Course:LIBR559A/Fuchs, C. (2014)

Citation

Fuchs, C. (2014). Digital prosumption labour on social media in the context of the capitalist regime of time. Time & Society, 23(1), 97-123. doi:10.1177/0961463X13502117

Annotation

According to Marx, a necessary component of Capitalism is constant growth (p. 99). This component has implications for all aspects of society. Growth, in terms of Capitalism, involves accumulation. In the 14th century, there was a shift from measuring time by day, to measuring it by hour (p. 101). This created a demarcation in the day, between labour time and leisure time. Because there are only so many hours in the day, corporations began to promote “prosumption,” which is a type of consumption that also creates economic growth (p. 111). Prosumption is particularly evident in social media. As Fuchs writes, “on social media, users create and reproduce content, profiles that contain personal data, social relations, affects, communications and communities” (p. 112). This information is sold to advertisers, who use it to sell commodities through the creation of advertisements that are tailored to specific user profiles. Even though this is a form of exploitation, users voluntarily submit data during “leisure” time. To Fuchs, this is not a blurring of the demarcation between labour time and leisure time but, rather, it is an expansion of labour time at the expense of leisure time (p.112). In other words, it effectively adds, or accumulates, more hours to the day.

Regardless of whether or not one agrees with Fuchs' theoretical framework, he does an admirable job of distilling a complex, and overlooked, consequence of social media. The ideas presented are important to consider for social media users, even though they may not augment the behaviours of most. In terms of libraries, and librarians, promoting a Marxist labour theory of value interpretation of social media may not be entirely tenable, but it might be worthwhile in terms of educational opportunities to patrons with regard to how their personal, voluntarily supplied, information is used, by advertisers, within the capitalist system.

Areas / Topics / Keywords

Marxism, Prosumption, Labour Time, Leisure Time

Page Author: Daniel Chadwick