Summary
Contents
Subject index
The Power and Political Economy of Social Media
社交媒体的权力与政治经济学
The Power and Political Economy of Social Media
社交媒体的权力与政治经济学
Key Questions 关键问题
- What are the ideologies and common myths that surround social media?
围绕社交媒体的意识形态和常见神话是什么？ - What is meant by the political economy of social media and how does this work?
社交媒体的政治经济学指的是什么？ - What is digital labour and what role does it play within the political economy of social media?
什么是数字劳动，它在社交媒体政治经济学中扮演什么角色？
Key Concepts 关键概念
- Political economy of social media
社交媒体的政治经济学 - Digital labour 数字劳动
- Social media ideologies 社交媒体意识形态
- Corporate colonization of social media
社交媒体的企业殖民 - Prosumption 推定
- Audience commodity 观众商品
- Internet prosumer commodity
互联网消费商品 - Prosumer surveillance 消费者监控
- Targeted advertising 有针对性的广告
- Panoptic sorting 全景分类
- Global division of digital labour
全球数字分工
Overview 概述
Political economy analyzes the structural features of capitalism, such as the causes of crises, whereas ideology critique analyzes the claims that are made about reality and how true they are. If one wants to understand power, then one needs to analyze both ideology and political economy. For a critical analysis of social media, this means that we have to take a look at both ideological aspects and political economy.
政治经济学分析资本主义的结构特征，如危机的原因，而意识形态批判则分析对现实提出的主张及其真实性。如果要理解权力，就需要同时分析意识形态和政治经济学。对于社交媒体的批判性分析而言，这意味着我们必须从意识形态和政治经济两个方面进行分析。
This chapter's task is to provide an introduction to the critical power structure analysis of social media. For this purpose, it will explain how surplus value production and exploitation work on corporate social media platforms, i.e. aspects of labour and capital accumulation are analyzed. I point out the limits of the participatory social media hypothesis (in section 5.1), introduce Marx's cycle of capital accumulation (5.2), which I apply to social media (5.3). I discuss the connection of unpaid user labour to other forms of labour (5.4) and, finally, draw some conclusions (5.5).
本章的任务是介绍社交媒体的批判性权力结构分析。为此，本章将解释剩余价值生产和剥削如何在企业社交媒体平台上发挥作用，即分析劳动和资本积累的各个方面。我指出了参与式社交媒体假说的局限性（第 5.1 节），介绍了马克思的资本积累周期（第 5.2 节），并将其应用于社交媒体（第 5.3 节）。我讨论了用户无偿劳动与其他劳动形式的联系（5.4），最后得出一些结论（5.5）。
5.1. Social Media as Ideology: The Limits of the Participatory Social Media Hypothesis
5.1.作为意识形态的社交媒体：参与式社交媒体假说的局限性
Social Media: Participation as Ideology
社交媒体：作为意识形态的参与
Techno-deterministic approaches that assume that the rise of these technologies results in a more democratic society dominate studies of “web 2.0” and “social media”. This becomes especially clear when representatives of this approach speak of “participatory social media”. For example, Jenkins argues that increasingly “the Web has become a site of consumer participation” (Jenkins 2008, 137), Shirky (2008, 107) says that on web 2.0 there is a “linking of symmetrical participation and amateur production,” Tapscott and Williams (2007, 15) argue that “the new web” has resulted in “a new economic democracy,” Howe (2008, 14) speaks of social media crowdsourcing as a “manifestation of a larger trend toward greater democratization of commerce,” Benkler (2006, 15) states that due to commons-based peer production “culture is becoming more democratic: self-reflective and participatory,” Bruns (2008, 17) says that Internet produsage allows “participation in networked culture,” Deuze (2007, 95) concludes that “new media technologies like the Internet have made visible […] the participatory engagement of people with their media”. To be fair, one has to say that Deuze (2008) has also written contributions in which he stresses the “corporate appropriation of participatory culture” (contribution title).
关于 "web2.0 "和 "社交媒体 "的研究主要采用技术决定论的方法，认为这些技术的兴起会带来一个更加民主的社会。当这种研究方法的代表谈到 "参与性社交媒体 "时，这一点变得尤为明显。例如，Jenkins 认为 "网络已日益成为消费者参与的场所"（Jenkins 2008, 137），Shirky（2008, 107）说，在 web 2.Tapscott和Williams（2007, 15）认为，"新网络 "产生了 "新的经济民主"；Howe（2008, 14）认为，社交媒体众包是 "商业更加民主化这一更大趋势的体现"；Benkler（2006, 15）指出，由于基于公共资源的同伴生产，"文化正变得更加民主：Bruns（2008, 17）说，互联网浪潮允许 "参与网络文化"，Deuze（2007, 95）得出结论说，"互联网等新媒体技术让人们看到了[......]人们对媒体的参与"。公平地说，Deuze（2008 年）也曾撰文强调 "企业对参与性文化的占有"（文章标题）。
Approaches like the ones just mentioned miss a theoretically grounded understanding of participation. They use claims about implications for democracy, but miss that in democracy theory mainly the approach of participatory democracy theory (Held 2006) uses the term “participation”. The earliest use of the term “participatory democracy” that I could trace in the literature is an article by Staughton Lynd (1965) that describes the grassroots organization of the student movement. Participatory democracy theory (for a more detailed discussion and its implications for the analysis of social media, see Fuchs 2011b, Chapter 7) has two central features:
刚才提到的那些方法没有从理论上理解参与。它们使用了对民主影响的说法，却忽略了在民主理论中，主要是参与式民主理论（Held，2006 年）使用了 "参与 "一词。我在文献中能找到的最早使用 "参与式民主 "一词的是 Staughton Lynd（1965 年）的一篇文章，其中描述了学生运动的基层组织。参与式民主理论（更详细的讨论及其对社交媒体分析的影响，请参见 Fuchs 2011b，第 7 章）有两个核心特征：
- the broad understanding of democracy as encompassing areas beyond voting, such as the economy, culture, and the household, and
对民主的广义理解包括投票以外的领域，如经济、文化和家庭，以及 - the questioning of the compatibility of participatory democracy and capitalism.
质疑参与式民主与资本主义的兼容性。
The Limits of YouTube YouTube 的局限
One should analyze the political economy of social media platforms when making judgements about their participatory character. If there are, for example, asymmetries in terms of visibility and attention, then it is questionable that corporate social media are truly participatory. It is therefore not enough to stress enabling and limiting potentials of the Internet, but one rather needs to analyze the actual distribution of advantages and disadvantages. It is also important to analyze the negative aspects of social media in order to temper the uncritical social media-optimism that is an ideological manifestation of the search for new capital accumulation models that wants to exploit user labour in order to raise the profit rate in the digital media industry. Critics have stressed in this context that web 2.0 optimism is uncritical and an ideology that serves corporate interests (Fuchs 2011b; Van Dijck and Nieborg 2009) or that web 2.0 users are more passive users than active creators (Van Dijck 2009).
在判断社交媒体平台的参与性时，应分析其政治经济学。例如，如果在能见度和关注度方面存在不对称，那么企业社交媒体是否真正具有参与性就值得怀疑。因此，仅仅强调互联网的有利潜力和限制潜力是不够的，还需要分析利弊的实际分布情况。同样重要的是，要分析社交媒体的负面影响，以抑制不加批判的社交媒体乐观主义，这种乐观主义是寻求新的资本积累模式的意识形态表现，它希望利用用户的劳动来提高数字媒体行业的利润率。在这方面，批评者强调，web 2.0 的乐观主义是不加批判的，是一种为企业利益服务的意识形态（Fuchs，2011b；Van Dijck 和 Nieborg，2009 年），或者说，web 2.0 用户更多的是被动的使用者，而不是积极的创造者（Van Dijck，2009 年）。
Analysis of the ten most viewed videos on YouTube (see Table 5.1) shows that transnational media corporations, the organized exploiters of surplus value-generating labour, control YouTube's political attention economy. Entertainment and music are very popular on YouTube and Facebook (see also Table 5.2), whereas politics is a minority interest. An analysis of Facebook groups shows that the most popular groups are about IT and entertainment, whereas politics is of minor interest.
对 YouTube 上浏览量最高的十个视频的分析（见表 5.1）表明，跨国媒体公司--有组织的剩余价值创造者--控制着 YouTube 的政治注意力经济。娱乐和音乐在 YouTube 和 Facebook 上非常流行（另见表 5.2），而政治则是少数人的兴趣所在。对 Facebook 群组的分析表明，最受欢迎的群组是有关 IT 和娱乐的群组，而对政治的兴趣不大。
Table 5.1 The most viewed YouTube videos of all times
表 5.1观看次数最多的 YouTube 视频
Table 5.2 The most popular fan groups on Facebook
表 5.2Facebook上最受欢迎的粉丝群组
The Limits of Facebook Facebook 的局限性
Powerful politicians, such as President Obama, dominate the attention given to the political Facebook groups, whereas alternative political figures, such as Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky and Karl Marx, have a much lower number of fans (Table 5.2).
奥巴马总统等政界要人在 Facebook 政治团体中的关注度占主导地位，而迈克尔-摩尔、诺姆-乔姆斯基和卡尔-马克思等另类政治人物的粉丝数量要少得多（表 5.2）。
The Limits of Google 谷歌的局限性
The results yielded by a Google search for “political news” show that corporate news organizations dominate the top results (Table 5.3). Only one public service organization (BBC) and one non-profit organization (NPR) are under the top ten results. The top search keywords used on Google in 2010 show that the 12 most used keywords did not contain political topics. Instead, there was more interest in Whitney Houston, Gangnam Style, Hurricane Sandy, iPad 3, Diablo 3, Kate Middleton, Olympics 2012, Amanda Todd, Michael Clarke Duncan, Big Brother Brazil 12.1
谷歌搜索 "政治新闻 "的结果显示，企业新闻机构占据了搜索结果的前列（表 5.3）。只有一家公共服务机构（英国广播公司）和一家非营利性机构（美国国家公共电台）排在前十位。2010 年在谷歌上使用的热门搜索关键词显示，使用最多的 12 个关键词并不包含政治话题。相反，人们对惠特尼-休斯顿、江南风格、飓风桑迪、iPad 3、暗黑破坏神 3、凯特-米德尔顿、2012 年奥运会、阿曼达-托德、迈克尔-克拉克-邓肯、Big Brother Brazil 12.1 更感兴趣。
Table 5.3 Top results of a Google search for “political news”
表 5.3谷歌搜索 "政治新闻 "的热门结果
The Limits of Twitter 推特的局限性
Twitter is one of the most popular social media platforms. Blogger Andrew Sullivan wrote after the Iranian protests of 2009 that “the revolution will be twittered,” which contributed to the myth of Twitter revolutions.2 Can meaningful political debates be based on 140-character short messages? Short text invites simplistic arguments and is an expression of the commodification and speedup of culture. Table 5.4 shows that nine out of the ten most followed Twitter users are entertainment-oriented. Barack Obama is the only exception in the top ten. But Table 5.4 also shows that politics has a stratified attention economy on Twitter: whereas Barack Obama has a very large number of followers, the number is much lower for representatives of alternative politics, such as Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, Occupy Wall Street and Occupy London.
推特是最流行的社交媒体平台之一。博客作家安德鲁-沙利文（Andrew Sullivan）在 2009 年伊朗抗议活动后写道："革命将被推特化"，这也促成了推特革命的神话。2 有意义的政治辩论可以基于 140 个字符的短信息吗？短文会引发简单化的争论，是文化商品化和加速的表现。表 5.4 显示，Twitter 上关注度最高的十位用户中，有九位以娱乐为导向。奥巴马是前十名中唯一的例外。但表 5.4还显示，政治在 Twitter 上的关注度是分层的：奥巴马的关注者人数非常多，而迈克尔-摩尔、诺姆-乔姆斯基、"占领华尔街 "和 "占领伦敦 "等另类政治代表的关注者人数要少得多。
表 5.4粉丝数最多的 Twitter 用户资料
| Header_0 | Header_1 | Header_2 |
|---|---|---|
| Rank 等级 | Twitter user profile 推特用户简介 | Followers 追随者 |
| 1 | Justin Bieber @justinbieber 贾斯汀-比伯 @justinbieber | 35.2 million 3,520 万美元 |
| 2 | Lady Gaga @ladygaga | 34.6 million 3 460 万美元 |
| 3 | Katy Perry @katyperry 凯蒂-佩里 @katyperry | 33.0 million 3,300 万美元 |
| 4 | Rihanna @rihanna 蕾哈娜 @rihanna | 28.6 million 2 860 万 |
| 5 | Barack Obama @barackobama 巴拉克-奥巴马 @barackobama | 27.8 million 2 780 万 |
| 6 | Taylor Swift @taylorswift13 泰勒-斯威夫特 @taylorswift13 | 24.5 million 2 450 万美元 |
| 7 | Britney Spears @ britneyspears | 24.3 million 2 430 万美元 |
| 8 | YouTube @youtube | 24.0 million 2 400 万美元 |
| 9 | Shakira @shakira 夏奇拉 @shakira | 19.9 million 1,990 万 |
| 10 | Kim Karadashian @KimKaradashian | 17.4 million 1 740 万 |
| Michael Moore @MMFlint 迈克尔-摩尔 @MMFlint | 1 460 507 | |
| Noam Chomsky @daily_chomsky 诺姆-乔姆斯基 @daily_chomsky | 87 901 | |
| Occupy Wall Street @OccupyWallSt 占领华尔街 @OccupyWallSt | 177 549 | |
| Occupy London @OccupyLondon 占领伦敦 @OccupyLondon | 38 056 |
数据来源：http://www.socialbakers.com/twitter/，2013 年 3 月 1 日访问。
The Corporate Colonization of Social Media
企业对社交媒体的殖民化
Such data make clear that corporations and their logic dominate social media and the Internet and that the Internet is predominantly capitalist in character. Social media do not constitute a public sphere or participatory democratic space, but are rather colonized by corporations, especially by multimedia companies that dominate attention and visibility. Politics is a minority issue on social media. Georg Lukács argues that ideology “by-passes the essence of the evolution of society and fails to pinpoint it and express it adequately” (Lukács 1923/1972, 50). An ideology is a claim about a certain status of reality that does not correspond to actual reality. It deceives human subjects in order to forestall societal change. It is false consciousness (Lukács 1923/1972, 83).
这些数据清楚地表明，企业及其逻辑主宰着社交媒体和互联网，互联网主要是资本主义性质的。社交媒体并不构成公共领域或参与式民主空间，而是被企业，尤其是主导注意力和能见度的多媒体公司所殖民。政治是社交媒体上的少数议题。格奥尔格-卢卡奇（Georg Lukács）认为，意识形态 "绕过了社会演变的本质，未能准确定位和充分表达"（Lukács 1923/1972, 50）。意识形态是对现实某种状态的宣称，与实际现实并不相符。它欺骗人类主体，以阻止社会变革。它是虚假的意识（卢卡奇 1923/1972, 83）。
Observers who argue that the contemporary web and social media are participatory, cause revolutions, facilitate democracy or advance the public sphere, facilitate an ideology that celebrates capitalism and does not see how capitalist interests predominantly shape the Internet. Not only management gurus and marketing agencies, but also scholars in academia advance social media ideology. They postulate a false social media reality that neglects the role of capitalism. The implication of the claims that are made is that social media result in a better world. However, as the method of ideology critique that empirically compares claims to reality has frequently shown, we have a much more stratified reality that is shaped by structures of domination.
那些认为当代网络和社交媒体具有参与性、能引发革命、促进民主或推动公共领域发展的观察家，助长了一种颂扬资本主义的意识形态，却没有看到资本主义利益是如何主导互联网的。不仅是管理大师和营销机构，学术界的学者也在推进社交媒体意识形态。他们假设了一个虚假的社交媒体现实，忽视了资本主义的作用。这种说法的含义是，社交媒体会带来一个更美好的世界。然而，正如意识形态批判的方法--将主张与现实进行实证比较--经常显示的那样，我们的现实分层更深，是由统治结构塑造的。
The Internet and social media are today stratified, non-participatory spaces and an alternative, non-corporate Internet is needed (see Fuchs 2011b, chapters 7, 8 and 9). Large corporations colonize social media and dominate its attention economy. Even though Twitter and mobile phones supported the political rebellions, protests and revolutions in countries like Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia and Yemen in early 2011, and the publishing of videos about the effects of domination (as the video about the death of Neda Soltani in the Iranian protests in 2009 or the video about the death of Ian Tomlinson at the London anti-G20 protests in 2009) can support the communication of protest, one should not overestimate these potentials. There are no Twitter-, Facebook- or YouTube-revolutions. Only people who live under certain social conditions and organize collectively can make rebellions and revolutions. Technology is, in itself, not a revolution.
On corporate social media, the liberal freedom of association and assembly are suspended: big corporate and, to a lesser extent, political actors dominate and therefore centralize the formation of speech, association, assembly and opinion on social media. Liberal freedoms turn on capitalist social media into their opposite.
The concept of social media participation is an ideology. Given this empirical result, it seems both necessary and feasible to theorize “web 2.0” not as a participatory system, but by employing more negative, critical terms such as class, exploitation and surplus value. This requires us to ground the analysis of social media in the works of the founding figure of critical political economy – Karl Marx.
5.2. The Cycle of Capital Accumulation
5.2.资本积累的周期
In the three volumes of Capital (1867, 1885, 1894), Marx analyzes the accumulation process of capital. This process, as described by Marx, is visualized in Figure 5.1.
在资本论（1867、1885、1894）的三卷中，马克思分析了资本的积累过程。图 5.1 形象地展示了马克思描述的这一过程。
Figure 5.1 The accumulation/expanded reproduction of capital
图 5.1资本的积累/扩大再生产
In the accumulation of capital, capitalists buy labour power and means of production (raw materials, technologies, etc.) in order to organize the production of new commodities that are sold with the expectation to make money profit that is partly reinvested. Marx distinguishes two spheres of capital accumulation: the circulation sphere and the sphere of production. In the circulation sphere, capital transforms its value form. First, money M is transformed into commodities (from the standpoint of the capitalist as buyer): the capitalist purchases the commodities labour power L and means of production Mp. The process M-C is based on the two purchases M-L and M-Mp. This means that due to private property structures workers do not own the means of production, the products they produce and the profit they generate. Capitalists own these resources. In the sphere of production, a new good is produced: the value of labour power and the value of the means of production are added to the product. Value takes on the form of productive capital P. The value form of labour is variable capital v (which can be observed as wages), the value form of the means of production constant capital c (which can be observed as the total price of the means of production/producer goods).
在资本积累过程中，资本家购买劳动力和生产资料（原材料、技术等），以组织新商品的生产，这些新商品在出售时有望获得货币利润，部分利润用于再投资。马克思将资本积累分为两个领域：流通领域和生产领域。在流通领域，资本转变其价值形式。首先，货币 M 转化为商品（从资本家作为买方的角度来看）：资本家购买商品劳动力 L 和生产资料 Mp。M-C过程是以M-L和M-Mp这两项购买为基础的。这意味着，由于私有财产结构，工人并不拥有生产资料、他们生产的产品和他们创造的利润。资本家拥有这些资源。在生产领域，一种新的商品被生产出来：劳动能力的价值和生产资料的价值被添加到产品中。劳动力的价值形式是可变资本 v（可以用工资来表示），生产资料的价值形式是不变资本 c（可以用生产资料/生产者产品的总价格来表示）。
In the sphere of production, capital stops its metamorphosis so that capital circulation comes to a halt. There is the production of new value V' of the commodity. V' contains the value of the necessary constant and variable capital and surplus value Δs of the surplus product. Unpaid labour generates surplus value and profit. Surplus value is the part of the working day that is unpaid. It is the part of the work day (measured in hours) that is used for producing profit. Profit does not belong to workers, but to capitalists. Capitalists do not pay for the production of surplus. Therefore the production of surplus value is a process of exploitation. The value V' of the new commodity after production is V' = c + v + s.
在生产领域，资本停止了蜕变，资本流通也就停止了。商品生产出新的价值 V'。V'包含必要的不变资本和可变资本的价值以及剩余产品的剩余价值Δs。无酬劳动产生剩余价值和利润。剩余价值是工作日中无报酬的部分。它是工作日中用于生产利润的部分（以小时计算）。利润不属于工人，而是属于资本家。资本家不为剩余价值的生产支付报酬。因此，剩余价值的生产是一个剥削过程。新商品生产后的价值 V' 为 V' = c + v + s。
The commodity then leaves the sphere of production and again enters the circulation sphere, where capital conducts its next metamorphosis: it is transformed from the commodity form back into the money form by being sold on the market. Surplus value is realized in the form of money. The initial money capital M now takes on the form M' = M + Δm; it has been increased by an increment Δm. Accumulation of capital means that the produced surplus value/profit is (partly) reinvested/capitalized. The end point of one process M' becomes the starting point of a new accumulation process. One part of M', M1, is reinvested. Accumulation means the aggregation of capital by investment and exploitation in the capital circuit M-C . . P . . C'-M', in which the end product M' becomes a new starting point M. The total process makes up the dynamic character of capital. Capital is money that is permanently increasing due to the exploitation of surplus value.
然后，商品离开生产领域，再次进入流通领域，资本在这里进行下一次蜕变：通过在市场上出售，商品从商品形式变回货币形式。剩余价值以货币的形式实现。最初的货币资本 M 现在的形式是 M' = M + Δm；它增加了一个增量 Δm。资本积累意味着生产的剩余价值/利润（部分）被再投资/资本化。一个过程 M' 的终点成为一个新积累过程的起点。M'的一部分，M1, 被再投资。积累是指在资本回路 M-C .P . .整个过程构成了资本的动态特征。资本是由于剥削剩余价值而不断增加的货币。
Commodities are sold at prices that are higher than the investment costs so that money profit is generated. Marx argues that one decisive quality of capital accumulation is that profit is an emergent property of production that is produced by labour, but owned by the capitalists. Without labour, no profit could be made. Workers are forced to enter class relations and to produce profit in order to survive, which enables capital to appropriate surplus. The notion of exploited surplus value is the main concept of Marx's theory, by which he intends to show that capitalism is a class society. “The theory of surplus value is in consequence immediately the theory of exploitation” (Negri 1991, 74). One can add: the theory of surplus value is the theory of class and, as a consequence, the political demand for a classless society.
商品以高于投资成本的价格出售，从而产生货币利润。马克思认为，资本积累的一个决定性特质是，利润是由劳动生产出来但为资本家所拥有的一种新兴生产属性。没有劳动，就不可能产生利润。为了生存，工人被迫进入阶级关系并生产利润，这使得资本能够占有剩余价值。剥削剩余价值的概念是马克思理论的主要概念，他意在通过这一概念说明资本主义是一个阶级社会。"剩余价值理论的结果就是剥削理论"（奈格里，1991 年，74 页）。我们可以补充说：剩余价值理论是阶级理论，因此也是对无阶级社会的政治要求。
Capital is not money per se, but is money that is increased through accumulation – “money which begets money” (Marx 1867, 256). Marx argues that the value of labour power is the average amount of time that is needed for the production of goods that are necessary for survival (necessary labour time). Wages represent the value of necessary labour time at the level of prices. Surplus labour time is labour time that exceeds necessary labour time, remains unpaid, is appropriated for free by capitalists, and transformed into money profit. Surplus value “is in substance the materialization of unpaid labour-time. The secret of the self-valorization of capital resolves itself into the fact that it has at its disposal a definite quantity of the unpaid labour of other people” (Marx 1867, 672). The production of surplus value is “the differentia specifica of capitalist production” (Marx 1867, 769) and the “driving force and the final result of the capitalist process of production” (Marx 1867, 976).
5.3. Capital Accumulation and Social Media
5.3.资本积累与社交媒体
Many corporate social media platforms accumulate capital with the help of targeted advertising that is tailored to individual user data and behaviour. Capitalism is based on the imperative to accumulate ever more capital. To achieve this, capitalists have to either prolong the working day (absolute surplus value production) or increase the productivity of labour (relative surplus value production) (on relative surplus value, see Marx 1867, chapter 12).
Relative Surplus Value
Relative surplus value production means that productivity is increased so that more commodities and more surplus value can be produced in the same time period as before.