A Desirable Future: Uber as Image-Making in Winnipeg

Abstract

This paper investigates the sociotechnical imaginary surrounding Uber’s supposedly imminent arrival in Winnipeg, through an examination of communication in the public sphere. We examine how actors mobilized their communicative resources in efforts to either bring ride-hailing or keep it away. For some advocates, ride-hailing technology was less important than Uber’s symbolic value of building Winnipeg’s image as an innovative city. Media coverage contrasted innovation and Uber with Winnipeg’s anxieties about being behind other cities and its taxi industry’s reputation as stuck in the past. These visions of Winnipeg’s future addressed an unspoken White, middle-class city dweller. While Winnipeg’s transportation industry was shaped by the socially located experiences of racialized immigrant men as taxi drivers and Indigenous women as passengers, these actors had less power to shape the imaginary. Our analysis suggests that cities like Winnipeg view Uber as an image-making product as much as a beneficial service for their citizens.

As Estratégias de Comunicação das Plataformas de Trabalho: Circulação de Sentidos nas Mídias Sociais das Empresas no Brasil

“…Expressions such as "gig economy" and "sharing economy" are also part of this circulation of meanings and are traces of a corporate platform capitalism (Frenken & Schor, 2017;Pasquale, 2016;Scholz, 2016;Srnicek, 2016). These dominant narratives also claim that platforms have no ties to workers and that they are only mediators who help workers -according to the literature on the issue (Dubal, 2019;Gibbings & Taylor, 2019;Karatzogianni & Matthews, 2020;Rosenblat, 2018). The literature on media strategies of platforms in the so-called "global south", especially Latin America, is still underrepresented.…”