Michael Palm
Biographic Data
| ID | 3640988 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michael Palm |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michael |
| FAMILY NAME | Palm |
| SIGNATURE | PALM M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3068-8144 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 27 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 13 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Selling in place: The home as virtual storefront
Keywords authenticity, craft and DIY cultures, e-commerce, entrepreneurialism, gender, nostalgia, platforms, retail, social media
Shelter skelter: Record stores during the pandemic and the new selling of old stuff
In this essay I draw on observations about how the pandemic impacted sales of vinyl records, in order to describe a (further) dis-embedding of brick-and-mortar second-hand stores from their local economies and communities. Before the pandemic, the majority of vinyl was already being purchased online; while buyers and sellers were sheltering in place, the vinyl marketplace’s reliance on the internet became total, and vinyl traffic skewed more than…
More than a number: The telephone and the history of digital identification
This article examines the telephone’s entangled history within contemporary infrastructural systems of ‘big data’, identity and, ultimately, surveillance. It explores the use of telephone numbers, keypads and wires to offer new perspective on the imbrication of telephonic information, interface and infrastructure within contemporary surveillance regimes. The article explores telephone exchanges as arbiters of cultural identities, keypads as the f…
Brick-and-Platform: Listing Labor in the Digital Vintage Economy
Vintage goods are valued for their nostalgic association with pre-digital modes of production, but their contemporary trafficking is increasingly organized by processes of platformization. The central component of what we call 'listing labor in the digital vintage economy' is the online display of collectible merchandise, but listing labor also entails promoting sellers' brands on social media and using sales platforms and other logistical media …
Cash and Dash: How ATMs and Computers Changed Banking, by Bernardo Bátiz-Lazo
Despite (or perhaps because of) the ATM’s ubiquity, its story remained largely untold. Bernardo Batiz-Lazo has authoritatively filled that gap. Drawing on more than a decade of research (that has r
Then press enter: Digital payment technology and the history of telephone interface
The internet and other digital networks in the U.S. (and beyond) remain essentially an upgrade of the national telephone network built by AT&T over the first half of the twentieth century, and digital payment remains tethered to telephony at the level of infrastructure. Telephone history also continues to inform digital payment at the level of interface. Debit card readers feature a keypad nearly identical to those introduced (also by AT&T) to th…
Analog backlog: Pressing records during the vinyl revival
After sustained growth for over a decade among independent record labels and retail outlets, major labels and chain stores embraced vinyl records as a growth sector, and for the first time in half a century, demand began outpacing supply. In this essay, I analyze recent trends of vinyl traffic and critique a prominent feature of contemporary vinyl culture: Record Store Day. The annual holiday has boosted vinyl sales while become an inflationary e…
Media independence: Working with freedom or working for free
Technologies of Consumer Labor: A History of Self-Service
This book documents and examines the history of technology used by consumers to serve oneself. The telephone’s development as a self-service technology functions as the narrative spine, beginning with the advent of rotary dialing eliminating most operator services and transforming every local connection into an instance of self-service. Today, nearly a century later, consumers manipulate 0-9 keypads on a plethora of digital machines. Throughout t…
Technologies of Consumer Labor: A History of Self-Service
Contributions to a Conjunctural Theory of Valuation
Debates over the nature of contemporary capitalism, further stimulated by its most recent financial crisis, have led to a renewed problematization of value. Existing understandings of the process of valuation may not make visible what is new or unique in the contemporary conjuncture. This paper presents a diagram of value transformations that is conjunctural in that it arises out of and responds to the conjuncture. It describes the complexity of …
Labor’s New Empire
Within communication studies today, the term labor is being employed more often and with more variety than at any time in the discipline’s history. What role did the Empire phenomenon play in this recent promotion of labor into such a fungible and expansive category? Contemporary theories and analyses of communication are largely dispensing with traditional oppositions like production and consumption, labor and leisure, or everyday life and any o…
Outsourcing, Self-Service and the Telemobility of Work
Media independence: Working with freedom or working for free
Contributions to a Conjunctural Theory of Valuation
Debates over the nature of contemporary capitalism, further stimulated by its most recent financial crisis, have led to a renewed problematization of value. Existing understandings of the process of valuation may not make visible what is new or unique in the contemporary conjuncture. This paper presents a diagram of value transformations that is conjunctural in that it arises out of and responds to the conjuncture. It describes the complexity of …
Outsourcing, Self-Service and the Telemobility of Work
Brick-and-Platform: Listing Labor in the Digital Vintage Economy
Vintage goods are valued for their nostalgic association with pre-digital modes of production, but their contemporary trafficking is increasingly organized by processes of platformization. The central component of what we call 'listing labor in the digital vintage economy' is the online display of collectible merchandise, but listing labor also entails promoting sellers' brands on social media and using sales platforms and other logistical media …
Outsourcing, Self-Service and the Telemobility of Work
Labor’s New Empire
Within communication studies today, the term labor is being employed more often and with more variety than at any time in the discipline’s history. What role did the Empire phenomenon play in this recent promotion of labor into such a fungible and expansive category? Contemporary theories and analyses of communication are largely dispensing with traditional oppositions like production and consumption, labor and leisure, or everyday life and any o…
Contributions to a Conjunctural Theory of Valuation
Debates over the nature of contemporary capitalism, further stimulated by its most recent financial crisis, have led to a renewed problematization of value. Existing understandings of the process of valuation may not make visible what is new or unique in the contemporary conjuncture. This paper presents a diagram of value transformations that is conjunctural in that it arises out of and responds to the conjuncture. It describes the complexity of …
Technologies of Consumer Labor: A History of Self-Service
This book documents and examines the history of technology used by consumers to serve oneself. The telephone’s development as a self-service technology functions as the narrative spine, beginning with the advent of rotary dialing eliminating most operator services and transforming every local connection into an instance of self-service. Today, nearly a century later, consumers manipulate 0-9 keypads on a plethora of digital machines. Throughout t…
Technologies of Consumer Labor: A History of Self-Service
Analog backlog: Pressing records during the vinyl revival
After sustained growth for over a decade among independent record labels and retail outlets, major labels and chain stores embraced vinyl records as a growth sector, and for the first time in half a century, demand began outpacing supply. In this essay, I analyze recent trends of vinyl traffic and critique a prominent feature of contemporary vinyl culture: Record Store Day. The annual holiday has boosted vinyl sales while become an inflationary e…
Media independence: Working with freedom or working for free
Then press enter: Digital payment technology and the history of telephone interface
The internet and other digital networks in the U.S. (and beyond) remain essentially an upgrade of the national telephone network built by AT&T over the first half of the twentieth century, and digital payment remains tethered to telephony at the level of infrastructure. Telephone history also continues to inform digital payment at the level of interface. Debit card readers feature a keypad nearly identical to those introduced (also by AT&T) to th…
Cash and Dash: How ATMs and Computers Changed Banking, by Bernardo Bátiz-Lazo
Despite (or perhaps because of) the ATM’s ubiquity, its story remained largely untold. Bernardo Batiz-Lazo has authoritatively filled that gap. Drawing on more than a decade of research (that has r
Brick-and-Platform: Listing Labor in the Digital Vintage Economy
Vintage goods are valued for their nostalgic association with pre-digital modes of production, but their contemporary trafficking is increasingly organized by processes of platformization. The central component of what we call 'listing labor in the digital vintage economy' is the online display of collectible merchandise, but listing labor also entails promoting sellers' brands on social media and using sales platforms and other logistical media …
More than a number: The telephone and the history of digital identification
This article examines the telephone’s entangled history within contemporary infrastructural systems of ‘big data’, identity and, ultimately, surveillance. It explores the use of telephone numbers, keypads and wires to offer new perspective on the imbrication of telephonic information, interface and infrastructure within contemporary surveillance regimes. The article explores telephone exchanges as arbiters of cultural identities, keypads as the f…
Selling in place: The home as virtual storefront
Keywords authenticity, craft and DIY cultures, e-commerce, entrepreneurialism, gender, nostalgia, platforms, retail, social media
Shelter skelter: Record stores during the pandemic and the new selling of old stuff
In this essay I draw on observations about how the pandemic impacted sales of vinyl records, in order to describe a (further) dis-embedding of brick-and-mortar second-hand stores from their local economies and communities. Before the pandemic, the majority of vinyl was already being purchased online; while buyers and sellers were sheltering in place, the vinyl marketplace’s reliance on the internet became total, and vinyl traffic skewed more than…
Business (9 works) · Digital Economy and Work Transformation (7 works) · Advertising (5 works) · Economics (5 works) · Political science (5 works) · Computer Science (4 works) · Sociology (4 works) · Commerce (3 works) · Cultural Industries and Urban Development (3 works) · Finance (3 works)