Julia Ticona
Biographic Data
| ID | 254148 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Julia Ticona |
| GIVEN NAMES | Julia |
| FAMILY NAME | Ticona |
| SIGNATURE | TICONA J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Pennsylvania |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8923-1969 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 96 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 12 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
From motorized projectors to generative AI: Cultural conflicts over labor automation in Hollywood
Recent discourse around generative artificial intelligence has characterized its implications for creative labor as wholly unprecedented. This article challenges that framing by situating generative A.I. within a longer history of technological change in Hollywood. We conduct a historical analysis of three cases in which an emerging technology promised to automate aspects of creative production: the spread of motorized film projectors in the earl…
Left to Our Own Devices: Coping with Insecure Work in a Digital Age
Over the past three decades, digital technologies like smartphones and laptops have transformed the way we work in the United States. Over the same period of time, workers at the top and the bottom of the income ladder have experienced rising levels of job insecurity and anxiety about their economic futures. Despite this connection, we rarely link our everyday technology problems to our economic climate. Left to Our Own Devices explores the ways …
Red flags, sob stories, and scams: The contested meaning of governance on carework labor platforms
Labor platform scams are an opportunity to integrate scholarship about governance across social media and labor platforms. Labor platforms have borrowed governance mechanisms from social media to cultivate trust among users and remove problematic content. However, while these platforms may share governance strategies, labor platforms mediate employment relationships between workers and clients with different amounts of power. Based on a multistak…
Left to Our Own Devices: Coping with Insecure Work in a Digital Age
Policing the Digital Divide: Institutional Gate-keeping & Criminalizing Digital Inclusion
Previous studies generally assume that barriers to internet access are largely passive. That is, exclusion from the Internet is a consequence of poorly resourced individuals, communities, and institutions. This study complicates that assumption by focusing on the active policing and gatekeeping of internet access. Specifically, we estimate the causal effect of free Wi-Fi at chain restaurants on quality-of-life crime reporting by leveraging a stag…
Constructing the Digital Skills Crisis: A Critical Conceptual History of “Skill”
There is a digital skills crisis: the digital skills crisis does not exist. Through a conceptual history of skill––a word, concept, and action––this paper analyzes the historical, cultural, and material constructions of skill and how it has come to influence current discourse around the alleged “digital skills crisis”. Rather than an intrinsic quality to be acquired, we show how skill has been deployed as a political concept to order bodies and p…
The Costs of Connection: How Data Is Colonizing Human Life and Appropriating It for Capitalism
Platform Counterpublics: Gossip & Contested Knowledge About Online Labor Platforms
As commercial platforms mediate large swaths of online markets for information and services, scholars have shown how users resist, or work around these opaque digital environments. From content producers to Uber drivers, digital laborers are particularly adept at appropriating and gaming platforms like YouTube, and Uber (Chen 2017; Duffy 2017; Rosenblat 2018). Often described as “multi-sided markets,” platforms bring together many different kinds…
Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism
Trusted strangers: Carework platforms’ cultural entrepreneurship in the on-demand economy
On-demand labor platforms offer many in-person services, from ride-hailing to childcare. However, scholars have focused on ride-hailing, leading to a model of “Uberization” that entails the informalization of work. We argue that online carework platforms that match nannies and babysitters to families show the limits of this narrative. Based on a discourse analysis of carework platforms and interviews with workers using them, we illustrate that th…
The Relationship of Morals and Markets Today: A Review of Recent Scholarship on the Culture of Economic Life
This article surveys recent trends in scholarship on capitalism within the fields of history, cultural sociology, and religious studies, highlighting the ways that scholars working in each of these disciplines have shifted their methodological and substantive approaches so as to foreground the cultural and moral, rather than technical, aspects of economic life. In light of our current moment of cultural reflection upon the character and future of…
Strategies of control: Workers’ use of ICTs to shape knowledge and service work
This paper examines the way that different types of workers deploy strategies of control in concert with and in resistance to information and communication technologies (ICTs). Existing research on the effects of ICTs for knowledge workers has illustrated the ways they can lead to practices of overwork and work–life spillover. However, the dearth of studies on service workers and ICT means that we have a limited understanding of their role across…
Trusted strangers: Carework platforms’ cultural entrepreneurship in the on-demand economy
On-demand labor platforms offer many in-person services, from ride-hailing to childcare. However, scholars have focused on ride-hailing, leading to a model of “Uberization” that entails the informalization of work. We argue that online carework platforms that match nannies and babysitters to families show the limits of this narrative. Based on a discourse analysis of carework platforms and interviews with workers using them, we illustrate that th…
Red flags, sob stories, and scams: The contested meaning of governance on carework labor platforms
Labor platform scams are an opportunity to integrate scholarship about governance across social media and labor platforms. Labor platforms have borrowed governance mechanisms from social media to cultivate trust among users and remove problematic content. However, while these platforms may share governance strategies, labor platforms mediate employment relationships between workers and clients with different amounts of power. Based on a multistak…
The Costs of Connection: How Data Is Colonizing Human Life and Appropriating It for Capitalism
The Relationship of Morals and Markets Today: A Review of Recent Scholarship on the Culture of Economic Life
This article surveys recent trends in scholarship on capitalism within the fields of history, cultural sociology, and religious studies, highlighting the ways that scholars working in each of these disciplines have shifted their methodological and substantive approaches so as to foreground the cultural and moral, rather than technical, aspects of economic life. In light of our current moment of cultural reflection upon the character and future of…
Strategies of control: Workers’ use of ICTs to shape knowledge and service work
This paper examines the way that different types of workers deploy strategies of control in concert with and in resistance to information and communication technologies (ICTs). Existing research on the effects of ICTs for knowledge workers has illustrated the ways they can lead to practices of overwork and work–life spillover. However, the dearth of studies on service workers and ICT means that we have a limited understanding of their role across…
The Relationship of Morals and Markets Today: A Review of Recent Scholarship on the Culture of Economic Life
This article surveys recent trends in scholarship on capitalism within the fields of history, cultural sociology, and religious studies, highlighting the ways that scholars working in each of these disciplines have shifted their methodological and substantive approaches so as to foreground the cultural and moral, rather than technical, aspects of economic life. In light of our current moment of cultural reflection upon the character and future of…
Trusted strangers: Carework platforms’ cultural entrepreneurship in the on-demand economy
On-demand labor platforms offer many in-person services, from ride-hailing to childcare. However, scholars have focused on ride-hailing, leading to a model of “Uberization” that entails the informalization of work. We argue that online carework platforms that match nannies and babysitters to families show the limits of this narrative. Based on a discourse analysis of carework platforms and interviews with workers using them, we illustrate that th…
Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism
Platform Counterpublics: Gossip & Contested Knowledge About Online Labor Platforms
As commercial platforms mediate large swaths of online markets for information and services, scholars have shown how users resist, or work around these opaque digital environments. From content producers to Uber drivers, digital laborers are particularly adept at appropriating and gaming platforms like YouTube, and Uber (Chen 2017; Duffy 2017; Rosenblat 2018). Often described as “multi-sided markets,” platforms bring together many different kinds…
Policing the Digital Divide: Institutional Gate-keeping & Criminalizing Digital Inclusion
Previous studies generally assume that barriers to internet access are largely passive. That is, exclusion from the Internet is a consequence of poorly resourced individuals, communities, and institutions. This study complicates that assumption by focusing on the active policing and gatekeeping of internet access. Specifically, we estimate the causal effect of free Wi-Fi at chain restaurants on quality-of-life crime reporting by leveraging a stag…
Constructing the Digital Skills Crisis: A Critical Conceptual History of “Skill”
There is a digital skills crisis: the digital skills crisis does not exist. Through a conceptual history of skill––a word, concept, and action––this paper analyzes the historical, cultural, and material constructions of skill and how it has come to influence current discourse around the alleged “digital skills crisis”. Rather than an intrinsic quality to be acquired, we show how skill has been deployed as a political concept to order bodies and p…
The Costs of Connection: How Data Is Colonizing Human Life and Appropriating It for Capitalism
Left to Our Own Devices: Coping with Insecure Work in a Digital Age
Over the past three decades, digital technologies like smartphones and laptops have transformed the way we work in the United States. Over the same period of time, workers at the top and the bottom of the income ladder have experienced rising levels of job insecurity and anxiety about their economic futures. Despite this connection, we rarely link our everyday technology problems to our economic climate. Left to Our Own Devices explores the ways …
Red flags, sob stories, and scams: The contested meaning of governance on carework labor platforms
Labor platform scams are an opportunity to integrate scholarship about governance across social media and labor platforms. Labor platforms have borrowed governance mechanisms from social media to cultivate trust among users and remove problematic content. However, while these platforms may share governance strategies, labor platforms mediate employment relationships between workers and clients with different amounts of power. Based on a multistak…
Left to Our Own Devices: Coping with Insecure Work in a Digital Age
From motorized projectors to generative AI: Cultural conflicts over labor automation in Hollywood
Recent discourse around generative artificial intelligence has characterized its implications for creative labor as wholly unprecedented. This article challenges that framing by situating generative A.I. within a longer history of technological change in Hollywood. We conduct a historical analysis of three cases in which an emerging technology promised to automate aspects of creative production: the spread of motorized film projectors in the earl…
Digital Economy and Work Transformation (7 works) · Political science (7 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Business (6 works) · Law (5 works) · Computer Science (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Public relations (4 works) · Economics (3 works) · Employment and Welfare Studies (3 works)