New forms of social performance in the digital context of the “sharing economy”
Keywords:
sharing economy, digital platforms, platform capitalism, prejudice, internetAbstract
This article investigates how Airbnb and Blablacar use the concept of haring to impact the ways of production of digital capitalism and organize new forms of social dramatization. Through the analysis of the interfaces of these digital platforms, it is argued in the paper that such structures provide to the people using services of sharing economy the organization of an idealized portrait of themselves, that is branded by social imaginaries about collaborative work, mutual trust and communitarian life. It was also found that the functioning of these platforms stimulates the construction of security spaces grounded on procedures of identity validation which are self-regulated through processes of two-sided review and mutual surveillance between both kind of participants. The aim of these processes is to ensure the reliable use of the services between consumers and providers. However, verifying that the success of the "sharing economy" is based on the idea of trust among peers, it was notice that such platforms can be spaces of
reaffirmation and reproduction of social inequalities previously felt among social groups historically discriminated.
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