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The Limits of Neoliberalism: How Writers and Editors Use Digital Technologies in the Literary Field

Communication and Information Technologies Annual

ISBN: 978-1-78560-785-1, eISBN: 978-1-78560-784-4

Publication date: 23 February 2016

Abstract

Purpose

Given the increasing use of social media and other digital technologies, critical theorists argue that social life has become increasingly structured by neoliberal market logics. Little research has empirically tested these claims.

Methodology/approach

This study is the first to examine whether the use of digital technologies in the avant-garde literary field is accompanied by neoliberal logics. Developing a cultural logics approach to neoliberalism, which allows for the identification of the independent logics of entrepreneurship, market-faith, profit-maximization, efficiency, and individualism, I draw on archival data and interviews with editors and writers to explore the relationship between digital technologies and neoliberalism.

Findings

Editors and writers legitimate some neoliberal logics and reject others. Entrepreneurship and efficiency are strongly legitimated. Profit-maximization is generally rejected. Market-faith and individualism are legitimated differently by editors and writers who occupy different positions within the field, drawing attention to the importance of field position, organizational affiliation, and career exhaustion in the use of digital technologies in the avant-garde literary world. Many of these findings are surprising given the historically non-economic orientation of the field.

Research implications

Future research should explore neoliberal logics in other aspects of literary production and in other social domains.

Originality/value

This study provides a novel approach to the study of neoliberal logics as well as their relationship to digital technologies. Such an approach complements recent agendas in economic sociology and contributes to debates about the relationship between new technologies and capitalism.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgments

I thank Asad L. Asad, Stefan Beljean, Phillipa Chong, Michèle Lamont, Jasmin Sandelson, Alix S. Winter, and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. This material is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Any opinion, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Citation

Clair, M. (2016), "The Limits of Neoliberalism: How Writers and Editors Use Digital Technologies in the Literary Field", Communication and Information Technologies Annual (Studies in Media and Communications, Vol. 11), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 169-201. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2050-206020160000011018

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited