POLICY IMPLICATIONS OF VIRTUAL WORK EPdaimteedl ab yMeil and Vassil Kirov Dynamics of Virtual Work Series Editors Ursula Huws De Havilland Campus Hertfordshire Business School Hatfield, UK Rosalind Gill Department of Sociology City University London London, UK Technological change has transformed where people work, when and how. Digitisation of information has altered labour processes out of all recognition whilst telecommunications have enabled jobs to be relocated globally. ICTs have also enabled the creation of entirely new types of ‘digital’ or ‘virtual’ labour, both paid and unpaid, shifting the borderline between ‘play’ and ‘work’ and creating new types of unpaid labour con- nected with the consumption and co-creation of goods and services. This affects private life as well as transforming the nature of work and peo- ple experience the impacts differently depending on their gender, their age, where they live and what work they do. Aspects of these changes have been studied separately by many different academic experts how- ever up till now a cohesive overarching analytical framework has been lacking. Drawing on a major, high-profile COST Action (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) Dynamics of Virtual Work, this series will bring together leading international experts from a wide range of disciplines including political economy, labour sociology, eco- nomic geography, communications studies, technology, gender studies, social psychology, organisation studies, industrial relations and develop- ment studies to explore the transformation of work and labour in the Internet Age. The series will allow researchers to speak across disciplin- ary boundaries, national borders, theoretical and political vocabularies, and different languages to understand and make sense of contemporary transformations in work and social life more broadly. The book series will build on and extend this, offering a new, important and intellec- tually exciting intervention into debates about work and labour, social theory, digital culture, gender, class, globalisation and economic, social and political change. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/14954 Pamela Meil • Vassil Kirov Editors Policy Implications of Virtual Work Editors Pamela Meil Vassil Kirov Institute for Social Science Research Institute for the Study of Societies and ISF Munich Knowledge Munich, Germany Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Sofia, Bulgaria Dynamics of Virtual Work ISBN 978-3-319-52056-8 ISBN 978-3-319-52057-5 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-52057-5 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017930263 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and trans- mission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover image: © cosmin4000 / Getty Images Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Acknowledgements This book is one part of a series coming out of the work undertaken by a network of researchers from 31 European countries who partici- pated in network meetings, workshops, conferences, and other related events on the subject of the dynamics of virtual work over a four-year period (2012–2016). The network (IS 2102) was funded by the COST Association, which is supported by the EU Framework Programme Horizon 2020 and promotes trans-national cooperation among research- ers, scholars, and policy experts across Europe. The network was divided into four working groups on themes sur- rounding the many facets of virtual work and its impact on a changing world of work. This book is the product of the “policy” group, whose par- ticular task was to identify the implications emerging from virtual work processes on workers, the organization of work, and regulatory policy out of the diverse fields and subjects covered in the research of the network members. What emerged is not your usual policy book. It is, however, a good reflection of the network: its diversity, innovative thinking, and incredibly rich and broad knowledge base. We thank the COST Association for making it possible for such a diverse group in terms of nationality and interdisciplinarity to meet and share their research and also for the additional funding they provided for the dissemination of the policy book in particular. v vi Acknowledgements We also thank the members of the network who contributed and par- ticipated in the policy working group as well as those from outside the network who attended and presented at our dedicated policy workshops as well as the sessions on policy at larger events. A great group of people from academia, policy institutes, unions, the European Commission, the International Labour Organization (ILO), and so on came together to make sense of digitalization and its effects and implications for the world of work. We hope that the fruitful dialogue and exchange that began in the framework of the network on the dynamics of virtual work will con- tinue even though the action is formally over. A thank you also to the team at Palgrave who oversaw the entire pro- cess, answered all of our questions, and put the book on a turbo course to completion. Thanks to Frank Seiss from Institute for Social Science Research (ISF), Muenchen, who is good at making order out of chaos. Finally, as this book shows, the dynamics of virtual work network brought together an amazingly diverse group of people from a broad range of backgrounds including sociology, media and cultural studies, political science, development studies, industrial relations, economists, and so on who also came from all over Europe. This could be a recipe for disaster. What it requires for success is for the head of the action to have a vision and a very powerful work ethic. We were lucky enough to have this in the person of Ursula Huws. The policy group in particular owes her a huge debt of gratitude for her support, guidance, expertise, and commitment. Pamela Meil Vassil Kirov Acknowledgemen ts vii COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) is a pan- European intergovernmental framework. Its mission is to enable break- through scientific and technological developments leading to new concepts and products and thereby contribute to strengthening Europe’s research and innovation capacities. It allows researchers, engineers and scholars to jointly develop their own ideas and take new initiatives across all fields of science and technology, while promoting multi- and interdisciplinary approaches. COST aims at fostering a better integration of less research intensive countries to the knowledge hubs of the European Research Area. The COST Association, an International not-for-profit Association under Belgian Law, integrates all management, governing and administrative functions necessary for the operation of the framework. The COST Association has currently 36 Member Countries. www.cost.eu COST is supported by the EU Framework Programme Horizon 2020 This publication is based upon work from COST Action (Policy Implications of Virtual Work), supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology). Contents Part I Concepts and Debates 1 1 I ntroduction: The Policy Implications of Virtual Work 3 Pamela Meil and Vassil Kirov 2 W here Did Online Platforms Come From? The Virtualization of Work Organization and the  New Policy Challenges it Raises 29 Ursula Huws Part II Measuring Virtual Work 49 3 C rowd Employment and ICT-Based Mobile Work—New Employment Forms in Europe 51 Irene Mandl and Maurizio Curtarelli Part III Discourses and Principles of Regulation 81 ix x Contents 4 R egulating the Void: Online Participatory Cultures, User-Generated Content, and the  Digital Agenda for Europe 83 Bjarki Valtysson 5 Th e Imperative of Code: Labor, Regulation and Legitimacy 109 Shenja van der Graaf and Eran Fisher Part IV Sharing, Cooperating and Streaming in the Digital Economy 137 6 A ssessing Music Streaming and Industry Disruptions 139 Daniel Nordgård 7 I nformation and Communication Technologies, Citizens, and Parliament in Portugal: The Continued E-Democracy Gap and Lessons from the Obama Experience 165 Carlos Cunha and Filipa Seiceira 8 S haring Economy as an Urban Phenomenon: Examining Policies for Sharing Cities 199 Silvia Mazzucotelli Salice and Ivana Pais Part V Organizing, Protecting and Regulating Labor 229 9 W orkers, Contradictions and Digital Commodity Chains: Organizing with Content Creators in Canada 231 Karen Wirsig and James Compton