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A Mixed-Methods Analysis of the Algorithm-Mediated Labor of Online Food Deliverers in China

Authors:

Yong LiAuthors Info & Claims

Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, Volume 6, Issue CSCW2

Article No.: 484, Pages 1 - 24

https://doi.org/10.1145/3555585

Published: 11 November 2022 Publication History

Abstract

In recent years, China has witnessed the proliferation and success of the online food delivery industry, an emerging type of the gig economy. Online food deliverers who deliver the food from restaurants to customers play a critical role in enabling this industry. Mediated by algorithms and coupled with interactions with multiple stakeholders, this emerging kind of labor has been taken by millions of people. In this paper, we present a mixed-methods analysis to investigate this labor of online food deliverers and uncover how the mediation of algorithms shapes it. Combining large-scale quantitative data-driven investigations of 100,000 deliverers' behavioral data with in-depth qualitative interviews with 15 online food deliverers, we demonstrate their working activities, identify how algorithms mediate their delivery procedures, and reveal how they perceive their relationships with different stakeholders as a result of their algorithm-mediated labor. Our findings provide important implications for enabling better experiences and more humanized labor of deliverers as well as workers in gig economies of similar kinds.

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Index Terms

A Mixed-Methods Analysis of the Algorithm-Mediated Labor of Online Food Deliverers in China
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Human computer interaction (HCI)
    1. Empirical studies in HCI

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cover image Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction

Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction Volume 6, Issue CSCW2

CSCW

November 2022

8205 pages

EISSN:2573-0142

DOI:10.1145/3571154

Editor:
Jeff Nichols
Google

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Copyright © 2022 Owner/Author.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License.

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

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Published: 11 November 2022

Published in PACMHCI Volume 6, Issue CSCW2

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Dedema MRosenbaum H(2024)Socio‐technical issues in the platform‐mediated gig economyJournal of the Association for Information Science and Technology10.1002/asi.2486875:3(344-374)Online publication date: 8-Jan-2024
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