• DOI:10.1177/1367877909337858
• Corpus ID: 144865243

America Online volunteers

@article{Postigo2009AmericaOV,
  title={America Online volunteers},
  author={Hector Postigo},
  journal={International Journal of Cultural Studies},
  year={2009},
  volume={12},
  pages={451 - 469}
}

• Hector Postigo
• Published 1 September 2009
• Business
• International Journal of Cultural Studies

• This article continues previous work that analysed the case of America Online (AOL) volunteers from critical perspectives of immaterial and free labor, and incorporates newly acquired documents and interviews by the United States Department of Labor (DOL) with volunteers. Specifically, this article puts forth the AOL volunteers’ case as an instance of co-production that eventually met its demise when organizational changes resulted in the rise of a labor consciousness among some volunteers that made the ongoing relationship impossible. This article shows the types of co-productive labor that took place during the height of the AOL/volunteer relationship and the structures put in place to help AOL harness the power of a free distributed workforce. The research posits that the success of the co-productive relationship was a function of a balance between a numbers of elements: (1) the perceived reasonable compensation on the part of volunteers, (2) social factors and attitudes towards work such as a sense of community, creativity, and (3) a sense of accomplishment. •