Nick Dyer‐witheford
Biographic Data
| ID | 3589718 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Nick Dyer‐witheford |
| GIVEN NAMES | Nick |
| FAMILY NAME | Dyer‐witheford |
| SIGNATURE | WITHEFORD N D |
| AFFILIATIONS | Western University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5177-4282 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 53 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2001 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Riot Platforms: Protest, Police, Planet
A wave of urban uprisings swept the planet from 2018 to 2021, throwing protesters into violent collisions with police, confrontations fought out both in the streets and on digital platforms. This paper proposes successive cycles of digitally‐mediated social unrest are passing into a phase marked by protesters’ assemblage of “riot platforms”. It examines the development of such platforms by movements in France, Hong Kong, Chile, Lebanon, Ecuador a…
Left Populism and Platform Capitalism
This paper contextualizes and analyses the policy proposals of new “left populisms” (Mouffe 2018) for the regulation and reform of the “platform capitalism” (Srnicek 2017) that increasingly organizes digital communication. The era of the 2008 crash and subsequent recession saw the emergence in North America and Europe of new left-wing electoral initiatives, either as new parties or fractions within older parties. These include, in the USA, Bernie…
Postscript: Gaming While Empire Burns
Responding to a journal issue revisiting Games of Empire, this article begins by surveying the state of digital play amid a conjuncture of pandemic lockdown, anti-racism protest, and looming recession. We go on to address criticism of our book’s outlook on “games of multitude” in the face of the reactionary side of gaming culture expressed by Gamergate. We next outline elements of a research itinerary, were we to update our book’s project, includ…
The state of the commons: Commoners, populists, and communards
“Commons” has been a concept crucial to movements opposing twenty-first century capitalism, and nowhere more so than in the field of communication, where it has underpinned critique of the commodification of digital networks. Yet the ideas about commons articulated at the turn of the millennium by anti-capitalist movements today show signs of exhaustion and disintegration. One reason is their failure to adequately reckon with the power of the mod…
Cyberwar and Revolution: Digital Subterfuge in Global Capitalism
Inhuman Power: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Capitalism
Cyber-Proletariat: Global Labour in the Digital Vortex
Prolegomenon to a theory of slump media
Karl Marx @ Internet Studies
The task of this paper is to point out the relevance of Karl Marx for Internet Studies. Marxian concepts that have been reflected implicitly or explicitly in Internet Studies include: (1) dialectics; (2) capitalism; (3) commodity/commodification; (4) surplus value, exploitation, alienation, class; (5) globalization; (6) ideology/ideology critique; (7) art and aesthetics; (8) class struggle; (9) commons; (10) public sphere; (11) communism. The pap…
Reprogramming Japan: The High Tech Crisis Under Communitarian Capitalism
Reprogramming Japan: The High Tech Crisis Under Communitarian Capitalism. By Marie Anchordoguy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005. 257p. $39.95. Over the last 20 years, Japan has passed from wunderkind of global capitalism to problem child, troubled by recession and stagnation. Marie Anchordoguy's Reprogramming Japan joins the growing body of analysis diagnosing this sad falling off, focusing on the crisis of the high-technology sectors …
Playing on the digital commons: Collectivities, capital and contestation in videogame culture
This article examines the complex relation of commodity and commons regimes in video and computer game culture. Digital play is today both a multibillion business and the site of numerous ‘do it yourself’ practices of production and reproduction, ranging from warez networks and abandonware archives through ‘modding’ (game modification) and machinima-making to the player-created content of massively multiplayer online games. Such practices are var…
EA Spouse” and the Crisis of Video Game Labour: Enjoyment, Exclusion, Exploitation, Exodus
The blog postings of “EA Spouse,” partner of an exhausted video game programmer, have catalyzed discussion of epidemic overwork in the digital play industry. This paper analyzes the crisis of labour in this glamorous new medium. After a brief overview of the industry and its production process, we discuss its labour conditions under four headings. “Enjoyment” examines the real pleasures game workers find at their jobs. “Exclusion” discusses the g…
The Political Economy of Canada’s Video and Computer Game Industry
Video and computer games are a burgeoning new media industry with global revenues rivaling those of film and music. This article, reporting on a three-year SSHRC-funded research project, analyzes the political economy of Canadian involvement in the interactive game business. After an overview of companies, ownership, markets and regional distribution, it discusses the developmental dynamics and contradictions of the Canadian industry in terms of …
The Return of Species-Being
Species‐Being Resurgent
Digital Play: The Interaction of Technology, Culture, and Marketing
In a marketplace that demands perpetual upgrades, the survival of interactive play ultimately depends on the adroit management of negotiations between game producers and youthful consumers of this new medium. The authors suggest a model of expansion that encompasses technological innovation, game design, and marketing practices. Their case study of video gaming exposes fundamental tensions between the opposing forces of continuity and change in t…
Sur la contestation du capital cognitif: Composition De Classe De l'Industrie Des Jeux Vidéo Et Sur Ordinateur
Si le capital cognitif constitue un régime mettant sur le marché des processus digitalisés fonctionnant en réseaux, les jeux vidéo et sur ordinateur sont parmi ses composantes les plus importantes. L'article traite de la constitution transnationale d'une industrie des jeux dans laquelle le logiciel joue un rôle central. La composition de classe formée de « travailleurs de la connaissance », de « prosumers », et du « nouveau prolétariat du Hard » …
Empire, Immaterial Labor, the New Combinations, and the Global Worker
(2001). Empire, Immaterial Labor, the New Combinations, and the Global Worker. Rethinking Marxism: Vol. 13, No. 3-4, pp. 70-80
Nintendo Capitalism: Enclosures and Insurgencies, Virtual and Terrestrial
This study develops the premise that “the commons” is today emerging as a crucial concept for activists and thinkers involved in myriad mobilizations around the planet. This follows from a shared experience of “enclosure”—the dispossession, expropriation and fencing-in effected, across a wide variety of economic, social and psychological registers, by the forces of a globally triumphant world-market. A case study connects two aspects of this proc…
The New Combinations: Revolt of the Global Value-Subjects
First it fenced off the land Then it metered the water It measured our time It plundered our bodies and now it polices our dreams We cannot be contained We are not for sale Leave capital to enclose itself
Empire, Immaterial Labor, the New Combinations, and the Global Worker
(2001). Empire, Immaterial Labor, the New Combinations, and the Global Worker. Rethinking Marxism: Vol. 13, No. 3-4, pp. 70-80
Karl Marx @ Internet Studies
The task of this paper is to point out the relevance of Karl Marx for Internet Studies. Marxian concepts that have been reflected implicitly or explicitly in Internet Studies include: (1) dialectics; (2) capitalism; (3) commodity/commodification; (4) surplus value, exploitation, alienation, class; (5) globalization; (6) ideology/ideology critique; (7) art and aesthetics; (8) class struggle; (9) commons; (10) public sphere; (11) communism. The pap…
Playing on the digital commons: Collectivities, capital and contestation in videogame culture
This article examines the complex relation of commodity and commons regimes in video and computer game culture. Digital play is today both a multibillion business and the site of numerous ‘do it yourself’ practices of production and reproduction, ranging from warez networks and abandonware archives through ‘modding’ (game modification) and machinima-making to the player-created content of massively multiplayer online games. Such practices are var…
The state of the commons: Commoners, populists, and communards
“Commons” has been a concept crucial to movements opposing twenty-first century capitalism, and nowhere more so than in the field of communication, where it has underpinned critique of the commodification of digital networks. Yet the ideas about commons articulated at the turn of the millennium by anti-capitalist movements today show signs of exhaustion and disintegration. One reason is their failure to adequately reckon with the power of the mod…
Prolegomenon to a theory of slump media
Nintendo Capitalism: Enclosures and Insurgencies, Virtual and Terrestrial
This study develops the premise that “the commons” is today emerging as a crucial concept for activists and thinkers involved in myriad mobilizations around the planet. This follows from a shared experience of “enclosure”—the dispossession, expropriation and fencing-in effected, across a wide variety of economic, social and psychological registers, by the forces of a globally triumphant world-market. A case study connects two aspects of this proc…
Species‐Being Resurgent
The New Combinations: Revolt of the Global Value-Subjects
First it fenced off the land Then it metered the water It measured our time It plundered our bodies and now it polices our dreams We cannot be contained We are not for sale Leave capital to enclose itself
Riot Platforms: Protest, Police, Planet
A wave of urban uprisings swept the planet from 2018 to 2021, throwing protesters into violent collisions with police, confrontations fought out both in the streets and on digital platforms. This paper proposes successive cycles of digitally‐mediated social unrest are passing into a phase marked by protesters’ assemblage of “riot platforms”. It examines the development of such platforms by movements in France, Hong Kong, Chile, Lebanon, Ecuador a…
Sur la contestation du capital cognitif: Composition De Classe De l'Industrie Des Jeux Vidéo Et Sur Ordinateur
Si le capital cognitif constitue un régime mettant sur le marché des processus digitalisés fonctionnant en réseaux, les jeux vidéo et sur ordinateur sont parmi ses composantes les plus importantes. L'article traite de la constitution transnationale d'une industrie des jeux dans laquelle le logiciel joue un rôle central. La composition de classe formée de « travailleurs de la connaissance », de « prosumers », et du « nouveau prolétariat du Hard » …
Empire, Immaterial Labor, the New Combinations, and the Global Worker
(2001). Empire, Immaterial Labor, the New Combinations, and the Global Worker. Rethinking Marxism: Vol. 13, No. 3-4, pp. 70-80
Nintendo Capitalism: Enclosures and Insurgencies, Virtual and Terrestrial
This study develops the premise that “the commons” is today emerging as a crucial concept for activists and thinkers involved in myriad mobilizations around the planet. This follows from a shared experience of “enclosure”—the dispossession, expropriation and fencing-in effected, across a wide variety of economic, social and psychological registers, by the forces of a globally triumphant world-market. A case study connects two aspects of this proc…
The New Combinations: Revolt of the Global Value-Subjects
First it fenced off the land Then it metered the water It measured our time It plundered our bodies and now it polices our dreams We cannot be contained We are not for sale Leave capital to enclose itself
Sur la contestation du capital cognitif: Composition De Classe De l'Industrie Des Jeux Vidéo Et Sur Ordinateur
Si le capital cognitif constitue un régime mettant sur le marché des processus digitalisés fonctionnant en réseaux, les jeux vidéo et sur ordinateur sont parmi ses composantes les plus importantes. L'article traite de la constitution transnationale d'une industrie des jeux dans laquelle le logiciel joue un rôle central. La composition de classe formée de « travailleurs de la connaissance », de « prosumers », et du « nouveau prolétariat du Hard » …
Digital Play: The Interaction of Technology, Culture, and Marketing
In a marketplace that demands perpetual upgrades, the survival of interactive play ultimately depends on the adroit management of negotiations between game producers and youthful consumers of this new medium. The authors suggest a model of expansion that encompasses technological innovation, game design, and marketing practices. Their case study of video gaming exposes fundamental tensions between the opposing forces of continuity and change in t…
The Return of Species-Being
Species‐Being Resurgent
The Political Economy of Canada’s Video and Computer Game Industry
Video and computer games are a burgeoning new media industry with global revenues rivaling those of film and music. This article, reporting on a three-year SSHRC-funded research project, analyzes the political economy of Canadian involvement in the interactive game business. After an overview of companies, ownership, markets and regional distribution, it discusses the developmental dynamics and contradictions of the Canadian industry in terms of …
EA Spouse” and the Crisis of Video Game Labour: Enjoyment, Exclusion, Exploitation, Exodus
The blog postings of “EA Spouse,” partner of an exhausted video game programmer, have catalyzed discussion of epidemic overwork in the digital play industry. This paper analyzes the crisis of labour in this glamorous new medium. After a brief overview of the industry and its production process, we discuss its labour conditions under four headings. “Enjoyment” examines the real pleasures game workers find at their jobs. “Exclusion” discusses the g…
Reprogramming Japan: The High Tech Crisis Under Communitarian Capitalism
Reprogramming Japan: The High Tech Crisis Under Communitarian Capitalism. By Marie Anchordoguy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005. 257p. $39.95. Over the last 20 years, Japan has passed from wunderkind of global capitalism to problem child, troubled by recession and stagnation. Marie Anchordoguy's Reprogramming Japan joins the growing body of analysis diagnosing this sad falling off, focusing on the crisis of the high-technology sectors …
Playing on the digital commons: Collectivities, capital and contestation in videogame culture
This article examines the complex relation of commodity and commons regimes in video and computer game culture. Digital play is today both a multibillion business and the site of numerous ‘do it yourself’ practices of production and reproduction, ranging from warez networks and abandonware archives through ‘modding’ (game modification) and machinima-making to the player-created content of massively multiplayer online games. Such practices are var…
Karl Marx @ Internet Studies
The task of this paper is to point out the relevance of Karl Marx for Internet Studies. Marxian concepts that have been reflected implicitly or explicitly in Internet Studies include: (1) dialectics; (2) capitalism; (3) commodity/commodification; (4) surplus value, exploitation, alienation, class; (5) globalization; (6) ideology/ideology critique; (7) art and aesthetics; (8) class struggle; (9) commons; (10) public sphere; (11) communism. The pap…
Prolegomenon to a theory of slump media
Cyber-Proletariat: Global Labour in the Digital Vortex
Cyberwar and Revolution: Digital Subterfuge in Global Capitalism
Inhuman Power: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Capitalism
Left Populism and Platform Capitalism
This paper contextualizes and analyses the policy proposals of new “left populisms” (Mouffe 2018) for the regulation and reform of the “platform capitalism” (Srnicek 2017) that increasingly organizes digital communication. The era of the 2008 crash and subsequent recession saw the emergence in North America and Europe of new left-wing electoral initiatives, either as new parties or fractions within older parties. These include, in the USA, Bernie…
Postscript: Gaming While Empire Burns
Responding to a journal issue revisiting Games of Empire, this article begins by surveying the state of digital play amid a conjuncture of pandemic lockdown, anti-racism protest, and looming recession. We go on to address criticism of our book’s outlook on “games of multitude” in the face of the reactionary side of gaming culture expressed by Gamergate. We next outline elements of a research itinerary, were we to update our book’s project, includ…
The state of the commons: Commoners, populists, and communards
“Commons” has been a concept crucial to movements opposing twenty-first century capitalism, and nowhere more so than in the field of communication, where it has underpinned critique of the commodification of digital networks. Yet the ideas about commons articulated at the turn of the millennium by anti-capitalist movements today show signs of exhaustion and disintegration. One reason is their failure to adequately reckon with the power of the mod…
Riot Platforms: Protest, Police, Planet
A wave of urban uprisings swept the planet from 2018 to 2021, throwing protesters into violent collisions with police, confrontations fought out both in the streets and on digital platforms. This paper proposes successive cycles of digitally‐mediated social unrest are passing into a phase marked by protesters’ assemblage of “riot platforms”. It examines the development of such platforms by movements in France, Hong Kong, Chile, Lebanon, Ecuador a…
Political science (15 works) · Law (13 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Economics (10 works) · Politics (10 works) · Law (9 works) · Digital Games and Media (8 works) · Capitalism (6 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · Art (5 works)