Audience labor in the new media environment: A Marxian revisiting of the audience commodity
Abstract
The contemporary dynamics of mass communication necessitate a reassessment of the received notions of audience labor. To that end this article revisits Dallas Smythe’s seminal audience commodity theory through the lens of a two-sided class analysis. A number of his key conceptualizations are critiqued including audience power, audience measurement, media content as a free lunch, audiences as a non-durable producer’s good, the disappearance of labor power, and the revisionist history of capitalist development . At each point in the critique the contributions of various political economists who have revised and extended Smythe’s work are highlighted. The critique serves to underscore the contributions and limitations of the theory as its extension into the new media landscape is reconsidered.
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Caraway rightly criticizes Smythe for denying the subjectivity and agency of media users, thereby disregarding the way capitalist labour processes are marked by a fundamental antagonism.
“Caraway (2011, p. 700) rightly criticizes Smythe (1977; 1981) for denying the subjectivity and agency of media users, thereby disregarding the way capitalist labour processes are marked by a fundamental antagonism.”
From Free Labour, Social Media, Management: Challenging Marxist Organization Studies (2015) · cites this paper as Caraway, 2011
Caraway insists that the product of audience labour is not under sufficient control by the capitalist to warrant reducing audience subjectivity to an owned commodity.
“Caraway employs a classic definition of direct control and insists that the product of audience labour is 'not under sufficient control by the capitalist to warrant the reduction of audience subjectivity to the status of an owned commodity' (2011, p. 701).”
From Free Labour, Social Media, Management: Challenging Marxist Organization Studies (2015) · cites this paper as Caraway, 2011
Cites
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The Valorization of Surveillance: Towards a Political Economy of Facebook
Cohen, N. (2008) · University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries · doi:10.7275/democratic-communique.290 · Cited by 228 · see citing works
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Fuchs, C. (2012) · tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique. Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society · doi:10.31269/triplec.v10i2.443 · Cited by 212 · see citing works
Free Labour, Social Media, Management: Challenging Marxist Organization Studies
Beverungen, A., Böhm, S., & Land, C. (2015) · Organization Studies · doi:10.1177/0170840614561568 · Cited by 126 · see citing works
The valorization of interactions. Gift exchange, power and value creation on digital platforms
Nachtwey, O., & Schaupp, S. (2024) · Big Data & Society · doi:10.1177/20539517241259639 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Value and Productive Labour in the Era of Digital Technologies
Sørensen, S. B. (2024) · tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique. Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society · doi:10.31269/triplec.v22i2.1475 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
- Authors
- Caraway, B.
- Affiliations
- The University of Texas at Austin (US)
- Corresponding author
- Caraway, Brett
- ORCID
- Caraway, Brett
- Venue
- Media, Culture & Society
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2011-06-29
- Volume
- 33
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 693-708
- ISSN
- 0163-4437 (ISSN-L)
- 1460-3675
- OpenAlex
- W2062521123
- Cited by
- 133
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 18 · 2023: 23 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 16 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 20 · 2014: 6 · 2013: 6 · 2012: 8
- FWCI
- 21.06
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Media Culture & Society (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Political Economy and Marxism
- Social Sciences › Communication › Media Studies and Communication
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Networks and Communications › Media and Digital Communication
- Keywords
- Dallas Smythe, new media, audience power, audience measurement, labor power, class analysis, political economy of communication, mass communication
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