The moral economy of the self : chasing the future with LinkedIn

Abstract: For many young people across societies, precarity is the condition of life that they have to confront in their path to adulthood. As this condition is further intertwined with the rise of the digital age, attempts have been made by youth and media scholars to theorize and investigate the role that digital media plays within this socioeconomic conditions. This research project is an empirical contribution to this current burgeoning critical scholarships on youth, precarity, and digital media. The focus of this research revolves around the experiences of university students on the professional platform LinkedIn as they prepare for the transition from higher education to the world of work. The research approach adopted in this paper is based on case study methodology—a method of inquiry that seeks to produce in-depth understanding of an empirical phenomenon within a context. Data was collected through thirteen semi-structured qualitative interviews with university students who are active users on the platform. The thesis proposes a dialectical relation of the self on LinkedIn that illuminates the operation of the platform and the experiences of the participants within it. On LinkedIn and through LinkedIn, the participants had to navigate through contradiction between the dominant discourse of human capital and an employment relation that is still based on the selling of one’s labour-power. The end result was a self and a form sociality that are constantly in flux. However, without an alternative to these contradictions, the solution for our participants often takes form of a retreat into therapeutic entrepreneurialism. Within the current era of neoliberal capitalism, rather than being a detrimental aspect for the platform and for the users, these contradictions are the moral resources that fuel the economy of the platform and for our participants as a whole.