental assumption that the conditions of existence of t oday’s knowl- edge work are the consequence of slightly more than a decade of frenzy around the concepts of ‘creativity’ and ‘ creative’, and that these have now completed their d…
Digital work
Existing research shows that self-branding in the knowledge economy is a key promotional device for the pursuit of self-realization in a context that reifies entrepreneurialism as the main ideological stance. However, there is still reluctance to fully acknowledge the processes of sociality that constitute self-branding practice. While the relationship between branding and the affective dynamics of social production of value fostered by the diffu…
Reputation and trust on online labour markets
This article examines profile data about 9,593 freelancers from 121 countries active in the Design and Multimedia section of Elance, a major online labour market existing up until 2015. Using statistical analysis, the article evidences that the earnings a contractor obtains from working through Elance positively correlates with higher reputation scores and suggests that the conception of trust among actors operating on an online labour market res…
Invisible, solidary, unbranded and passionate
This article presents an investigation into the everyday lives of freelance radio producers in the Italian radio industry from a perspective that applies the sociology of work to the study of media production. The study adopted an ethnographic approach to explore working conditions and experiences of insecurity, uncertainty, socialising, networking and isolation. The authors identified four features of the radio producers' work, which go well bey…
Follow the algorithm
This article presents an exploratory study of the network of associations among 22,141 YouTube music videos retrieved by ‘following’ the platform's recommender algorithm, which automatically suggests a list of ‘related videos’ to the user in response to the video currently being viewed. As YouTube's recommendations are predominantly based on users’ aggregated practices of sequential viewing, this study aims to inductively reconstruct the resultin…
Collaborative Production in the Creative Industries
In recent years research into creative labour and cultural work has usually addressed the politics of production in these fields, but the sociotechnical and aesthetic dimensions of collaborative creative work have been somewhat overlooked. This book aims to address this gap. Through case studies that range from TV showrunning to independent publishing, from the film industry to social media platforms such as Tumblr and Wattpad, this collection de…
Researching YouTube
‘Researching YouTube’ introduces the special issue of Convergence which arose out of an international academic conference on YouTube that was held in London at Middlesex University in September 2016. The conference aimed to generate a robust overview of YouTube’s changing character and significance after its first ten years of development by creating a productive dialogue between speakers from different disciplines and cultures, and between YouTu…
Labour process theory and the gig economy
What are the distinctive traits that characterize work(ing) through (and for) a digital platform? In the burgeoning debate on the 'gig economy', a critical examination that comprehensively addresses this issue beyond specific examples or case studies is currently missing. This article uses labour process theory - an important Marxist approach in the study of relations of production in industrial capitalism - to address this gap. Supported by empi…
Sharing our way into the future
This brief, conclusive essay outlines the challenges that lie ahead of sociology as a discipline in its approach towards the 'sharing economy' and its emergent practices. Using the research displayed in the monograph, we offer a set of reflections that should read as a call to arms for sociological research to embrace the 'sharing turn' in a comprehensive manner
Sharing what? The 'sharing economy' in the sociological debate
This essay introduces the subject and interpretative perspective of the monograph 'Unboxing the Sharing Economy', and is divided into three parts. The first part illustrates the evolution of the concept of the 'sharing economy' and the main analytical implications. The second part outlines the key findings of a systematic review of the literature, which indicates both that academic research on the sharing economy has expanded considerably since 2…
Hubs vs Networks in the Creative Economy
The third wave of coworking
Coworking spaces have been affirmed in recent years as a mainstream, ‘neo-corporate’ model of flexible work in post-recession, urban knowledge economies. However, there is growing evidence of spaces that apply the discourses and practices of the coworking movement in ways that are alternative to the neo-corporate paradigm, both in urban and non-urban contexts. Exploring the ethos and practices of an urban co-operative space in London and a rural …
First Week Is Editorial, Second Week Is Algorithmic
This article investigates the logics that underpin music curation, and particularly the work of music curators, working at digital music streaming platforms. Based on ethnographic research that combines participant observation and a set of interviews with key informants, the article questions the relationship between algorithmic and human curation and the specific workings of music curation as a form of platform gatekeeping. We argue that music s…
From archive cultures to ephemeral content, and back
Despite growing interest, there is a shortage of research about the methods and challenges that concern researching ephemeral digital content. To fill this gap, the article discusses two research strategies to study Instagram Stories. These allow users to share moments of their everyday lives in a documentary and narrative style; their peculiar feature is ephemerality, as each Story lasts for 24 hours. The article (a) explores how to bypass the I…
The Field as a Black Box
This article aims to provide a detailed rendering of the struggles we experienced while undertaking ethnographic research for the study of music curators working at online music streaming platforms. Based on the field notes generated during a multi-sited ethnography, the article will critically discuss the 'black boxing' strategies employed by these platforms in order to protect themselves from public scrutiny, and how media scholars can countera…
Still ‘fire in the (full) belly’? Anti-establishment rhetoric before and after government participation
Scholars argued that anti-establishment parties use a populist rhetoric that appeals to the worst instincts of people. Indeed, populist politicians are often viewed as charismatic leaders that have fire in their belly. While in the past these parties heavily relied on anti-establishment platforms and communication rhetoric, their increasing electoral success along with the growing duties linked with government membership transform them into more …
Automating Trust with the Blockchain? A Critical Investigation of “Blockchain 2.0” Cultures
This article discusses the cultural conceptions of trust underpinning the experimentation of blockchain startup applications beyond the financial sector. Based on qualitative research undertaken in the context of the so-called “Blockchain 2.0” scene, we show how a peculiar conception of trust, which blends the libertarian views of blockchain inventors with the neoliberal culture of competition and meritocracy that is typical of the startup world,…
Digital labour
Since the early 2000s, the expression ‘digital labour’ has identified an influential theoretical proposition in the Marxist critique of the political economy of digital media, which sees the leisure-driven, unpaid activities of social media users as unremunerated forms of work contributing to Internet companies’ profits. Over the years, however, this expression has evolved into an umbrella term, used to describe a variety of practices and instanc…
P2P (Peer to Peer)
The term “peer to peer” – commonly abbreviated as P2P – is characterized by a double meaning. In everyday popular culture, this expression is typically associated with the illegal sharing of copyrighted creative material such as music or film, which emerged in the late 1990s to early 2000s through services such as Napster and similar others. Nonetheless, “peer to peer” consists in much more than just file‐sharing practices. Characterized by an em…
Dating Apps
Dating apps promise a ‘digital fix’ to the ‘messy’ matter of love by means of datafication and algorithmic matching, realising a platformisation of romance commonly understood through notions of a market’s rationality and efficiency. Reflecting on the findings of a small-scale qualitative research on the use of dating apps among young adults in London, we problematise this view and argue that the specific form of marketisation articulated by dati…
The platformization of gender and sexual identities
Online pornography, like other forms of cultural production, is increasingly subject to processes of platformization. While research has focused on the diffusion of online pornography and its broader implications, less attention has been paid to the algorithmic infrastructures through which platforms distribute and manage pornographic content, and how this might reiterate socially embedded views and perspectives. To fill this gap, we consider how…
Subjectivity and algorithmic imaginaries
The notion of algorithmic imaginaries has been affirmed as an important heuristic to understand the functioning of social media algorithms through the account of users’ individual and collective experiences. Yet, the relationship between algorithmic imaginaries and users’ subjective engagement with social media, considering the personalised circulation of content on these platforms, demands further expansion. To fill this gap, the article introdu…
Another work routine is possible’
The article discusses the opinions and perceptions of knowledge workers in Italy concerning the shift to remote work during the first countrywide lockdown (March–May 2020) imposed to contain the Covid-19 outbreak. Prior to the pandemic, remote work arrangements in the Italian context were not common. Thanks to a set of 35 interviews to workers who experienced significant disruption to their usual working routine because of the health crisis, we s…
The Platformisation of Consumer Culture
This book offers a unique methodological guide for social and marketing scholars interested in understanding and using digital methods to explore the processes of platformisation of consumer culture unfolding on digital media. The book introduces the reader to key digital methods concepts, strategies, and techniques through a set of ad hoc case studies focused on the most prominent digital platforms (such as Facebook, Spotify, or TripAdvisor) as …
Sociology (21 obras) · Computer Science (15 obras) · Political science (15 obras) · Digital Economy and Work Transformation (11 obras) · Law (11 obras) · Cultural Industries and Urban Development (9 obras) · Economics (9 obras) · Psychology (9 obras) · Engineering (8 obras) · Epistemology (8 obras)