Free and under-paid media labors have continued to at the focus of debates as arguments continue whether media protects the labor rights of individuals. Significant concerns have continued to be raised on how media and its processes constitute to a form of work that goes unpaid or underpaid. Although media are meant and used explicitly for fun, arguments behind is that these practices constitute to digital labor that goes unpaid or underpaid. Digital work involves organizing human experiences, media tools, and information to create new products that can be sold to generate revenue and profits. Free and under-paid media labor exists, and there are various conditions associated with them such as talent exploitation, fandom, class exploitation, production of reality televisions, and Web 2.0 surveillance.
Arguments and Analysis
Talent exploitation is one of the critical conditions of free and underpaid media labor. The media has continued to be characterized as a platform where talents of individuals such as writers can be exploited for the benefit of the third party. Free online content provision is one that talent can be easily exploited in the media. Bloggers in free online content provision can assist to build the reputation of a particular website by providing quality work and focusing on matters that concern the community. Regardless of the crucial role that they play in creating credibility and reputation of the site, such bloggers are not paid since they are in a free online content provision. However, the excellent reputation and content of the website can create demand, which can lead to the site being sold at high profits. When such cases occur, the bloggers are usually left unpaid or provided with little compensation.
The arguments can relate to the selling of the Huffington Post in February 2011 to AOL. According to reports, Arianna Huffington sold the website at a price of $315 million and refused to pay or compensate the legions of bloggers who had worked for a long time to build the reputation of the site (Scholz, p13). Fair labor advocates argued that Huffington was an excellent example of exploiters of free online content provision, where they exploit the talent of writers for their future benefits. It can, therefore, be argued that talent exploitation is one of the conditions of both free and under-paid media labor.
Fandom is another critical condition of free media labor. Today, fandoms have become favorite places for posting and finding online jobs and talent. Fandoms are used by fans to post their works such as poems, songs, and videos are a way of self-advertising and a strategy for penetrating a particular market niche. Due to the growing popularity of using fandom as a way of finding online jobs, advertising, and market penetration, they have become favorite places for labor abuse. The online fan productions have led to the authorized marketing of numerous products both physical and intellectual. Nearly every kind of products today can be found in different types of fandom that exist. Online works related to fandom have, however, been characterized by unpaid wages that act as a condition for free labor. Intellectual properties such as songs, poems, and articles have failed to offer compensation to the fans regardless of third parties benefiting that has continued to raise debates on whether it is high time to consider compensating fans for their contributions. Additionally, fandoms have encouraged unethical practices such as unauthorized use of other people’s work by third parties solemnly for their benefit. As a result, fandoms have become favorite places for free labor where third parties benefit from other people’s work and an area for exploitation (Scholz, p99).
Class exploitation is another critical condition of free and under-paid media labor. The internet has become one of the primary places for class exploitation that has contributed to the free and under-paid media labor. It has been argued that blogs and other social media platforms have brought about a participatory culture that has assisted individuals to identify themselves with other people of the same class. As a result of people’s preferences and identity on the internet, companies have been able to exploit different classes for their benefit based on data usage. Google, for example, generates its revenue and profits by selling data to various advertising clients. The company sells data of different classes of people to companies targeting to sell their products for specific classes. The profits made by the company are, therefore, based on the ads that are usually targeted for the search. It is argued that Google makes billions of dollars from its consumer base that is made up of nearly 15 percent of the world’s population (Scholz, p213). However, the billion of users of Google lack financial compensation for the value-generated labor that they provide for the company. It has further been indicated that Google and social media platforms sell users’ data product to various promotion clients at a price that is greater than the invested constant and variable capital. This surplus value is created both the users and corporation employees. Unlike the corporation employees, users of the internet are not paid (Scholz, p218). Class exploitation on the internet is, therefore, a condition for free and under-paid media labor.
The production of reality television is another condition of free and underpaid labor. According to research, the production of reality television majorly follows the capitalist rule of reducing production costs and expanding the consumer market as well. Additionally, the production of reality television usually involves utilizing consumers by placing them in a situation where they are directly involved in the process of production. To further increase profits and revenues, reality television programs involve consumers in product customization by using their personalized experiences. As a result, consumers in reality television production and programs are laborers. Consumers in reality television programs have been transformed into laborers that assist in cultural commodity manufacturing. However, consumers in reality television programs and production are either cheaply compensated or receive no compensation for their participation (Jian and Liu, p534). The consumers in reality television programs and productions have, therefore, become cheap labor-power assisting in the creation of significant revenues and profits in the television industry. In other extreme cases, the audience is exploited by being required to pay to attend reality programs during the production process. Apart from being laborers, they are also buyers, which indicates the high level of consumer exploitation ion the television industry. Other ways that reality television programs uses the audiences as laborers is through elements such as voting and commenting (Jian and Liu, p535). It can, therefore, be argued that the production of reality televisions is another critical condition of free and cheap media labor.
Web 2.0 use is another critical condition of free or underpaid labor. The platforms supported by Web 2.0 include YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter among many more others. According to reports, Web 2.0 and the supported platforms have contributed significantly to the outsourcing of workers as a way for companies to reduce the cost that has resulted in free and under-paid media labor. Web 2.0 has allowed corporations to utilize e-commerce to expand to other regions easily and outsource workers quickly. Due to top outsourcing workers, investments have drastically reduced their investment and labor costs that have resulted in job destruction and consumer exploitation (Fuchs, p290). Based on reports, Web 2.0 has allowed digital media to facilitate surplus value that has been turned into huge profits by corporations without them paying wages to laborers. Some of the major corporations that have managed to exploit laborers are the platforms of the Web 2.0 that were mentioned earlier. According to research, internet users are laborers since they become productive prosumers when using Web 2.0 and the supported platforms. The users of the web 2.0 and supported platforms do not pay users for content production, which can be viewed as exploitation in media that encourages free labor.
In most instances, new media corporations utilizing the Web 2.0 offers compensation such as free access to platforms that allow them to produce content. As a result, these platforms can attract more prosumers that can be sold as commodities to advertisers. The higher the number of users the higher the number of advertisers can be drawn to the platforms allowing the new media to make more revenue and profits. If content production and time spent online were both paid as employee wages, then the variable costs would rise that would have led to the media corporation making less profit and revenue. The audience, therefore, contributes to unpaid work during the time they spend online and are compensated with free access. The Web 2.0 can, thus, be viewed as a digital enclosure that encourages presumption exploitation (Fuchs, p300). It is, therefore, true that Web 2.0 is a condition of free and unpaid media labor.
Mass self-communication and web 2.0 surveillance are other conditions of free and under-paid media labor. The uses of the internet, social networks, and the World Wide Web have allowed the exchange of information to a wide range of people. Posting of videos on YouTube and writing of contents on blogs using RSS links can reach a global audience, which can be considered as mass communication (Fuchs, p303). However, the tools mentioned above have also allowed the production of messages that are self-generated leading to mass self-communication. Mass self-communication is characterized by self-directiveness and retrieval of specific information, message, and content. According to research, Web 2.0 surveillance is usually targeted to larger user groups who can effectively and hegemonically assist to produce and also reproduce surveillance through the use of self-produced contents (Fuchs, p304).
Privacy statements are usually the legal mechanisms that allow the Web 2.0 to carry out surveillance for personalized advertising. Due to such privacy statements, users have little choice to agree if they want to use platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram among many more other platforms for interaction purposes or taking advantage of the web 2.0’s benefits. Due to web 2.0 and the privacy statements, mass self-communication has facilitated free and under-paid media laborers through the exploitation of the self-generated information. The self-generated information is usually not democratically controlled by the users but can be leveraged by third parties to make revenue and profits, which makes the users free labors for such companies (Fuchs, p305). The fact that web 2.0 surveillance allows personal data and usage behaviors of consumers to be exploited and sold to companies for advertisement purposes makes mass self-communication and the surveillance conditions for free and unpaid media labor.
Conclusion
The three articles analyzed reveals that talent exploitation, class exploitation, mass self-communication, fandom, web 2.0 surveillance, and the production of reality television are some of the significant conditions of free and under-paid media labor. The relation that exists between these three conditions is that they make use of the digitilized tools to foster free and underpaid work. Companies specifically exploit consumers and users for revenue and profit generation. Due to the exploitation of consumers and users, the groups end up being active participants in the production process leading to companies making huge profits and revenue. Being active participants in the production process, users and consumers become laborers that are required to be paid. However, companies that are involved in such exploitation pay minimal or no compensation to the consumers and users, which leads to free or underpaid media labor.
Works Cited
Fuchs, Christian. "Web 2.0, Prosunption, and Surveillance." Surveillance " Society (2011): 288- 309.
Jian, Mioju and Chang-de Liu. "Democratic entertainment' commodity and unpaid TV: a preliminary analysis of China's Supergirl." Inter-Asia Cultural Studies (2009): 524-544.
Scholz, Trebor. Digital Labor: The Internet as Playground and Factory. Routledge Publishers, 2013.
