Some recent-ish publications

Experimental Publishing Compendium

Combinatorial Books: Gathering Flowers (book series)

How To Be A Pirate: An Interview with Alexandra Elbakyan and Gary Hall by Holger Briel’.

'Experimenting With Copyright Licences' (blogpost for the COPIM project - part of the documentation for the first book coming out of the Combinatorial Books pilot)

Review of Bitstreams: The Future of Digital Literary Heritage' by Matthew Kirschenbaum

Contribution to 'Archipiélago Crítico. ¡Formado está! ¡Naveguémoslo!' (invited talk: in Spanish translation with English subtitles)

'Defund Culture' (journal article)

How to Practise the Culture-led Re-Commoning of Cities (printable poster), Partisan Social Club, adjusted by Gary Hall

'Pluriversal Socialism - The Very Idea' (journal article)

'Writing Against Elitism with A Stubborn Fury' (podcast)

'The Uberfication of the University - with Gary Hall' (podcast)

'"La modernidad fue un "blip" en el sistema": sobre teorías y disrupciones con Gary Hall' ['"Modernity was a "blip" in the system": on theories and disruptions with Gary Hall']' (press interview in Colombia)

'Combinatorial Books - Gathering Flowers', with Janneke Adema and Gabriela Méndez Cota - Part 1; Part 2; Part 3 (blog post)

Open Access

Most of Gary's work is freely available to read and download either here in Media Gifts or in Coventry University's online repositories PURE here, or in Humanities Commons here

Radical Open Access

Radical Open Access Virtual Book Stand

'"Communists of Knowledge"? A case for the implementation of "radical open access" in the humanities and social sciences' (an MA dissertation about the ROAC by Ellie Masterman). 

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Thursday
Feb012024

Thousands of Readers, But Who Cares?

YouTube video on why lots of YouTube content creators are suffering burnout and quitting.

Because the idea that the internet allows you to do without gatekeepers is a myth. Today, there are more gatekeepers with more power than ever before. It’s just now they’re the recommendation algorithms of TikTok, YouTube et al. rather than the humans that content creators needed to appeal to in the past: the record label execs, movie industry producers and so forth.

And because you can have 1.8 million subscribers on YouTube. But unless you are capable of making someone money, or winning them some awards, nobody in the creative industries cares.

Are there any lessons here for academics? Especially given so many are burning out and quitting too. 

Should we be so surprised if operating in alternative ways to the legacy industries and institutions does not lead to thriving within them over the longer term? Doing so is only a ‘dead end’, surely, if what we really want is to be taken up and accepted by them on their (money-making, awarding winning) terms.

Which leads to the next question provoked by this video: is the point ultimately to be happy within the current western academic industrial complex as it has been generated by the traditional institutions plus the ‘shiny new creator economy’, or is it to change it?

Both would be nice, of course. But is that realistic? Is it even possible?