A new middle-class fraction with a distinct subjectivity: Tech workers and the transformation of the entrepreneurial self

Abstract

With the rise of digital capitalism, a novel occupational segment has emerged: so-called ‘tech workers’. Members of this grouping render and encode the digital technologies that permeate contemporary social life. While there are many studies about highly precarious digital labourers, research on these digital professionals remains scarce. Based on 40 original interviews, the article explores the subjectivity of tech workers. Specifically, it asks whether understandings of middle-class employees as entrepreneurial selves with a holistic market orientation hold true for this grouping, or whether new cultures of subjectivation are emerging. The key finding from these interviews is that tech workers show contours of a post-neoliberal subjectivity. While the figure of the entrepreneurial self remains an alluring force, this study detected four transformative cultures of subjectivation: (1) a return of the critique of economic inequality; (2) a concern for diversity; (3) an ethic of mindfulness; and (4) a lifestyle that signals ordinariness. These distinct forms of subjectivity point to the formation of a new middle-class fraction. However, drawing on the sociology of critique, this article also considers how this transformation of subjectivity can be appropriated as yet another new spirit of capitalism.

Algorithms and hegemony in the workplace: Negotiating design and values in an Italian television platform

“…Specifically, it shows how algorithms are designed and enacted within the corporate environment of an Italian television platform/subscription streaming service and sheds light on the internal relational dynamics whereby algorithmic media take shape. Given this scenario, these findings also give a contribution to the stream of research focused on digital labour and, in particular, on the experiences of tech workers, i.e., the increasing white-collar workforce in charge of programming algorithmic media (e.g., Dorschel, 2021; 2022). By examining a case study focused on how tech workers and their superiors participate in the production of algorithms, this paper has explored how the subalternity of DSs and colleagues is constructed and resisted within the corporate environment.…”

“…Overall, all these contributions argue that to better understand which are the principles shaping digital platforms and their unfolding at the material level, it is necessary to investigate the people, settings and actions involved in their design. This tenet can be considered directly or indirectly in continuity with the tradition of media production studies (e.g., Banks et al, 2015), but the novelty is the focus on an emerging grouping of professionals, i.e., tech workers, 'a new middle-class fraction' holding 'inscription power in rendering and encoding the digital technologies that shape the spheres of work and life' (Dorschel, 2022(Dorschel, : 1303. If algorithms are 'opinions embedded in mathematics' (O'Neil, 2016: 21), the specific cultural values and behaviours of this 'coding elite' (Burrell and Fourcade, 2021), of their superiors and their companies, and their following interrelation within the hierarchical setting of the workplace, play a role in each stage of algorithmic design and can shed light on how algorithms are enacted.…”

Liberal and anti-establishment: An exploration of the political ideologies of American tech workers

“…That should be especially true in the case of tech workers. First, they tend to infuse their work with a political purpose (Dorschel, 2022b;Irani, 2019). Second, being well-educated and highly skilled gives tech workers power inside their firms (Briscoe & Gupta, 2016;Michaels et al, 2001).…”

“…There is even less research when we shift our attention to tech workers. Tech workers are those employed by tech firms to develop, design, and manage digital technologies and digitally-mediated services (Dorschel, 2022a(Dorschel, , 2022b. While the term mostly refers to professionals who work in internet-related companies, we use it to denote the broader category of employees who develop, design, and manage technology for tech sector firms.…”

“…However, they do not distinguish tech workers from tech leaders, control for other factors that might drive these patterns (such as geographical location), or unravel whether we should attribute these results to the profession or the organizational field. Although some qualitative work has begun to examine tech workers' worldviews (Dorschel, 2022b), the lack of broader systematic and quantitative efforts limits our abilities to understand this increasingly important professional category. Thus, we ask: What are the political ideologies of tech workers?…”