“人气游戏”:网络直播行业的薪资制度与劳动控制

通过研究一个全员皆为网络主播的街头乐队,本文发现网络直播行业的劳动控制模式为“人气游戏”。一方面,人气是劳动考核的重要指标,然而,这一看似客观的数据具有很强的可操纵性,劳资双方都能从假人气中获益,利益得到了调和。劳动者默许平台方对数据的操控行为,但同时丧失了对劳动成果及其数量的控制权,无法厘清劳动付出与薪资的关系。另一方面,主播努力提升自己的人气成为平台经济意识形态支配的切入点。强调个人责任的新自由主义工作伦理掩盖了工作不确定性背后的权力关系,即使面对严重剥削,签约主播仍产生了“命运自主”的意识。“人气游戏”揭示了平台经济模式中劳动控制的两大观念基础--劳动极度商品化和薪资红利化。

The Game of Popularity: Earning System and Labor Control in Live Streaming Industry

The case study in this paper is a street band in Wuhan with its full members under live streamers contract. Borrowing from Michael Burawoy's concept of "the game of making out",this study describes the labor control mechanism in the live streaming industry as "the game of popularity". Popularity as a pivotal indicator of labor price decides the compensation of contracted live streamers. However,this seemingly objective popularity indicator can be in fact manipulated. Both live streamers and platform providers can benefit from fake popularity. In the game of popularity manipulation,the interests of capital and labor are joined,and consensus reached. In collaboration,live streamers become conspirators of the capital and thus lose control of their own labor,and distort the relation between labor input and compensation. By participating in manipulation,live streamers help affirm the ideological domination of platform economy. Neoliberal work ethic that emphasizes individual responsibility conceals the power relationship behind unstable employment like live stream. Despite being horrendously exploited,live streamers still think themselves as someone with "independent destiny". Online platform economy has transformed the labor-capital relationship. The earning distribution system,in combination with other social factors,often plays a vital role in labor control. Therefore,understanding the system and its influence on labor process and ideology is the right way to start for any exploration of concepts such as "industry regime" or "sector regime".