Exam 2 Question

Week Seven, Question 4: What are the new categories of workers? What do workers in the new categories do?

The answer to this question comes from Warschauer, M.'s article, on page 22. In the new informational economy, Warschauer writes, the main division between workers is not whether they are blue collar or white collar workers, but whether they are routine production workers, in-person service workers, or symbolic analysts. Each of these three new categories has a specific relationship to the internet and computers.

Routine production workers, which could be payroll clerks or factory workers, engage in the internet on the job in a routine way. This also goes for in-person analysts, or janitors or taxi drivers, who also use the internet on the job in a routine way. Symbolic analysts, on the other hand, use the computer and internet for the interpretation and analysis of data, to create new knowledge, to use it for international communication and collaboration, or for the development of multimedia.

Warchauer also writes that well-paying blue collar jobs have disappeared in the new information economy, being replaced by the three new categories mentioned above.