‘Agency time’

Abstract

This article investigates the postindustrial temporal landscape, or ‘timescape’, through a case study of a specific industry: Internet advertising. The theoretical portion of this article finds that the expansion of digital information communication technologies (ICTs) has radically transformed time keeping into ‘calculation’ in many of today’s workplaces. Additionally, globalized production has also rendered many locally constructed symbols of time less relevant. The author contrasts these events to the domestic time, which is constructed through contextual events and symbols, thereby making the postindustrial timescape further estranged from the domestic than even the Fordist timescape. The empirical portion of this article summarizes qualitative findings of time reckoning among Internet advertising workers. Time is not constructed out of local, material experiences but through digital means. This estranges domestic time even further, which has unintended but differential gendered effects. The implications of these findings include the emergence of a new sense of precarity, one based on ‘productivity’ of time spent on work. Additionally, a potentially new ‘glass ceiling’ could be emerging, based on the increased levels of home-based paid work. Women’s domestic responsibilities may make it relatively more difficult for them to advance when home-based paid work is expected.