While free labor can relate to unpaid labour, it can also refer to voluntarily given work. Exploitation in digital media has led in concerns over the commodification of online activities that produce revenue for websites. According to Terranova's post on free labor, distributing content boosts third-party earnings and values. Contemporary instances, such as Facebook, demonstrate this problem because each new post adds to the company's sellable information database. While this article criticizes these activities by claiming that users gain money for their contributions, the issue is not one of money and so should not be considered exploitation. The central thesis of the reading is that user generated content and cultural industries on the internet present the nature of labor in the well-known capitalist societies. She links the argument of digital economy with that of social factory put forward by autonomist Marxists. Terranova argues that free labor on the part of participants is enjoyed, voluntary given and exploited. It ranges from building packages of website modifying software, participating in the mailing list, reading and building virtual spaces (Terranova 33). She wrote this article before the period of dot-com bubble characterized by the extreme growth in the adaptation and use of the internet by consumers and businesses.
One can easily understand the background of this research from the concepts of labor and the digital media theory. Beadle and Kelvin (449) describe labor as a creation of work or a self-determined action. The digital media has created a shift in the commodification of labor. For instance, social media is a large industry with wealthy competitors that create thousand new jobs for bloggers, app developers, software engineers and digital marketers. According to Terranova (34), the internet supports trends towards increasing workforce flexibility, reskilling and freelance work. It has also taken additional work home from the traditional office. Successful organizations have shifted to internet structures with new positions and departments to create a strong online presence. However, there is a group of internet users who neither own the companies nor serve as employees. They are the consumers who spent time and share their ideas on social media and contribute to financial gain through their participation. The new collaboration has raised concern about the nature of online activities and whether the constitute labor. Terranova criticizes the digital media suggesting that the free labor amounts to exploitation.
Example of Media Text
The volume of information in today's media texts is at a manageable level. In one minute, Facebook users share three million items, and Twitter fans send more than 430, 000 tweets (Guy 69). Fans' photos, pictures, status updates and game uploads help them to sustain awareness of mass-media text over time. They continually supply new stories, news, and art to fight off the texts' obsolesce. The Facebook status tricks that can see its members predict the future makes mass media production more attractive to their taste culture and increase their commitment to the Facebook text data that were found lacking and unsatisfactory.
Strength and Weakness of the Argument
The idea of pairing the concept of free labor with the term 'exploitation' makes Terranova's critique of digital media week. The growth of web-based companies results to more quantified labor activities and Facebook users are just consumers who benefit from them. Customers gain by having a new social status because of they want to associate with the brand. Comparing the two concepts is unconvincing and incoherent. The question one can ask when reading this article is how writing tweet, uploading videos and writing materials on the web constitute exploitation? The idea of immaterial labor where users produce knowledge on art, cultural ideas and norms collaboratively without compensation requires more practical background information (De Kosnik 121). There is no research done on this study provided by the author to support her arguments. The theoretical background of her case is clear because of the cited work of scholars who assess Karl Max's arguments on labor. However, it is important to add more evidence to support the theories of early researchers. Although she interrogates the modes of digital labor, the users' perceptions about collective creation and sharing of information are not the same as her arguments.
The term 'immaterial labor' as used in this text is misleading because such conditions should only refer to corresponding effects in the physical world. It should constitute a networked alienation concerned with physical bodies. It exists beyond the traditional Marxian wage based theory hence cannot be used to support wage-based activities since the cost of labor depends on the price of commodities. There is no legal, financial or social way of recognizing the production Facebook activities online. Beadle (435), states that meaningful labor work leads to quantified benefits.
Controlling and reshaping people's communication on the internet does not constitute exploitation. Terranova (74) calls it "simultaneously and voluntarily given and exploited." However, she fails to provide the present digital context where people respond to the cultural demands on the internet. The internet encouraged brand awareness, loyalties, and associations which depend on the consumer's attention. The consumers are forced to move towards the brand which Terranova refers to as exploitation.
The strength of Terranova's argument is that her statements on the role of the internet in the cultural economy are consistent with the current state of technology. Facebook is changing towards the cultural needs of its users; it cannot survive without 'free labor' from users who create new content to continually update it to meet cultural expectations (Fuchs 190). For instance, news organizations on Facebook such as CNN share news updates online for free without pay. While free labor makes most sites to run, they gain more from advertisers that they should share with those who help them grow their profits.
The Salient Key Terms used in the Texts
The author uses the term 'Digital economy' as a network of digital artisans with coordinated systems of intelligence that leads to fulfillment through work. It involves specific forms of production such as web design, digital services, and multimedia production. It has forms of labor that users may not recognize such as mailing list, chat, real life stories and amateur newsletter; these are technical and cultural labor. Terranova (38) further argues that they do not result from capitalism. However, she claims that they develop because of expansion of cultural industries. Capitalism does not create digital economy but helps it to thrive by drawing more users to large companies that have attractive brands.
The author also uses the term 'free labor' to explain the end of factory age and the old working class. The knowledge consumption is translated to embraced pleasurable activities online. These activities are shamelessly exploited hence the term 'free labor.' De Kosnik (119) further explores this concept by stating that there should be frameworks for compensating fans who think their activities reside outside the economic framework. She does not use the concept to insist in the idea of exploitation but states that there is need to address the problem. Her argument is similar to the notion that fans make a generous contribution to online companies and their activities should lead to wages.
The concept of 'collective intelligence' is important in understanding the use of the internet as a resistance force giving power to users only. The internet shapes the structure of the post-industrial society hence influencing at happens outside the web. Terranova defines 'collective intelligence' as a universally spread, continuously enhanced and coordinated information. According to Fuchs (180), the internet users are forced to join the crowd or remain behind because of cultural pressure. He explains the reason why everyone works together to create knowledge and limit the access to those who belong to the digital economy. The web based systems of information sharing between and within customers and firms have caused the loss of traditional labor processes and markets. The collaboration makes it hard to commodity the activities shared within the online systems because the companies have no control of the social demands affecting consumers online.
In conclusion, Terranova's argument on the free labor in the digital media requires more support from research on the digital media users.
The author refers to consumer's online activities on websites as free labor and exploitation without concrete evidence to support her argument. The digital economy is a network of digital artisans who engage in a collaborative system to create information for them. Their activities are not commodities making it hard to price them. For instance, it is impossible to pay Facebook users or writers for the personal status that they upload. However, the biggest problem caused by the cultural change and collective intelligence is a shift towards brands that have more value. The consumers benefit from having improved status, which is the reason why there the term 'exploitation' does not apply in their case.status, which is the reason why there the term 'exploitation' does not apply in their case.
Works Cited
Beadle, Ron, and Kelvin Knight. "Virtue and meaningful work." Business Ethics Quarterly 22.2 2012: 433-450.
De Kosnik, Abigail. "Should fan fiction be free?" Cinema Journal, 48.4 (2009): 118-124.
Fuchs, Christian. "Labor in Informational Capitalism and on the Internet." The Information Society26.3, 2010: 179-196.
Terranova, Tiziana. "Free labor: Producing culture for the digital economy. "Social text 18.2 2000, 33-58.
Guy, Marieke. "Eduserv Symposium 2012: Big Data, Big Deal?."Ariadne 69 (2012).
