The Reputation Economy Understanding Knowledge Work in Digital Society

Exploring the new professional scenes in digital and freelance knowledge, this innovative book provides an account of the subjects and cultures that pertain to knowledge work in the aftermath of the creative class frenzy. Including a broad spectrum of empirical projects, The Reputation Economy documents the rise of freelancing and digital professions and argues about the central role held by reputation within this context, offering a comprehensive interpretation of the digital transformation of knowledge work. The book shows how digital technologies are not simply intermediating productive and organizational processes, allowing new ways for supply and demand to meet, but actually enable the diffusion of cultural conceptions of work and value that promise to become the new standard of the industry.

Introduction. Beyond the "creative class" vision.- 1-  The rise of a freelance economy.- 2- Reputation, the social capital of a digital society.- 3- Urban digital work: the cases of London and Milan.- 4- Working online: an exploration of Social Recruiting and Digital Marketplaces.- 5- Understanding digital work as venture labour.- 6-  Co-working: the freelance mode of organization?.- Conclusion. The aftermath of neo-liberalism and the future of the Left.- Bibliography.- Index. 

Alessandro Gandini is a lecturer in the Media department of Middlesex University, London, UK, and is research active at the Centre for Digital Ethnography, University of Milan, Italy.