29 - Smythe wants to start a debate that Western Marxists have focused solely on interpretive analysis (ideological) and have neglected economic and political significance in mass media systems
Smythe says that the notion that ideology holds capitalism together is too idealist (ex. watching content that embraces capitalism and commercials selling goods is not strong enough to hold capitalism together) (I suppose the hegemony is not powerful enough for Smythe)
What should be asked about mass comm systems is "what economic function for capital do they serve."
-attempt to understand their role in the reproduction of capitalist relations
30 - Western Marxists have failed to take a materialist approach to communication
-especially since advertising and marketing have become the principle economic policy of western media
what is the commodity produced in this capitalist system?
The Bourgeois idealist views is the messages: information, entertainment, manipulation
-held by Adorno, Baran & Sweezy, Schiller, Murdock, Golding
-McLuhan also idealist who look past this to focus on the medium of TV itself
31 - Materialist View is the audience
-all non-sleeping time is work time
-work time is devoted to the production of commodities
-time of audiences is sold to advertisers by mass media
workers (audience): 1. perform essential marketing functions for the producers of goods (manufacturers)
2. work at the production and reproduction of labor power
These two duties itegrate both, the superstructure and the base:
superstructure - product demand is produced and satisfied in purchases
base - work is sold by stations to advertisers
32 - process of "demand management" -begins and ends with the commodity market
Baran & Sweezy fail to analyze demand management via advertising in a materialist way;
they call it psychological manipulation, which is essentially hegemony (idealist view)
Smythe argues that advertisers buy audiences with predictable specifications (demographics) who will pay attention (attention economy) in predictable numbers
33 - To be sure, there are measurement companies, such as Nielsen
TV stations produce the commodity which advertisers buy; but so do families which permit advertising (and allow themselves to become commodities)
programming is the bribe or "free lunch" used to recruit audience members and maintain their attention
34 - central purpose is to ensure attention to products and services
Smythe mentions flow of audiences
The work that audiences do is to learn to buy certain brands of goods
Audiences "work to create the demand for advertised goods which is the purpose of the monopoly capitalist advertisers".... by doing this, audiences are reproducing their own labor power!
35 - labor power (creates the capacity to labor) and labor in productive use (creates a material commodity)
Marx - the principal aspect of capitalist production was the alienation of workers from the means of producing commodities
Smythe - today (1977) the principal aspect of capitalist production is the alienation of workers from the means of producing and reproducing themselves
Livant - it is a mistake to think that just because the laborer sells his/her labor power, it does not mean he/she produces it.
I suppose what is going on here is that the TV stations are capturing the labor power of audiences and selling it as a commodity to advertisers?
36 - Smythe assumes all "non-sleeping time under capitalism is work time." (for which I disagree - sleeping time is also work because you are reproducing your capacity to labor)
Livant - you must use (A) labor power to (B) create labor power to (C) labor.
(A) Labor power > personal possession, can't sell; off-work time > creates a commodity (labor power (B)) that the person does not sell but it is sold by a media company to advertisers
(B) create labor power > personal possession that can be sold; work-time > needed to labor
(C) Labor > act of creating a material good that the person does not sell (although the company does)
Mass media play a large role - guiding consumption & ideological teachings in shows and commercials
38 - Leisure time has increased 1850-1960, but more free time is dedicated to the consciousness industry's activities (marketing, shopping, etc)
Smythe is critical of Baran & Sweezy who use psychanalysis to call this "passively absorbable amusemement"
Smythe's two issues with Baran & Sweezy:
1. they ignore monopoly capitalism sales efforts
2. they prefer casual bourgeois observations (ideology embedded in messages) instead of historical materialism (study of economics, society, and history as proposed by Marx)
39 - the nature of workers' reaction to advertisers: (through demand management) Advertisers:
1. establish the existence of a problem facing the worker
2. establish the existence of a product commodity to solve said problem
3. motivation to choose a particular brand within that class of products
40 - with thousands of commodities, the audience lacks the objective skill to develop a rational shopping list out of this irrational situation
thus, the work done by audiences is used towards "impulse purchasing"
-reduced time, reduced research, commercial give quick insight (quasi-information), build brand loyalty, make purchase
Thus, the bourgeois notion of free time is only available to people with no disposable income & for those that are so wealthy that other people do their buying for them. For everyone else, "free time" in monopoly capitalism belongs to the same lexicon camp as "free market" "free speech" etc
The productive work of the audience is learning cues which are then used to make a shopping list to spend income
46 - to summarize: principal purpse of mass comm systems:
1. produce audiences who work at learning to consume goods & support demand management systems (which compel you to need a product)
2. produce audiences who theory and practice confirms monopoly capitalism ideologies
3. produce public opinion supportive of the state
4. operate profitably to ensure unrivaled respect within economic system
47 - consciousness industry through advertisements produce alienation for audiences:
1. alienation from result of work "on the job" which is a disconnect from the result of their labor power (commodity)
2. alienation from commodities which they are marketing to themselves
3. alienation from labor power they produce & reproduce in themselves (because it is sold by other parties like TV stations)
Sunday, February 15, 2015
Melody (2014) Audience Commodities & Market Relations
24 - Smythe tended to be macro critiques on capitalism; Melody prefers micro critiques - at the institutional level
Melody: balanced attack - government necessary to address market failures while private markets were necessary to address government policy and regulation failures
24-25 AT&T not fulfilling its requirement of FCC regulation
26 - For Smythe, what was happening to audiences was a step to the increasing trend of the commodification of society
Smythe observed that audience commodities were being activated by mass media.... put to work by advertisers & sustaining commercial broadcasting that was conditioning aspects of peoples' lives, which can create brand ambassadors
27 - Melody did work on children's television and found children became lobbyists to parents over commercial brands
Even with mass media's reach fragmenting audiences today in information societies, mass markets are "growing to global proportions."
But products and services are being individualized & presented as people's desire for consumer individuality - under the surrendering of personal data, violations of privacy and security
28 - the audience commodity is far more significant in 21st century economies because it is now the central market model for shaping economic & social development
Melody: balanced attack - government necessary to address market failures while private markets were necessary to address government policy and regulation failures
24-25 AT&T not fulfilling its requirement of FCC regulation
26 - For Smythe, what was happening to audiences was a step to the increasing trend of the commodification of society
Smythe observed that audience commodities were being activated by mass media.... put to work by advertisers & sustaining commercial broadcasting that was conditioning aspects of peoples' lives, which can create brand ambassadors
27 - Melody did work on children's television and found children became lobbyists to parents over commercial brands
Even with mass media's reach fragmenting audiences today in information societies, mass markets are "growing to global proportions."
But products and services are being individualized & presented as people's desire for consumer individuality - under the surrendering of personal data, violations of privacy and security
28 - the audience commodity is far more significant in 21st century economies because it is now the central market model for shaping economic & social development
McGuigan (2014) After Broadcast, what? An intro to the legacy of Smythe.
1 - Smythe first chief economist for the FCC 1943-48
debates about PE of media - Robert Babe traces PE to Harold Innis and Adorno
2- Jhally (1990 p. 73) & Babe (2000, p. 132-134) - Smythe exaggerates his materialist break from ideology, remaining focused on the mediation of consciousness.
2 - Industry practice - before radio, "trade journals touted the capacity of a commercial press to command the attention of valuable audiences (Marchand, 1985) and to manufacture consumer consciousness (Ewen, 1976). (brief history in reading follows)
3 - McGuigan argues that the first sentence of blindspot is to start a debate and that Smythe pioneered this debate of communication, capital, consciousness, and power relations
3 - materialist view: media institutions are both world-making and world-made. They tune consciousness (attention??) toward certain emphases (Turow 1997)
4 - audience commodity is dialectical - ad-supported media produce audiences as both economic & social-cultural products (Smythe, 1981, p. 13)
4 - Two markets - market of consumers (for sale to advertisers) and market for consumers (to buy advertisers products)
4 - Meehan (2005) - producing audiences is an organizing system that results in the empowerment of industrial capitalists, advertisers, market researchers, & audience surveillance firms that constrain certain ideas and values
These are anchored in cliches about consumers having agency in a free marketplace (Napoli, 1999). This favors consumers and commerce over citizens and community.
5 - It is important to understand the economic & social production of consumers. The lynchpin to this is alienation for Smythe, which is the denial of "free conscious activity" to him.
Our existence in consumer capitalism is mediated by discourse through and about objects (such as through TV and about the products being marketed).
6- Smythe did not favor textual analysis, but rather preferred a general appraisal - a totality of TV in general. (Sounds like part McLuhan - it's not what you watch, but rather that you watch TV.)
"Time spent watching television is time spent not doing something else (Smythe, 1977, 6-7).
Are our values cultivated from experiences with people or commodities? Smythe argued that we are alienated from the reproduction of ourselves because of commercial mediation in our culture.
Digtal Labor: Marxist & Institutional Approaches
8 - Marxist Approach: materialism for Smythe is "the actual processes which link people together in social production and social consumption." Thus, digital labor (such as social media) can be lnked to Capital Vol 1 - labor theory of value
However, this viewpoint is met with doubts from: Hesmondalgh, Caraway, Lebowitz, Magder:
Media cannot own audiences' labor power - which Mosco tends to agree (2009, p.137)
Institutional Approach: Meehan, Napoli
audiences are not naturally occurring - they are constructions that are commodified as ratings and do not exist objectively in media use. Audiences are produced as discrete packets of information
9 - Napoli (2011) - audience production is linked to the development of information technologies as well as the form & content of media messages
Institutional Approach is the counterpoint to the Marxist Approach.
However, problematic - if audiences cannot be owned, then how are they commoditized as discrete packages of information that exist only in market relations?
Can these two approaches be complementary? Smythe believes so and borrows from both. Also affirmed in Jhally, Meehan, Melody, Mosco, and Murdock.
Data & Digital Surveillance
Greg Elmer (2004) - studies a "personal information economy"
9-10 - Andrejevic (2004) - consumption becomes subject to scientific management techniques (Taylorism) previously honed for production
10 - McStay (2011) probes policies enabling inspection of data collected by ISPs
McGuigan goes on to include a complete lit review of other exemplary studies
10 - Andrejevic (2013) - data has commodity value but also feedback values as a predictor of behavior and proclivities (tendencies)
11 - Monopoly & Dependency Beyond Capitalist Core
Smythe viewed commercial media as monopoly capitalism - a handful of elites control global markets & set policy agendas ex. Nielsen, market consolidation (Microsoft, Intel)
12 - Neo-liberal imperatives colored policy debates - UNESCO forum on NWICO (Pickard 2007)
Advertising, Branding, and Commodification of Human Experience:
15 - TV remainds the "surest investment for marketers"
TV is an industry, a milieu of culture & citizenship, important field of social sciences & humanities research, interactive marketplace. Thus, Smythe's thesis is more germane than ever.
"Changes in technology are mutually constituted with the restructuring of media businesses" - to commercialize it & commodify it (such as data)
Critique of Technology
16 - Smythe wanted to temper celebratory thoughts about technological progress.
Mosco - 2004 - The Digital Sublime - he unravels celebratory mythologies of technological determinism
James Carey - 2009 - also covers these myths
16 - D. Schiller, Barney, Dyer-Witheford, all traingulate the historical, philosophical, and theorectical vectors of digital tech in capitalism.
17 - Turow - technology segments audiences for packaging to advertisers
-media convergence is the ad industry's efforts "to maximize the entire system's potential for selling" (p.2)
Critical & Administrative Research
18 - Smythe asserts that administrative research can be an important resource for critical theory and policy analysis (1983, p. 118-120).
example - trade publications provide insight into the relations between media players and advertisers.
debates about PE of media - Robert Babe traces PE to Harold Innis and Adorno
2- Jhally (1990 p. 73) & Babe (2000, p. 132-134) - Smythe exaggerates his materialist break from ideology, remaining focused on the mediation of consciousness.
2 - Industry practice - before radio, "trade journals touted the capacity of a commercial press to command the attention of valuable audiences (Marchand, 1985) and to manufacture consumer consciousness (Ewen, 1976). (brief history in reading follows)
3 - McGuigan argues that the first sentence of blindspot is to start a debate and that Smythe pioneered this debate of communication, capital, consciousness, and power relations
3 - materialist view: media institutions are both world-making and world-made. They tune consciousness (attention??) toward certain emphases (Turow 1997)
4 - audience commodity is dialectical - ad-supported media produce audiences as both economic & social-cultural products (Smythe, 1981, p. 13)
4 - Two markets - market of consumers (for sale to advertisers) and market for consumers (to buy advertisers products)
4 - Meehan (2005) - producing audiences is an organizing system that results in the empowerment of industrial capitalists, advertisers, market researchers, & audience surveillance firms that constrain certain ideas and values
These are anchored in cliches about consumers having agency in a free marketplace (Napoli, 1999). This favors consumers and commerce over citizens and community.
5 - It is important to understand the economic & social production of consumers. The lynchpin to this is alienation for Smythe, which is the denial of "free conscious activity" to him.
Our existence in consumer capitalism is mediated by discourse through and about objects (such as through TV and about the products being marketed).
6- Smythe did not favor textual analysis, but rather preferred a general appraisal - a totality of TV in general. (Sounds like part McLuhan - it's not what you watch, but rather that you watch TV.)
"Time spent watching television is time spent not doing something else (Smythe, 1977, 6-7).
Are our values cultivated from experiences with people or commodities? Smythe argued that we are alienated from the reproduction of ourselves because of commercial mediation in our culture.
Digtal Labor: Marxist & Institutional Approaches
8 - Marxist Approach: materialism for Smythe is "the actual processes which link people together in social production and social consumption." Thus, digital labor (such as social media) can be lnked to Capital Vol 1 - labor theory of value
However, this viewpoint is met with doubts from: Hesmondalgh, Caraway, Lebowitz, Magder:
Media cannot own audiences' labor power - which Mosco tends to agree (2009, p.137)
Institutional Approach: Meehan, Napoli
audiences are not naturally occurring - they are constructions that are commodified as ratings and do not exist objectively in media use. Audiences are produced as discrete packets of information
9 - Napoli (2011) - audience production is linked to the development of information technologies as well as the form & content of media messages
Institutional Approach is the counterpoint to the Marxist Approach.
However, problematic - if audiences cannot be owned, then how are they commoditized as discrete packages of information that exist only in market relations?
Can these two approaches be complementary? Smythe believes so and borrows from both. Also affirmed in Jhally, Meehan, Melody, Mosco, and Murdock.
Data & Digital Surveillance
Greg Elmer (2004) - studies a "personal information economy"
9-10 - Andrejevic (2004) - consumption becomes subject to scientific management techniques (Taylorism) previously honed for production
10 - McStay (2011) probes policies enabling inspection of data collected by ISPs
McGuigan goes on to include a complete lit review of other exemplary studies
10 - Andrejevic (2013) - data has commodity value but also feedback values as a predictor of behavior and proclivities (tendencies)
11 - Monopoly & Dependency Beyond Capitalist Core
Smythe viewed commercial media as monopoly capitalism - a handful of elites control global markets & set policy agendas ex. Nielsen, market consolidation (Microsoft, Intel)
12 - Neo-liberal imperatives colored policy debates - UNESCO forum on NWICO (Pickard 2007)
Advertising, Branding, and Commodification of Human Experience:
15 - TV remainds the "surest investment for marketers"
TV is an industry, a milieu of culture & citizenship, important field of social sciences & humanities research, interactive marketplace. Thus, Smythe's thesis is more germane than ever.
"Changes in technology are mutually constituted with the restructuring of media businesses" - to commercialize it & commodify it (such as data)
Critique of Technology
16 - Smythe wanted to temper celebratory thoughts about technological progress.
Mosco - 2004 - The Digital Sublime - he unravels celebratory mythologies of technological determinism
James Carey - 2009 - also covers these myths
16 - D. Schiller, Barney, Dyer-Witheford, all traingulate the historical, philosophical, and theorectical vectors of digital tech in capitalism.
17 - Turow - technology segments audiences for packaging to advertisers
-media convergence is the ad industry's efforts "to maximize the entire system's potential for selling" (p.2)
Critical & Administrative Research
18 - Smythe asserts that administrative research can be an important resource for critical theory and policy analysis (1983, p. 118-120).
example - trade publications provide insight into the relations between media players and advertisers.
Mosco (2014) Foreword: The Audience Commodity in a Digital Age
xi - Smythe is key to digital labor studies - because of the intersection of audience and labor
Traditionally, Marxists only saw the media as the ideological reflection of an economic base.
xiii - Smythe situated the audience in a dialectical triangle between advertisers and media companies & believed audience activity could be characterized as labor
xv - Smythe was the first economist for the FCC
Traditionally, Marxists only saw the media as the ideological reflection of an economic base.
xiii - Smythe situated the audience in a dialectical triangle between advertisers and media companies & believed audience activity could be characterized as labor
xv - Smythe was the first economist for the FCC
Dyer-Witheford (2010) Digital Labour, species-becoming and the global worker
485 - Alienation of worker from production is well documents, but alienation of species-becoming is neglected and yet relevant today
Species-being: capacity to collectively transform this natural basis through will and consciousness. To have control over the direction of society and environment. For Marx, this power is manifested in the cooperative organization of labour, the power of humans to affect their natural environment, the emancipation of women, the formation of cities, the application of science & tech to further develop the five senses.
However, under capitalism, the "planet factory" (as Dyer-Witheford calls it) subsumes production-consumption, social reproduction and even genetic and ecological aspects of life.
486 - Through industrialization, we have permanently changed the earth's ecology and climate. This includes information technologies: robots and super computers have changed work conditions, artificial intelligence has emerged along with virtual worlds for "second lives," and biotechnologies that alter cognitive and physical human properties/capabilities.
486-487 Life itself is a "real abstraction" through capital because our lives are reduced to information which is then turned into a productive force within capitalism
487 - Dyer-Witheford suggests "species-becoming" be renamed "species-becoming" because our only essence is our "historical plasticity" (being reshaped or molded).
Marx's species-being is determined by class and conflict. In this context, alienation is not an issue of estrangement from a natural world, but rather a question of who is controlling the collective self. The concentration of control within a section of the species is who controls the trajectory of the society.
Futuristic accumulation - commodification of publicly created scientific knowledge which via copyright/patent is privatized for the extraction of monopolistic rent.
Under futuristic accumulation, "the expropriation" (taking of private property for public/gov use) "of general intellect and universal labour are the basis for the alienation of species-being."
ex. publicly funded schools tapped and captured by private interests and then re-sold to the public that originally funded the project. (I think baseball stadiums also apply to this where the public pays for the construction of the building, but are then charged to enter it or use the facilities).
488 - the crisis of Fordism in the 1970s was met with a solution of computers. Dyer-Witheford argues that the most important moment in the foundation of digital labour was the development of computing in the 70s by the Pentagon, Universities, and defense industries.
Bio-capital then came about in the 1980s (genetic investments) followed by the explosion of the Internet in the 1990s. Author says Netscape's commercialization of the browser exhibited futuristic accumulation because it had been publicly funded research.
489 - Primitive accumulation - the appropriating of land by business and the buying & selling of labour power.
By contrast to primitive, futuristic is different because it takes the basic domains of life - cognitive, biological, existential - and commodifies it. Futuristic commands and directs the evolution of life itself. This enclosure of the future is alienating species-being from the person. They do not control the ownership of their thought material or the direction of their life. (Do you think this applies to personal data as well?? It is behavioral, which is somewhat thought-related.)
490 - concept of the global worker is not new (labour is motivated by capital); however today it's positioned with the value chain - today, labour processes from start to finish add value every step of the way. They require a lot of reach and managing, which is only capable by multinational corporations. These steps include: research & development, assembly, marketing, distribution around the world, and everything is calculated "in terms of production costs, resource availability, and proximity to markets, to maximize profits."
491 - Digital Technologies cut costs in these value chains: communication, coordination, production (and thus, are essential to value chains)
But value chains are also necessary for digital technologies - developing software & programming, research & development, marketing, etc: free labour, immaterial labour, outsourced labour, (all cheap labour) I would also include co-creation and prosumption here.
Often times, hardware is designed by high-level engineers, but the systems are then built by automated (machinic) processes or cheap labor in dangerous work conditions
492 - Additionally, the planet factory command & control flow down the value chain while value & profit flow upwards to the top
494 - Singularity capitalism - constant capital (machines) versus variable capitalism (living labor)
The purpose of capitalism is to keep raising the proportion of constant to variable. This allows for more profit and future expansion, but it also increases the ratio of technology to humans.
Organic composition of capital is the ratio of humans to tech. Dyer-Witheford suggests this be called "inorganic" because of the rising disproportion of technology/machines to humans.
495 - Furthermore, informational technologies that break down or blur the distinction between machines and humans create new forms of bio-technological and nanotechnological production.
Signularity capital denies the capacity of humans to change their species-being, denying them a way to change the direction/trajectory of society, and allows a select few to trample/rule everyone else.
498 - Solution: Transititon from an organic composition of capital to a class composition of capital where the technical composition of class (labour process in which it is involed) becomes the basis for political composition (capacity to become a counter power against capitalist command).
499 - Here, the point for political struggle would be to replace organic composition of capital with organic composition of the communal, where decisions over resource allocation and investment are determined in a collective and democratic fashion.
Digital labour would have 3 roles in this new class composition:
1. allow for collective & productive decision making
2. Cooperative production would take place through open-source knowledge
3. networks become the central site of democratic planning and debate
My critique of this: doesn't this assume there is no digital divide? and post-vote, who is enforcing the decisions made? And what about policing networks to avoid censorship or blackouts?
Dyer-Witheford argues that western media has focused on the "haves" rather than the underpivileged classes where the possibility of revolt lies under the surface.
Species-being: capacity to collectively transform this natural basis through will and consciousness. To have control over the direction of society and environment. For Marx, this power is manifested in the cooperative organization of labour, the power of humans to affect their natural environment, the emancipation of women, the formation of cities, the application of science & tech to further develop the five senses.
However, under capitalism, the "planet factory" (as Dyer-Witheford calls it) subsumes production-consumption, social reproduction and even genetic and ecological aspects of life.
486 - Through industrialization, we have permanently changed the earth's ecology and climate. This includes information technologies: robots and super computers have changed work conditions, artificial intelligence has emerged along with virtual worlds for "second lives," and biotechnologies that alter cognitive and physical human properties/capabilities.
486-487 Life itself is a "real abstraction" through capital because our lives are reduced to information which is then turned into a productive force within capitalism
487 - Dyer-Witheford suggests "species-becoming" be renamed "species-becoming" because our only essence is our "historical plasticity" (being reshaped or molded).
Marx's species-being is determined by class and conflict. In this context, alienation is not an issue of estrangement from a natural world, but rather a question of who is controlling the collective self. The concentration of control within a section of the species is who controls the trajectory of the society.
Futuristic accumulation - commodification of publicly created scientific knowledge which via copyright/patent is privatized for the extraction of monopolistic rent.
Under futuristic accumulation, "the expropriation" (taking of private property for public/gov use) "of general intellect and universal labour are the basis for the alienation of species-being."
ex. publicly funded schools tapped and captured by private interests and then re-sold to the public that originally funded the project. (I think baseball stadiums also apply to this where the public pays for the construction of the building, but are then charged to enter it or use the facilities).
488 - the crisis of Fordism in the 1970s was met with a solution of computers. Dyer-Witheford argues that the most important moment in the foundation of digital labour was the development of computing in the 70s by the Pentagon, Universities, and defense industries.
Bio-capital then came about in the 1980s (genetic investments) followed by the explosion of the Internet in the 1990s. Author says Netscape's commercialization of the browser exhibited futuristic accumulation because it had been publicly funded research.
489 - Primitive accumulation - the appropriating of land by business and the buying & selling of labour power.
By contrast to primitive, futuristic is different because it takes the basic domains of life - cognitive, biological, existential - and commodifies it. Futuristic commands and directs the evolution of life itself. This enclosure of the future is alienating species-being from the person. They do not control the ownership of their thought material or the direction of their life. (Do you think this applies to personal data as well?? It is behavioral, which is somewhat thought-related.)
490 - concept of the global worker is not new (labour is motivated by capital); however today it's positioned with the value chain - today, labour processes from start to finish add value every step of the way. They require a lot of reach and managing, which is only capable by multinational corporations. These steps include: research & development, assembly, marketing, distribution around the world, and everything is calculated "in terms of production costs, resource availability, and proximity to markets, to maximize profits."
491 - Digital Technologies cut costs in these value chains: communication, coordination, production (and thus, are essential to value chains)
But value chains are also necessary for digital technologies - developing software & programming, research & development, marketing, etc: free labour, immaterial labour, outsourced labour, (all cheap labour) I would also include co-creation and prosumption here.
Often times, hardware is designed by high-level engineers, but the systems are then built by automated (machinic) processes or cheap labor in dangerous work conditions
492 - Additionally, the planet factory command & control flow down the value chain while value & profit flow upwards to the top
494 - Singularity capitalism - constant capital (machines) versus variable capitalism (living labor)
The purpose of capitalism is to keep raising the proportion of constant to variable. This allows for more profit and future expansion, but it also increases the ratio of technology to humans.
Organic composition of capital is the ratio of humans to tech. Dyer-Witheford suggests this be called "inorganic" because of the rising disproportion of technology/machines to humans.
495 - Furthermore, informational technologies that break down or blur the distinction between machines and humans create new forms of bio-technological and nanotechnological production.
Signularity capital denies the capacity of humans to change their species-being, denying them a way to change the direction/trajectory of society, and allows a select few to trample/rule everyone else.
498 - Solution: Transititon from an organic composition of capital to a class composition of capital where the technical composition of class (labour process in which it is involed) becomes the basis for political composition (capacity to become a counter power against capitalist command).
499 - Here, the point for political struggle would be to replace organic composition of capital with organic composition of the communal, where decisions over resource allocation and investment are determined in a collective and democratic fashion.
Digital labour would have 3 roles in this new class composition:
1. allow for collective & productive decision making
2. Cooperative production would take place through open-source knowledge
3. networks become the central site of democratic planning and debate
My critique of this: doesn't this assume there is no digital divide? and post-vote, who is enforcing the decisions made? And what about policing networks to avoid censorship or blackouts?
Dyer-Witheford argues that western media has focused on the "haves" rather than the underpivileged classes where the possibility of revolt lies under the surface.
Cova, Dalli, & Zwick (2011) Critical perspectives on consumers' role as 'producers': broadening the debate on value co-creation in marketing processes
232 - Value co-creation is a term to describe the interaction or collaboration between businesses and consumers.
232 - Ritzer (2009) - production and consumption are two sides of the same coin
232 - Marketing now uses an approach of what Foucault (1991) refers to as government:
shifting from a top-down approach to a bottom-up one where customers are made to feel as though they have agency as "free" persons. This is called marketing government and it constructs consumers as partners in mutually beneficial innovations and productions. It results in exploitative labor while also reducing the risk of undesirable consumer behavior!
232-233 Co-creation must be strategic because consumers are not paid employees (thus, coercion will not work) and must feel as though they are free to create and participate in digital activities.
Question: Is labor only considered paid work that is out of necessity? Marx definition? Therefore, should co-creation and prosumption be considered "work" instead? (see below for further discussion)
233 - collaboration is not the central driving force, but rather unique value for consumers
In co-creation, companies offer something unique to the consumer and charge a premium for it. However, the consumers is not compensated for their contribution to this unique value even though they offer it voluntarily and with a significant degree of enjoyment - it is still considered exploitative.
234 - Using web 2.0 as site of research, exploitation in co-creation takes place on two levels:
1. consumers are not paid while corporate interests profit from their work/contribution
2. consumers are actually charged & pay for the fruits of their labor
But is co-creation actually considered labor? Marxist political economy refers to labor as the Fordist division of labor which is out of necessity, coercion, and command. Thus, labor is a bit misleading when applied to web 2.0 technologies. Thus, "work" might be a better term. (authors' sentiment).
235 - co-creation relies on the bond of production and consumption
235 - authors propose a new form of capitalism: co-creative capitalism (or what Ardvisson (2008) calls an ethical economy) "characterized by a rise of unpaid labor, new forms of control and exploitation, and a shift in the economics of scarcity." Other caveats beyond these: "we should not underestimate capital's desire to maintain control over production and consumption, as well as producers and consumers, by adapting its techniques of surveillance, legal definitions of private property, and modes of value creation and appropriation to the age or the empowered, networks, and autonomous consumer" (see also andrejevic 2011, fuchs 2008, humphreys and grayson 2008).
235 - This is part of a continuing trend of putting consumers to work: pumping their own gas, ATMs, etc.
237 - Ardvisson makes note of an ethical response to this through CSR - corporate social responsibility.
232 - Ritzer (2009) - production and consumption are two sides of the same coin
232 - Marketing now uses an approach of what Foucault (1991) refers to as government:
shifting from a top-down approach to a bottom-up one where customers are made to feel as though they have agency as "free" persons. This is called marketing government and it constructs consumers as partners in mutually beneficial innovations and productions. It results in exploitative labor while also reducing the risk of undesirable consumer behavior!
232-233 Co-creation must be strategic because consumers are not paid employees (thus, coercion will not work) and must feel as though they are free to create and participate in digital activities.
Question: Is labor only considered paid work that is out of necessity? Marx definition? Therefore, should co-creation and prosumption be considered "work" instead? (see below for further discussion)
233 - collaboration is not the central driving force, but rather unique value for consumers
In co-creation, companies offer something unique to the consumer and charge a premium for it. However, the consumers is not compensated for their contribution to this unique value even though they offer it voluntarily and with a significant degree of enjoyment - it is still considered exploitative.
234 - Using web 2.0 as site of research, exploitation in co-creation takes place on two levels:
1. consumers are not paid while corporate interests profit from their work/contribution
2. consumers are actually charged & pay for the fruits of their labor
But is co-creation actually considered labor? Marxist political economy refers to labor as the Fordist division of labor which is out of necessity, coercion, and command. Thus, labor is a bit misleading when applied to web 2.0 technologies. Thus, "work" might be a better term. (authors' sentiment).
235 - co-creation relies on the bond of production and consumption
235 - authors propose a new form of capitalism: co-creative capitalism (or what Ardvisson (2008) calls an ethical economy) "characterized by a rise of unpaid labor, new forms of control and exploitation, and a shift in the economics of scarcity." Other caveats beyond these: "we should not underestimate capital's desire to maintain control over production and consumption, as well as producers and consumers, by adapting its techniques of surveillance, legal definitions of private property, and modes of value creation and appropriation to the age or the empowered, networks, and autonomous consumer" (see also andrejevic 2011, fuchs 2008, humphreys and grayson 2008).
235 - This is part of a continuing trend of putting consumers to work: pumping their own gas, ATMs, etc.
237 - Ardvisson makes note of an ethical response to this through CSR - corporate social responsibility.
Comor (2010) Contextualizing and critiquing the fantastic prosumer: power, alienation and hegemony
310 - Comor challenges the proponents of prosumption and claims that neo-liberal corporations have subsumed any democratic properties of prosumption
311 - cites Toffler (1980) The Third Wave - which is a futuristic view of prosumption from 1980. Toffler predicts that "property owners will produce their own goods and services for corporations through paid contractual arrangements" or some other kind of non-renumerated reciprocity. Toffler's systems, according to Comor, does not transcend capitalism, but rather alters it to operate at its highest possible level. (Disparities still exist in Toffler's future society)
Perhaps I can tie in Dyer-Witherford here? And his notion of class composition switching to a "bottom up" approach in production??
312 - Historically, the prosumer's ascent came from the collapse of Fordism in the 1970s and the rise of neo-liberalism. Where mass production of Fordists was a one-way street, prosumption/co-creation stresses experimenting and playing among consumers (within the corporation's guidelines, of course)
312 - the term co-creation Comor believes was appropriated by business interests as framing prosumption as a consumer-corporate business interest. For academics, co-creation is used to celebrate consumption and consumer choice. Comor says he uses co-creation and prosumption interchangeably.
312 - prosumption is not new, but consumers are more aware of it now. Comor uses the example of producing what people consume with sauce. They open the jar, heat the sauce, and then eat it. A form of prosumption for Comor.
313 - Marx: two primary mediations in life: private property and contracts (waged labour)
People are compelled to work to earn the monies to acquire their needs.
Prior to capitalism, workers were forced to labor (slaves) and were unfree. But capitalism now allows workers to freely enter into contracts (waged labor) where money (rather than a gun) becomes the essential medium of exchange to extract surpluses. (314) - Therefore, capitalists focus on the balance sheets rather than the human being workers. Labor becomes a tool - "concrete human relations are neglected while mediations proliferate."
314 - In this system, workers are ruled by abstractions because there are so many layers of management (Think of Undercover Boss - does he really need to dress up?)
Marx: Abstraction is "a relation, or even a thing, which then becomes a thought." (Toscano, 2008, p. 282). A "real abstraction" is something like exchange - where material goods can be concretely exchanged, but it's based on a social construction which has been historically created.
314 - "For Marx, the production process itself abstracts labor."
-labor power treated as a commodity - meaning it is used for commercial exchange value - results in the hiding from view that humans are exploited producers. When price values and commodity exchange dominate a system, the people in it are trivialized as an outcome of how "they live and interact."
314 - Comor draws on the hegemonic messages of prosumption that people are free and empowered through their participation. This is a result of "real abstraction." They are really free to post online, and share ideas... however they are abstracted from the notion that they are doing this within the capitalist system, within corporation's rules, and willingly providing exchange value.
316 - prosumers work within the hierarchy and architecture of the corporate firm
317 - Even open source codes, such as Linux, still had a central node where expansion and creativity report to in order to retain the node's dominant position
319 - alienation is a fundamental part of capitalism. Tech allows for that further separation of mental labor from manual labor by facilitating taylorism. Job tasks are "de-skilled" according to Comor because of the lack of creativity and control within the corporation's hiearchy (automatic price scanners, other instances where computers are doing the work for the employee and the employee is merely performing a repetitive and mindless action).
319 - conditions of alienation will remain mostly unchanged for workers in post-Fordist societies
319 - prosumption as real abstraction is an essential part of alienation
320 - Regardless of what is produced or for whom, "if the purpose and result of prosumer labor is the advancement of exchange values or profits, status quo relations will remain largely unchanged."
320 - But if use-value is prioritized over exchange value when it comes to prosumption, then celebrants will have an intriguing point to their argument.
320 - so why prosume?
-self-worth by marketing themselves to others, promoting/selling themselves as a commodity, building a celebrity brand now serves as role models for our culture. Get known. (think viral status)
321 - Comor concludes that prosumption cannot separate from capitalism and taylorism. It has been captured and centralized within this system. It empowers both, corporate interests and commodity-focused individuals. (attention economy, here, perhaps?)
322 - prosumers' freedoms extend only within the exisiting political-economy framework and laws. it's not manipulation or coercion - it's notoriety (attention).
Prosumption preserves the status quo. (not all prosumers are equally alienated, but even these individuals are not safe from exploitation).
311 - cites Toffler (1980) The Third Wave - which is a futuristic view of prosumption from 1980. Toffler predicts that "property owners will produce their own goods and services for corporations through paid contractual arrangements" or some other kind of non-renumerated reciprocity. Toffler's systems, according to Comor, does not transcend capitalism, but rather alters it to operate at its highest possible level. (Disparities still exist in Toffler's future society)
Perhaps I can tie in Dyer-Witherford here? And his notion of class composition switching to a "bottom up" approach in production??
312 - Historically, the prosumer's ascent came from the collapse of Fordism in the 1970s and the rise of neo-liberalism. Where mass production of Fordists was a one-way street, prosumption/co-creation stresses experimenting and playing among consumers (within the corporation's guidelines, of course)
312 - the term co-creation Comor believes was appropriated by business interests as framing prosumption as a consumer-corporate business interest. For academics, co-creation is used to celebrate consumption and consumer choice. Comor says he uses co-creation and prosumption interchangeably.
312 - prosumption is not new, but consumers are more aware of it now. Comor uses the example of producing what people consume with sauce. They open the jar, heat the sauce, and then eat it. A form of prosumption for Comor.
313 - Marx: two primary mediations in life: private property and contracts (waged labour)
People are compelled to work to earn the monies to acquire their needs.
Prior to capitalism, workers were forced to labor (slaves) and were unfree. But capitalism now allows workers to freely enter into contracts (waged labor) where money (rather than a gun) becomes the essential medium of exchange to extract surpluses. (314) - Therefore, capitalists focus on the balance sheets rather than the human being workers. Labor becomes a tool - "concrete human relations are neglected while mediations proliferate."
314 - In this system, workers are ruled by abstractions because there are so many layers of management (Think of Undercover Boss - does he really need to dress up?)
Marx: Abstraction is "a relation, or even a thing, which then becomes a thought." (Toscano, 2008, p. 282). A "real abstraction" is something like exchange - where material goods can be concretely exchanged, but it's based on a social construction which has been historically created.
314 - "For Marx, the production process itself abstracts labor."
-labor power treated as a commodity - meaning it is used for commercial exchange value - results in the hiding from view that humans are exploited producers. When price values and commodity exchange dominate a system, the people in it are trivialized as an outcome of how "they live and interact."
314 - Comor draws on the hegemonic messages of prosumption that people are free and empowered through their participation. This is a result of "real abstraction." They are really free to post online, and share ideas... however they are abstracted from the notion that they are doing this within the capitalist system, within corporation's rules, and willingly providing exchange value.
316 - prosumers work within the hierarchy and architecture of the corporate firm
317 - Even open source codes, such as Linux, still had a central node where expansion and creativity report to in order to retain the node's dominant position
319 - alienation is a fundamental part of capitalism. Tech allows for that further separation of mental labor from manual labor by facilitating taylorism. Job tasks are "de-skilled" according to Comor because of the lack of creativity and control within the corporation's hiearchy (automatic price scanners, other instances where computers are doing the work for the employee and the employee is merely performing a repetitive and mindless action).
319 - conditions of alienation will remain mostly unchanged for workers in post-Fordist societies
319 - prosumption as real abstraction is an essential part of alienation
320 - Regardless of what is produced or for whom, "if the purpose and result of prosumer labor is the advancement of exchange values or profits, status quo relations will remain largely unchanged."
320 - But if use-value is prioritized over exchange value when it comes to prosumption, then celebrants will have an intriguing point to their argument.
320 - so why prosume?
-self-worth by marketing themselves to others, promoting/selling themselves as a commodity, building a celebrity brand now serves as role models for our culture. Get known. (think viral status)
321 - Comor concludes that prosumption cannot separate from capitalism and taylorism. It has been captured and centralized within this system. It empowers both, corporate interests and commodity-focused individuals. (attention economy, here, perhaps?)
322 - prosumers' freedoms extend only within the exisiting political-economy framework and laws. it's not manipulation or coercion - it's notoriety (attention).
Prosumption preserves the status quo. (not all prosumers are equally alienated, but even these individuals are not safe from exploitation).
Comor (2010) Digital Prosumption and Alienation
Comor is critical of the celebrants of digital technologies
440 - Co-creation and prosumption are non-alienating activities for celebrants (which he disagrees)
441 - Marx: Self-creation - individuals producing the conditions of their own environment
However in capitalism: workers' engagement in production is more of a matter of survival than self-creation (you work to make money to suvive, rather than create something of importance for your survival).
441 - Therefore, the worker resides in a state of alienation. He does not produce to realize his own creative powers, but rather he works to produce a wage, which will then allow him to consume (proletariat). The low wage and non-ownership of anything but his labour power, allows the worker the potential to realize his alienation (p. 444)
441 - The capitalist, meanwhile, (bougeois owner) doesn't even produce, but is insulated by his capital wealth, with no need to uncover or realize his alienation. This is because he is afforded power and status by this capital (444).
442 - Under capitalism, there are two main types of alienation:
product-alienation: the products the proletariat helps to produce is not owned by the proletariat or in some cases, not even viewed in total (as in assembly line work)
process-alienation: surplus value, rather than use-value, is generated from the Fordist environment of workers
Capitalism emphasizes market value, not use-value. The work of the proletariat does not serve the direct needs of the proletariat, but rather wages earned allow them to fulfill needs.
Comor disagrees with the argument that open source software and online collaborative work resolves this alienation: Empirical evidence doesn't prove it - because in cases where this appears to be the case, there is usually less job security (p. 443) or more pervasive forms of surviellance (p. 443).
443 - Plus, another contributing factor of alienation's persistance in the digital age is due to the consistant need to generate and increase surplus value - which is more easily captured by digital technologies
444-445 - For Marx, the heart of alienation is not in any of the alienations discussed above, but rather in the production process itself - production, distribution, exchange, and consumption. This process requires capitalists to "get more for less out of people". Therefore, more "dead" labour (machines) is employed which increases the dehumanization and creative capacities of people/workers. Workers merely become tools of capital. (People are alienated from their essence, species-being this way).
446 - Neoliberals that argue that digital technologies afford people the chance to become entrepreneurs and gain wealth & status are covering up for the fact that the consumer still has to operate within the economic system's control, relying on a network that compels them to constantly improve skills on new (and expensive) teachnology, hardware, and software. Many of these hopefuls' work also contributes to promoting and branding activities.
446 - Comor uses Wikipedia as an example and claims that the site is routinely "used to promote commercial interests". Not sure I agree, unless he is referring to product and company pages - but the companies don't own these pages, they may only monitor them.
447 - Additionally, even sites that appear to be truly democratic and collaborative use targeted marketing through prosumption aids in the disclosure of personal information
447 - For Comor, alienation comes down to the realization surplus values, a core component of capitalism - where both, the wage paid worker and the user providing unpaid intellectual labor, are both exploited (for surplus value)
448 - Comor warns that disparities in the levels of hiearchy are not flattening (as celebrants argue), but actually growing wider. The worker is doing less (de-skilling) with machines (such as price scanners, simple button-pushing repetitive machines, etc). Independent thought is "neutured"
448 - "From a Marxist perspective, these developments are perfectly rational - capital, after all, is compelled to seek profits (through the realization of surplus values) by using machines (including ICTs) to manage the division of labour in all facets of the production process."
449 - Conclusion - prosumption has the ability to hire workers as creative tools for exploitation, but can also sustain the status quo of product- & process-alienation. So really, it's more flexible and profitable for the capitalists than the traditional factory scene.
450-52 - So why does this happen? 1) the prosumer appears to be in control. 2) prosumers seek a sense of self-worth by commoditizing themselves (I think applicable to attention economy) and 3) to participate in communities that focus on celebrity culture (which I think is fans, parasocial interaction), heavily marketed brands, and other apolitical or commodified activities.
453 - Final Conclusion: "digital prosumption is destined to remain part and parcel of capital's production and reproduction priorities with alienated prosumers labouring to satisfy their own possessive individualist needs."
440 - Co-creation and prosumption are non-alienating activities for celebrants (which he disagrees)
441 - Marx: Self-creation - individuals producing the conditions of their own environment
However in capitalism: workers' engagement in production is more of a matter of survival than self-creation (you work to make money to suvive, rather than create something of importance for your survival).
441 - Therefore, the worker resides in a state of alienation. He does not produce to realize his own creative powers, but rather he works to produce a wage, which will then allow him to consume (proletariat). The low wage and non-ownership of anything but his labour power, allows the worker the potential to realize his alienation (p. 444)
441 - The capitalist, meanwhile, (bougeois owner) doesn't even produce, but is insulated by his capital wealth, with no need to uncover or realize his alienation. This is because he is afforded power and status by this capital (444).
442 - Under capitalism, there are two main types of alienation:
product-alienation: the products the proletariat helps to produce is not owned by the proletariat or in some cases, not even viewed in total (as in assembly line work)
process-alienation: surplus value, rather than use-value, is generated from the Fordist environment of workers
Capitalism emphasizes market value, not use-value. The work of the proletariat does not serve the direct needs of the proletariat, but rather wages earned allow them to fulfill needs.
Comor disagrees with the argument that open source software and online collaborative work resolves this alienation: Empirical evidence doesn't prove it - because in cases where this appears to be the case, there is usually less job security (p. 443) or more pervasive forms of surviellance (p. 443).
443 - Plus, another contributing factor of alienation's persistance in the digital age is due to the consistant need to generate and increase surplus value - which is more easily captured by digital technologies
444-445 - For Marx, the heart of alienation is not in any of the alienations discussed above, but rather in the production process itself - production, distribution, exchange, and consumption. This process requires capitalists to "get more for less out of people". Therefore, more "dead" labour (machines) is employed which increases the dehumanization and creative capacities of people/workers. Workers merely become tools of capital. (People are alienated from their essence, species-being this way).
446 - Neoliberals that argue that digital technologies afford people the chance to become entrepreneurs and gain wealth & status are covering up for the fact that the consumer still has to operate within the economic system's control, relying on a network that compels them to constantly improve skills on new (and expensive) teachnology, hardware, and software. Many of these hopefuls' work also contributes to promoting and branding activities.
446 - Comor uses Wikipedia as an example and claims that the site is routinely "used to promote commercial interests". Not sure I agree, unless he is referring to product and company pages - but the companies don't own these pages, they may only monitor them.
447 - Additionally, even sites that appear to be truly democratic and collaborative use targeted marketing through prosumption aids in the disclosure of personal information
447 - For Comor, alienation comes down to the realization surplus values, a core component of capitalism - where both, the wage paid worker and the user providing unpaid intellectual labor, are both exploited (for surplus value)
448 - Comor warns that disparities in the levels of hiearchy are not flattening (as celebrants argue), but actually growing wider. The worker is doing less (de-skilling) with machines (such as price scanners, simple button-pushing repetitive machines, etc). Independent thought is "neutured"
448 - "From a Marxist perspective, these developments are perfectly rational - capital, after all, is compelled to seek profits (through the realization of surplus values) by using machines (including ICTs) to manage the division of labour in all facets of the production process."
449 - Conclusion - prosumption has the ability to hire workers as creative tools for exploitation, but can also sustain the status quo of product- & process-alienation. So really, it's more flexible and profitable for the capitalists than the traditional factory scene.
450-52 - So why does this happen? 1) the prosumer appears to be in control. 2) prosumers seek a sense of self-worth by commoditizing themselves (I think applicable to attention economy) and 3) to participate in communities that focus on celebrity culture (which I think is fans, parasocial interaction), heavily marketed brands, and other apolitical or commodified activities.
453 - Final Conclusion: "digital prosumption is destined to remain part and parcel of capital's production and reproduction priorities with alienated prosumers labouring to satisfy their own possessive individualist needs."
My Thoughts, Opinions, and Ideas
1. Due to machines attributing to the alienation of workers, low wages need to be supplemented with personal information during consumption, which can then be converted into exchange value, which is key in a capitalist system. This, essentially, lowers the prices of goods (as in shoppers' cards), which creates a surplus value to the consumers, who plays the role of the capitalist at home (land owner, business owner). This afford the consumer/capitalist the opportunity to accumulate more wealth for his 'home business' through the surplus exchange value of his personal information. But the question remains, what price does he pay for selling that information (for the discount price of the product)?
2. Commercial Attention Economy >>> Engagement >>> Data Collection >>> Profits
But before data collection, prosumers enter the picture, for their engagement generates a new attention economy for themselves, which possesses the possibility for further engagement that may monetarily benefit the prosumer. However, this further engagement certainly drives the data collection and profits of the site owner and media originally looking for engagement.
2. Commercial Attention Economy >>> Engagement >>> Data Collection >>> Profits
But before data collection, prosumers enter the picture, for their engagement generates a new attention economy for themselves, which possesses the possibility for further engagement that may monetarily benefit the prosumer. However, this further engagement certainly drives the data collection and profits of the site owner and media originally looking for engagement.
Andrejevic (2002) The Work of Being Watched: Interactive Media and the Exploitation of Self-Disclosure
231 - Andrejevic sets out to further (update) the work of Smythe (1977) and Jhally & Livant (1986).
231 - Viewers "are being recruited to participate in the labor of being watched to unprecedented degree by subjecting the details of their daily lives to increasingly pervasive and comprehensive forms of high-tech monitoring."
232 - This surveillance is not for its repressive force, but rather for its potential productive deployment; companies need to know what is being consumed, how it's being consumed, when, where, and by who.
232-233 - Goal is to offer an alternative view to the debate of privacy over online interactive media
233 - People are willingly surrendering their personal info for convenience and customization - promises of interactive media
233 - Taylorism as digital technologies & watching viewers
234 - Foucault - Discipline & Punish - power of surveillance is a productive power - increase production, develop economy - as in Taylorism - p. 208, 1977.
234 - Marketing employs surveillance as to predict consumption through the records of consumer behaviors & other demo info.
234 - Foucault moves surveillance beyond the workplace & into the home as a necessary condition of capitalism
235 - "The information economy - including that designed to stimulate consumption via the accumulation, manipulation, and deployment of information derived from consumer surveillance - is economically productive, and the labor associated with it can be identified by its status as a value-generating activity."
235 - It's about supply & demand... with growing supplies, marketers must increase & stimulate demand for products, and to do this effectively, require detailed personal information to understand how consumers consume. Therefore, consumption and production are tied together.
235 - Interactive technologies offload this work of data collection onto the consumer who disclose their personal data in the act of consumption.
235 - Jhally & Livant's 1986 analysis: audiences perform work by viewing advertising in exchange for payment in the form of programming content. Viewing is productive because watching ads helps speed up the selling & circulation of commodities. This cuts down on on circulation and storage costs for producers.
236 - Taylorism & Television: Niche marketing (direct marketing) is meant to limit wasted watching. To do this, detailed personal and behavioral data is required - which comes in the form of TV ratings. Nielsen does the watching, so advertisers know the work of audiences is being done as efficently as possible. Therefore, ratings are commodities because they help rationalize the viewing process in what Mosco & Meehan call "cybernetic commodities." (feedback commodities produced through consumption or interaction)
236 - Digital/Informational technologies becomes useful because now direct/individual marketing is now a possibility when before it was either too expensive or technologically impossible.
238 - discusses variable pricing of e-commerce where prices for the same project differ based on collected demographic data.
238 - The Digital Enclosure - surveillance based rationalization - activities traditionally carried outside of monitoring are now folded into digital technologies for monitoring & data collection
Often times this is voluntary, but even Andrejevic hints that it may soon not be.
The draw? Lester (2001) calls it the "tyranny of convenience"
Also, there may be an exclusivity involved where certain media products can only be found online
Surveillance is creeping into the realm of free-time
238 - Privacy Quote: "1999 Wall Street Journal-NBC poll cited by Lester (2001) for its finding that 'privacy is the issue that concerns Americans most about the twenty-first century, ahead of overpopulation, racial tensions, and global warming' (p. 27).
239 - Andrejevic suggests that privacy laws may not be helpful in that they hinder the economy - which relies on marketing and selling commodities effectively. He observes that an alternative ideology is surveillance as a form of consumer control. Celebrants & corporations discuss how the consumer now has all the control, which is endorsing the digital enclosure! While Andrejevic doesn't deny there is some truth to this control, he says we cannot ignore the exploitative properties. He says this control and individualism is merely a "ruse" to have users self-disclose their info while media still remains a form of mass consumption. (The individualism being sold is really to benefit the marketing side, not the consuming side!)
240-41 - Viewers get a lot of bells and whistles that appear to challenge the norms of the industry, but it's actually the industry investing in this for the sole purpose of data collection.
242-43 - Tivo, like digital technologies' main components are: Customization (for both production and consumption), Interactivity (ability to monitor consumers consuming), Offloading of work onto the consumer (who generate their own data), and development of a relationship (for the longitudinal collection of personal data and trends.)
243 - It's not the death of privacy, but the shift in control over personal information from consumers to the private sector.
244 - the more sophisticated surveillance means that exist, the more stimulated the market & economy become.
244-45 - for Foucault, where ever there is power, there is a "potential for resistance."
245 - a more passive data collection approach is the cookie where, instead of actively submitting data through online forms and surveys, websites collect data for the convenience of users re-visiting websites and provide it to marketers.
Andrejevic argues that once the idea of privacy as dead is debunked, we can then address the unequal access to data which leads to exploitation.
231 - Viewers "are being recruited to participate in the labor of being watched to unprecedented degree by subjecting the details of their daily lives to increasingly pervasive and comprehensive forms of high-tech monitoring."
232 - This surveillance is not for its repressive force, but rather for its potential productive deployment; companies need to know what is being consumed, how it's being consumed, when, where, and by who.
232-233 - Goal is to offer an alternative view to the debate of privacy over online interactive media
233 - People are willingly surrendering their personal info for convenience and customization - promises of interactive media
233 - Taylorism as digital technologies & watching viewers
234 - Foucault - Discipline & Punish - power of surveillance is a productive power - increase production, develop economy - as in Taylorism - p. 208, 1977.
234 - Marketing employs surveillance as to predict consumption through the records of consumer behaviors & other demo info.
234 - Foucault moves surveillance beyond the workplace & into the home as a necessary condition of capitalism
235 - "The information economy - including that designed to stimulate consumption via the accumulation, manipulation, and deployment of information derived from consumer surveillance - is economically productive, and the labor associated with it can be identified by its status as a value-generating activity."
235 - It's about supply & demand... with growing supplies, marketers must increase & stimulate demand for products, and to do this effectively, require detailed personal information to understand how consumers consume. Therefore, consumption and production are tied together.
235 - Interactive technologies offload this work of data collection onto the consumer who disclose their personal data in the act of consumption.
235 - Jhally & Livant's 1986 analysis: audiences perform work by viewing advertising in exchange for payment in the form of programming content. Viewing is productive because watching ads helps speed up the selling & circulation of commodities. This cuts down on on circulation and storage costs for producers.
236 - Taylorism & Television: Niche marketing (direct marketing) is meant to limit wasted watching. To do this, detailed personal and behavioral data is required - which comes in the form of TV ratings. Nielsen does the watching, so advertisers know the work of audiences is being done as efficently as possible. Therefore, ratings are commodities because they help rationalize the viewing process in what Mosco & Meehan call "cybernetic commodities." (feedback commodities produced through consumption or interaction)
236 - Digital/Informational technologies becomes useful because now direct/individual marketing is now a possibility when before it was either too expensive or technologically impossible.
238 - discusses variable pricing of e-commerce where prices for the same project differ based on collected demographic data.
238 - The Digital Enclosure - surveillance based rationalization - activities traditionally carried outside of monitoring are now folded into digital technologies for monitoring & data collection
Often times this is voluntary, but even Andrejevic hints that it may soon not be.
The draw? Lester (2001) calls it the "tyranny of convenience"
Also, there may be an exclusivity involved where certain media products can only be found online
Surveillance is creeping into the realm of free-time
238 - Privacy Quote: "1999 Wall Street Journal-NBC poll cited by Lester (2001) for its finding that 'privacy is the issue that concerns Americans most about the twenty-first century, ahead of overpopulation, racial tensions, and global warming' (p. 27).
239 - Andrejevic suggests that privacy laws may not be helpful in that they hinder the economy - which relies on marketing and selling commodities effectively. He observes that an alternative ideology is surveillance as a form of consumer control. Celebrants & corporations discuss how the consumer now has all the control, which is endorsing the digital enclosure! While Andrejevic doesn't deny there is some truth to this control, he says we cannot ignore the exploitative properties. He says this control and individualism is merely a "ruse" to have users self-disclose their info while media still remains a form of mass consumption. (The individualism being sold is really to benefit the marketing side, not the consuming side!)
240-41 - Viewers get a lot of bells and whistles that appear to challenge the norms of the industry, but it's actually the industry investing in this for the sole purpose of data collection.
242-43 - Tivo, like digital technologies' main components are: Customization (for both production and consumption), Interactivity (ability to monitor consumers consuming), Offloading of work onto the consumer (who generate their own data), and development of a relationship (for the longitudinal collection of personal data and trends.)
243 - It's not the death of privacy, but the shift in control over personal information from consumers to the private sector.
244 - the more sophisticated surveillance means that exist, the more stimulated the market & economy become.
244-45 - for Foucault, where ever there is power, there is a "potential for resistance."
245 - a more passive data collection approach is the cookie where, instead of actively submitting data through online forms and surveys, websites collect data for the convenience of users re-visiting websites and provide it to marketers.
Andrejevic argues that once the idea of privacy as dead is debunked, we can then address the unequal access to data which leads to exploitation.
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