Fuchs (2014) Dallas Smythe Reloaded

267 – Smythe reminds us the importance of Marx in analyzing capitalism critically

267 – Critical theory and political economy are complimentary and should be combined

271 – “Cultural Studies has to turn into or at least take up aspects of Critical Political Economy in order to adequately understand contemporary capitalism and the role of media and communication.”

271 – Mosco, 2009 – PE has given attention to the commodification of content and audiences, labour spatialization, class, gender, race, social movements, hegemony, and ideology

272 – economy has always been relevant to the study of culture, communication, the media, and information…but CS has increasingly ignored the economy because of CS’ turn away from Marxism

273 – Smythe’s approach can be characterized as Marxist Communication Studies, which means “a unity of theoretical/philosophical, empirical, and ethical studies of media and communication.” – focusing on contradictions, structures of domination, exploitation, struggles, ideologies, alternatives to capitalism in media.

273 – Like Marx, Smythe wasn’t content with simply analyzing political economy of media, but trying to change the structures of media. (transformative practice through critique)

276 – “in recent years, there has been a revival of interest in Dallas Smythe’s works, especially in relation to the question: are users of commercial social media workers and are they exploited?” (emphasis in original)

276- discusses the eroding walls of the factory to 24/7

276 – Facebook is an indicative phase of capitalism and exploitation of labor – all-ubiquitous factory – mobile media has lifted the factory confines of the living room

276 – factory and workplace surveillance is omnipresent

277 – smythe more concerned with surplus value generated by media than the ideological effects of message content.

277 – Garnham shares Smythe’s opinion – shift away from media as ideological apparatuses and focus more on generating surplus value and advertising.

277 – however, ideology and PE are not mutually exclusive and require one another

278 – Murdock and Golding (1974) – media organizations distribute commodities that disseminate ideology and sell “explanations of social order and structured inequality (Murdock, 1978, 469).  Also see Artz, 2008, 64.

278 – Smythe understands ideology as “a system of beliefs, attitudes, and ideas.” (Smythe, 1981, 171).

278 – For Smythe (1994, 250) – consciousness industry is to make people buy commodities and pay taxes… it also promotes values that favor capitalism (251-3)

279 – Critical theory and PE should be complementary to each other

279 – media in capitalism are two forms of cultural commodities: cultural commodity that is purchased by consumers (dvds, mobile devices, etc). and audience/users as cultural  commodities where users/consumers are sold to media companies (Twitter, Facebook)

280 – advertising makes “humans instruments for economic accumulation” and ideology “aims at instilling the belief in the system of capital and commodities into human’s subjectivity”

280 – (capitialistic media) ideology “encompasses strategies and attempts to make human subjects instrumental in the reproduction of domination and exploitation”

281 – accumulation and ideology go hand in hand – case and point: social media

Social media was accompanied by a “techno-optimistic ideology” that Web 2.0 would lead to better democracy and new forms of political struggle (new forms of participation)

281 – ideology was necessary for users to support the social media capital accumulation model

281 – Smythe had a more balanced view of audience as compared to that of PE and the Frankfurt school which focused on false consciousness and passive audience manipulation – Smythe recognized that capital would attempt to control audiences, but they also had the power to resist (Smythe, 1981, 270)

            ****But what about direct marketing and T-Commerce?  Harder to resist?****

282 – Hesmondhalgh (2010, 280): Smythe too reductionist…& Caraway (2011, 296): Smythe one sided, audience commodity fetishism, and then Caraway agrees with Jenkins on page 706 – creative energy in new media environment – Jenkins, 2006, 133…Jenkins’ “participatory culture”

283 – Fuchs: Smythe instead calls for the overthrow of capitalist media system to humanize media

Jhally & Livant (1986) Working as Watching

Watching as Working – Jhally & Livant – 1986

125 – media companies get paid “rent’ to deliver audiences to advertisers.  The money left over from paying for the programming constitutes the comapanies’ profits

126 – “watching time” is sold by the media to advertisers

126 – watching extra – seeing hidden surfaces in what we watch (like decoding advertisements) (connotative meanings)

126 – media to get the audiences not just to watch but to “watch extra” and maximize the production of this commodity at minimal costs

127 – necessary watching time – produced to offset costs of content

127 – surplus watching time – extracted to produce revenues (profits) – above the cost of programming

127 – watching time is measurable and the mode of expression of value

127 – authors explore the struggle over the valorization of the activity of watching TV

129 – believe that Smythe’s approach must be more firmly situated within media structures – where exchange value is privileged before understanding use-value of commercial messages (meanings and their relation to consumption)

130 – commodity audience time is produced by both the networks and audience

132 – networks buy watching power through the purchase of shows/programming

132 – networks then sell this watching power to advertisers for more than they paid

133 – “If the networks cannot make people watch advertising longer in absolute terms, they can make the time of watching advertising more intense – they can make the audience watch harder” (emphasis in original)

133 – targeting niche audiences limits “‘wasted’ watching by ‘irrelevant’ viewers”… concentrated audiences = little wasted watching

134 – concentrated audiences watch harder with more efficiency – value of the time goes up, thus, necessary time decreases and surplus watching time increases as a result – greater revenue (networks can charge more for a niche audience b/c there is little wasted audience for the advertiser)

135 – This is all Marxian economics – human labor, not capital or technology, is the basis for productivity in society.  Watching is a form of labor, because audience watching is integral to the entire process.

135 – Marxism – “productivity of capitalism is based upon the purchase of one key commodity – labor power” (businesses have to pay people to work)

135 – labor power produces more value than it takes to reproduce itself – the laborer gets a salary so they can live and be fit for work the next day; company profits:

Value of labor-power is fixed at a socially determined level of means of subsistence (subsistence means minimum level to maintain life; food, water, shelter, etc)

Marx – socially necessary labor: amount of time it takes to produce value equivalent to this minimum cost (produces value equivalent to salary) before the company starts profiting (it is necessary because the laborer needs to be able to reproduce labor power for the next day)

Any remaining labor time in the day is surplus labor time because surplus value is generated (profits) for the company

During non-work time, workers reproduce their labor power by spending wages on food, shelter, clothing, etc.

135 – In terms of TV Viewing:

Audiences sell watching-power to media owners/companies

The use-value of watching power is watching (capacity to watch)

Value of watching power is the cost of its reproduction, aka the cost of programming content (TV Shows)

This puts the viewers in position to watch extra (time of advertising); Only advertising comprises the work day

Thus, programming is the value of watching-power, programming is the salary of the audience.  It is also non-work time – time of reproduction of watching-power

Thus, the work day in TV is split: socially necessary watching time vs. surplus watching time

138 – time shifting fears of the advertising agencies

139 – there is no formal contract for the exchange of watching-power; no enforcement – thus, people can leave the room, time-shift, avoid commercials altogether

140 – narrowcasting & targeting niche audiences intensifies both , relative and absolute surplus value (because there is a smaller amount of wasted watching)

142 – main argument – activity of watching is subject to the same process of valorization as labor-time in the general economy.

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).