The Social Codes of Tech Workers, 9780262553537
Paperback
Decoding the minds of coders: work, life, and the digital world.

The Social Codes of Tech Workers

a contradictory middle class in the making

$168.29

  • Paperback

    252 pages

  • Release Date

    5 January 2026

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Summary

Decoding the Digital Workforce: Understanding Tech Workers’ Social Codes

How do the coders of our digital worlds think, work, and live? Digital technologies shape nearly every aspect of our lives, yet little attention has been paid to the tech workers who design and program these technologies. Instead, the spotlight often falls on two extremes—the elite class of tech entrepreneurs and the precarious digital proletariat of gig and crowd workers. This narrow focus has left a critical …

Book Details

ISBN-13:9780262553537
ISBN-10:0262553538
Author:Robert Dorschel
Publisher:MIT Press Ltd
Imprint:MIT Press
Format:Paperback
Number of Pages:252
Release Date:5 January 2026
Weight:369g
Dimensions:229mm x 152mm
Series:Labor and Technology
What They're Saying

Critics Review

ENDORSEMENTS“In this beautifully crafted book, Robert Dorschel makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the perils of tech professions at a time when they are only gaining in importance. This book will surely be widely read and discussed.”—Michèle Lamont, Professor of Sociology, Harvard University; author of Money, Morals, and Manners“Robert Dorschel achieves the rare feat of making visible the transformation of society through the study of a single group. The Social Codes of Tech Workers is to the digital society of the twenty-first century what C. Wright Mills’s White Collar was to the late industrial society of the twentieth century.” —Philipp Staab, Professor of Sociology, Humboldt University of Berlin; author of Markets and Power in Digital CapitalismDatafication is perhaps the most consequential social transformation of our time, and whatever we think of the oligarchs who extract most from it, it is essential to understand its ordinary workers too. Robert Dorschel’s book opens up the experiences and complex positioning of ordinary coders in an enlightening and theoretically rich way. In so doing, he opens a key route to glimpsing what resistance to Big Tech’s dominance might eventually look like.—Nick Couldry, Professor Of Media, Communications and Social Theory Emeritus, London School Of Economics and Political Science

About The Author

Robert Dorschel

Robert Dorschel is Assistant Professor in Digital Sociology at the University of Cambridge. His work has been recognized with awards from the Association of Internet Researchers and the German Sociological Association.

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