Last class we discussed how labor is being delivered in the “mode of information” (Bosquet, page 60), and how everything we want in the material world, we want it to be delivered as easily as the information we search for on Google. We understand that with the rise in use of technology, the amount of money spent as well as human labor is being minimized, but what I don’t understand is why would we want to do this? Sure, everyone in the business world would save a few extra bucks, and laborers wouldn’t have to spend our time working on a task they might not want to do, but if we decide to fully depend on technology for all of our wants and needs, then what are we to do with our education we consumers paid for?

Bosquest uses a quote from Tom Hanks expressing his concern for the growing amount of digitally created actors and the depleting real-life actors, but argues on page sixty that there is still labor out there, it is just not as obvious and more specialized, so continuing with this Hollywood example, Bosquet shows that instead of just using Tom Hanks and paying him the entire sum of money, a movie production might divide up what they would spend on his labor, and give it to several people who would create something similar with the use of technology for a cheaper price. In my opinion, this is a strange mode of production because until recently society had the idea of quality over quantity. Bosquet continues with the notion that though they are differently skilled it does not necessarily mean it is lesser quality (Page 60), but the fact that he has to point out to the reader that using this technique for labor does not mean it is worse shows that there is still a distinction in what society thinks.

This can apply to our idea of education. Though Bosquet shows over and over in his writing that there would be convenience and cheaper labor when it comes to online education, society still has a stigma that it is lesser quality, and so universities have begun to try to operate as cheaply as an online university, saying “the university valorizes the uncompensated labor of the editor of the student newspa- per and its “interns” and “service learners,” together with the “work- study” efforts of its student dining-hall workers, just as easily as it valorizes the radically undercompensated labor of the faculty and graduate students editing a scholarly journal, or its janitors and librarians.” (page 62)

So what am I to do with my Communications degree? By the time I pay for an education and labor through graduate school, will there be an opening or need for my profession or will it be divided amongst several different people? Or worst of all, in my opinion, will I get a job, yet be willing to be paid low rates in order to keep the job?

ENGL