Digital Labour and Karl MarxHow is labour changing in the age of computers, the Internet, and "social media" such as Facebook, Google, YouTube and Twitter? In Digital Labour and Karl Marx, Christian Fuchs attempts to answer that question, crafting a systematic critical theorisation of labour as performed in the capitalist ICT industry. Relying on a range of global case studies--from unpaid social media prosumers or Chinese hardware assemblers at Foxconn to miners in the Democratic Republic of Congo--Fuchs sheds light on the labour costs of digital media, examining the way ICT corporations exploit human labour and the impact of this exploitation on the lives, bodies, and minds of workers. |
Contents
| 1 | |
PART I Theoretical Foundations of Studying Digital Labour | 21 |
Case Studies | 153 |
PART III Conclusions | 283 |
| 363 | |
| 389 | |
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accessed activities alienation analysis argues audience commodity billion call centre capital accumulation capitalist chapter China class relations class struggle coltan commodification companies concept contemporary context corporate social media create crisis critical Cultural Studies data commodities dialectic digital labour digital media division of labour domination employees exchange exchange-value existence exploitation Facebook factory forms of labour Foxconn Fuchs global Google human ibid ICT industry ideology Indian software information society labour-power labour-time law of value Marx Marx’s Marxist mode of production necessary labour needs Negri notion object Occupy movement organization platforms play Political Economy productive forces profit prosumer relations of production result role SACOM share shows Silicon Valley slave slavery Smythe’s social media social movements social relations software engineers specific stress structures sublation surplus labour surplus value targeted advertising technologies tion transformed Twitter use-value users wage labour whereas YouTube