Watching as Working: the Valorization of Audience Consciousness

Jhally, Sut; Livant, Bill

doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.1986.tb01442.x

Cited by 152 publications

(138 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…For Smythe, the commodification of nonwork, reproductive viewing time was therefore an extension of the alienation of workers from the means of production and the articulation of their 'species-being.' As Sut Jhally and Bill Livant (1986;McGuigan, 2014) argue, despite its economic insight, Smythe's argument functions mostly as an ideological critique based in the alienation thesis.…”

Section: The Alienation Thesis In Digital Mediamentioning

confidence: 99%

Queering alienation in digital media

Jarrett¹

2016

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Marx’s concept of alienation, particularly as articulated in Dallas Smythe’s audience-commodity thesis, is central to critical studies of the political economy of digital media and its exploitation of user labour. However, in its application within critical studies of Internet economies, the concept often becomes limited to alienation from ‘species-being’ or autonomous self-actualisation. Drawing on mostly queer, but also some feminist, critiques this paper seeks to challenge this application of the alienation concept. It uses examples of the mediation of gay and queer sexualities through online hook-up apps to illustrate its position, concluding with some suggestions for how queering the subject of the alienation thesis may shape further analysis.

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Section: The Alienation Thesis In Digital Mediamentioning

confidence: 99%

Queering alienation in digital media

Jarrett¹

2016

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“…Moreover, users are supposedly remunerated by social media firms themselves: 'the [social media] platform ('wages') is exchanged for the audience work of communicating and socializing ('labour')' (Fisher, 2012, p. 181). Channelling Jhally and Livant (1986), Fisher thus makes explicit what is implicit within Smythe's audience commodity thesisnamely, that television 'programming ... is the wage of the audience' (Jhally & Livant, 1986, p. 136). This wrongheaded idea assumes that 'audiences sell watching-power to media owners' (Jhally & Livant, 1986, p. 135), and that television programmes are the reward (the wage-equivalent) they receive in return.…”

Section: Social Media User Alienation Ii: the Switchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding Social Media Use as Alienation: A Review and Critique

Reveley

2013

E-Learning and Digital Media

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The opportunities social media provide for agential expressions of subjectivity and experiential learning, relative to social media's role in reproducing digital-era capitalism, are the subject of keen debate. There is now a burgeoning academic literature which suggests that social media users are, to a greater or lesser degree, alienated by the activities of mega-corporations like Google and Facebook. Within this literature two broad perspectives are clearly identifiable. The first insists that social media platforms strongly alienate their users. To the extent that critical media scholars who advance this proposition are preoccupied with ideological hegemony, their work emblematises the idealist tendency of (old) media theorists that Dallas W. Smythe criticises. Contributors to the second perspective posit a trade-off between social media user alienation and exploitation. Not only is this idea inherently problematical, it does not go far enough towards resetting the analysis of social media back onto a materialist track. This article seeks to do just that.

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“…Andrejevic 2011Andrejevic , 2012Fuchs 2010Fuchs , 2012a. In this context, Marxist labour theories of value that were applied to commercial mass media have been employed and updated, namely Dallas Smythe's (1977Smythe's ( , 1981 concept of audience work/audience commodity (Fuchs 2010(Fuchs , 2012a and Sut Jhally andBill Livant's (1986/2006) notion of the work of watching (Andrejevic 2009). Others have stressed that "social media" enable participatory culture (Jenkins 2006) or enable a "'making and doing' culture" (Gauntlett 2011, 11) and everyday creativity (Gauntlett 2011, 221).…”

Section: Digital Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Is Digital Labour? What Is Digital Work? What’s their Difference? And Why Do These Questions Matter for Understanding Social Media?

Fuchs¹,

Sevignani²

2013

tripleC

188

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This paper deals with the questions: What is digital labour? What is digital work? Based on Marx's theory, we distinguish between work and labour as anthropological and historical forms of human activity. The notion of alienated labour is grounded in a general model of the work process that is conceptualized based on a dialectic of subject and object in the economy that we present in the form of a model, the Hegelian-Marxist dialectical triangle of the work process. Various aspects of a Marxist theory of work and labour, such as the notions of abstract and concrete labour, double-free labour, productive labour, the collective worker and general work are presented. Labour is based on a fourfold alienation of the human being. After these concepts are introduced, they are used for discussing the notions of digital labour and digital work. The presentation is on the one hand general and on the other hand uses Facebook as a concrete case for explaining how digital labour functions. Digital work is the organisation of human experiences with the help of the human brain, digital media and speech in such a way that new products are created. Digital labour is the valorisation dimension of digital work. We conclude that we require the transformation of digital labour into digital work, a true social media revolution that makes "social media" truly and fully social. We also argue why in our view work is not the same as labour by discussing the concept of playful work and pointing out limits of concepts such as antiwork, postwork and zerowork.

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Watching as Working: the Valorization of Audience Consciousness

Cited by 152 publications

References 5 publications

Queering alienation in digital media

Queering alienation in digital media

Understanding Social Media Use as Alienation: A Review and Critique

What Is Digital Labour? What Is Digital Work? What’s their Difference? And Why Do These Questions Matter for Understanding Social Media?

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