'Paradigm Clash' in the Digital Labor Literature: Reconciling Critical Theory and Interpretive Approach in Empirical Research

Abstract

'Digital labour' has become an umbrella term for the stream of research dealing with web users' participation in digital culture. It critically frames social media participation within a wider political economy of the Internet where it is captured and translated into exchange value for platform providers and powerful organizations. Though it adds a much-needed critical perspective to the discussion on this phenomenon, digital labour theory does not provide sufficient methodological guidelines for social research. This remark applies especially to the problem of including a "micro-perspective" in theory-development, that is, social actors' experiences and perceptions. After performing the pilot literature study, we found that this challenge is recognized by most scholars conducting empirical research referring to digital labour, however, there is little consent of how it could be solved. We argue that this problem may be reframed as an intra-disciplinary "paradigm clash" -- the incommensurability of the critical and the interpretive tradition in social science. We collect preliminary insights from research papers and call for conceptualizations that will inform empirical researchers of how to involve a micro-perspective while building the digital labour theory.