在西方很多学者都聚焦于数字劳工，但中国对数字劳工的研究还存在相当的空间。数字劳工不仅仅包括传媒产业中的数字劳工，还应该包括制造电子和科技产品的工人，更有网络“玩工”。因此，编者将目前西方学者对于数字劳工问题研究的最新理论成果成系列出版，称之为《西方媒介和数字劳工研究》。这个系列包括四卷内容，每卷由中英文导言、中文内容介绍以及七至八篇英文论文构成。本书为第一卷：制造和服务业中的数字劳工。

本书弥补了国内学术界对于数字劳工研究的不足，成体系地向中国读者介绍西方最新的数字劳工研究的最新成果，既适合于传播政治经济学理论教学的教材，又适合作为新闻学、社会学、政治学本科生和研究生拓展阅读的教材。

信息技术正在发生巨变，数字世界的下一步革命可能对世界秩序的影响要远远大于之前的互联网。这是因为新的技术带来了三个强有力且相互联系的系统：云计算、大数据分析和物联网（Mosco，2014;Greengard，2015）。它们将数据存储和服务集中于众多的数字化工厂手中，用来处理海量的由网络传感器所收集的信息——这些传感器可能嵌置于消费者、生产部门和办公室的设备抑或活着的个体之中。这些改变带来了大量的挑战，尤其是对劳工来说，而很少有学者意识到这个问题。这也是为什么这套聚焦于数字劳工的丛书如此之及时和至关重要的原因。
　　技术对于工作的影响已经被讨论了很多年，尤其是在第二次世界大战之后，计算机科学家诺伯特·维纳提出自动化而导致大量工作机会流失，引发了公众对此议题大规模的探讨（Wiener，1948）。不可否认的是，数字技术正在创造，并可能持续创造出就业的机会，包括构建数据中心全球网络、数据科学中新的领域和对由互联网连接的物体控制、维持和监控过程中的传统建筑工作，然而，今天新的技术有多得多的机会来抵消人类的劳动，尤其是专业知识劳动。事实上，一位资深的咨询师将云计算定义为“仅仅是你的信息技术运作过程外包的下一步”（McKendrick，2013）。这与一位高德纳研究员简述的信息技术的大体趋势不谋而合，他说道：“信息技术长远的价值属性并不在于支持人力资源，而是取代它。”（Dignan，2011a）数字技术正在创造出使得公司即刻就能将其信息技术运行过程合理化的机会。高德纳的研究员再一次强调：“首席信息官相信他们的数据中心、服务器、桌面和商业应用软件总体上来说是效率低下的，并需要在将来的十年内对其不断调整，使之合理化。我们相信与这些无效率资产联系在一起的工作人员也会随着这个过程而大规模地被合理化。”（Dignan，2011a）
　　依赖于数字技术的公司主张：数字技术的体系会打破商业组织模式，而这种打破随着第一台大型计算机进入工作场所就开始了。从那以后，所有的商业和政府机构坚持运营它们自己的信息技术部门，大公司坚持运营自己的数据中心。现在新体系的支持者认为，当许多大型的数据中心可以以更少的成本和专业人员来满足这些需要的时候，建造和运行这些数以千计、每个组织专门的设备就不再重要。这个过程早已经开始，先期的研究表明即使对于信息技术部门有限地“瘦身”，公司仍可以削减其15%-20%的信息技术预算（Howlett，2014）。
　　新技术同样使得对所有知识和创造性劳动普遍的合理化过程成为可能，因为这些职业的工作不断地涉及信息的生产、处理和传播。一位观察者发现：“在接下来的40年间，分析系统将取代今天知识劳工所从事的大部分工作。”（Dignan，2011b）2013年的一份报告指出，当今美国几乎二分之一的劳工正在受到直接失业的威胁，处于失业的高风险范围之内（Frey and Osbome，2013），尽管机器和劳工在工作中的具体比例尚未得知，但当今借助软件用机器系统取代知识劳工工作的趋势不可抵挡。我们开始看到这些改变对教育、医疗、法律、会计、金融、销售和媒体领域的影响。私营和公共部门的组织正在被鼓励将其核心业务过程外的所有业务外包给诸如Salesforce.com等公司——它们专门从事管理客户信息庞大的数据，这项工作通常由公司内市场和客服部门负责。
　　不断外包给计算机的工作的增多对弹性生产的整个全球系统带来了严重的问题。高德纳指出：“这一结果将对所有经济体产生影响——尤其是像印度这样的新兴经济体，现在正主导着技术外包。”（Dignan，2011a）新数字技术同样扩大了潜在的外包实践的范围。这可能是一句大话，但就像《福布斯杂志》指出的那样，“我们现在都是外包方”，且外包可能的形式不断多样化：“外包不再以百万美元大贸易为特征，在这些交易中信息技术部门的运作过程交由第三方负责。相反，许多小事情的点点滴滴渐渐地交由外部的实体负责。”（McKendrick，2014）数字技术的下一步革命已经改变了劳动的过程。

复旦大学法学学士、复旦大学管理学硕士、加拿大皇后大学(Queen’s University) 社会学博士，上海市浦江人才，现任职于复旦大学新闻学院。
主要著作：
（英文）Jianhua Yao. 2014. Knowledge Workers in Contemporary China: Reform and
Resistance in the Publishing Industry. Lanham: Lexington Books.
（中文译著）《政治的道德基础》（三联书店，2008）、《批判媒介理论》（复旦大学出版社，2010）、《美国的公共政策》（复旦大学出版社，2010）、《传播政治经济学》（译文出版社，2015）
国家科研项目：国家社科中华外译项目：《当代中国出版改革中的知识劳工》（项目编号
14wxw001, 资助金额 30万）

导言
第一章 数字劳工：阶级、数字鸿沟与性别
1．数字时代的阶级基础：生活、劳动和价值
2．数字鸿沟下的劳动
3．性别化的未来？女性、信息和通信技术工厂与未来的故事

第二章 制造业中的数字劳工
4．作为信息时代黑暗面的富士康劳工：中国苹果合同制造商企业中的工作环境
5．“光明和移动的未来”：苹果和谷歌移动应用程序开发者研究

第三章 服务业中的数字劳工
6．地下潜流：传播资本主义与呼叫中心劳工
7．印度信息技术和信息技术化服务业中工会和劳工组织的前景

The National Telecommunication and Information Administration's (NTIA) first investigation of the digital divide constructs a hard technologically determinist logic that views information technology as a social motor and, more specifically, as a means to attain wealth (U.S. Department of Commerce, 1995). The NTIA bases its study of 'information haves' and 'have-nots' on the assumption that the USA has become 'a society where individuals' economic and social well being increasingly depend[s] on their ability to access, accumulate, and assimilate information' and that 'while a standard telephone line can be an individual's pathway to the riches of the Information Age, a personal computer and modem are rapidly becoming the keys to the vault' (U.S. Department of Commerce, 1995).[5 ] Accessing information technologies, in other words,unlocks the new economy's coffers.
　　From this hard determinist view of computer technologies as vehicles for social mobility, the NTIA fashions a new demographic category of oppressed individuals, 'the information disadvantaged', whom the report seeks to 'empower'. Policy interventions, NTIA asserts, require 'identifying those who are truly in need [so that] policy makers can prudently and efficiently target support to these information disadvantaged ...' The notion of information havenots is innovative for serving as a euphemistic synecdoche for what causes and constitutes poverty. While filtering out questions of race, class, and gender as explanations for economic disadvantage, 'information disadvantaged' constructs lack of access to information technology as a deficit in social resources.Expanding diffusion of telecommunication media, then, promises to eliminate such disparity. However, boosting computer consumption not equality is the telos of NTIA's study.[6] Therefore, whatever connection to a civil rights movement the study means to invoke by calling for empowerment of 'the information disadvantaged' collapses when we recognize that consumption serves as the criterion for judging equality. Such vocabulary, moreover, serves marketing ends rather than the public interest.
　　As the 'new economy' wore on and its outlook brightened, the NTIA maintained its hard dividist position by crediting computer technology with creating wealth. According to the NTIA's 1999 report: 'The Internet is a nascent, rapidly diffusing technology that promises to become the economic underpinning for all successful countries in the new global economy' (U.S. Department of Commerce, 1999). Under George W. Bush, the NTIA again underscores information technologies' contribution to economic growth: 'The expanding use of new technologies continues to strengthen our economy ...As [new electronic] connections open new economic opportunities for more Americans, it is important that all segments of our Nation are included in this ongoing information revolution' (U.S. Department of Commerce, 2002). Despite the onset of a national recession in 2001 and a 'jobless recovery' the following year, extending intemet access promises prosperity on a global and individual level.
　　Like the NTIA studies, academic analyses of the first wave of digital divide research assume a hard technologically determinist view that information technologies enable economic advancement. One widely referenced study, Hoffman et al.'s (2001) 'The Evolution of the Digital Divide: Examining the Relationship of Race to Intemet Access and Usage over Time', operationalizes the digital divide as the extent to which individuals access and use the intemet.[7]
　　Hoffman et al. analyze the 'evolution' ofintemet access and use among African Americans, whites, and Hispanics in the USA from 1997 to 1998 and further break down use pattems according to income, gender, student status, level of education, presence of children in the home, and home computer ownership. Operationalizing the digital divide in this way evinces a hard technological determinism, as it implies an overarching concem with the physical presence of computers, net connections, and the frequency of access to such technologies.
　　Furthermore, the authors suggest that technological access brings economic and political rewards: 'the Intemet may provide for equal economic opportunity and democratic communication, but only for those with access' (2001: 50). Hoffman et al. intend their study to 'stimulate discussion among scholars and policy makers interested in how differences in Internet access and use among different segments in our society [affect] their ability to participate and reap the rewards of that participation in the emerging digital economy' (p. 50). Closing the gap in access and use between whites and African Americans requires support for community, school, and other public access terminals, content that entices African Americans, and policy changes that encourage cable and satellite internet delivery, because African Americans' consumption of cable and satellite services is increasing. Since internet access and use are correlated with education, the authors also advise: 'To ensure the participation of all Americans in the information revolution, it is critical to improve the educational opportunities for African Americans' (p. 94). Education, in other words, is a vehicle for, rather than an effect of, more widely diffusing internet technology.
　　……