From an interview with Christian Fuchs:
4) Karl Marx was largely focused on labour as a basic human activity. How
does his labour theory relate to contemporary media and communication
processes? Where do you see the border between labour and play in
contemporary social media environments?
There is an anthropological element that Marx stresses. How humans have
differentiated themselves from animals and how society has become
differentiated has to do with purposeful human activity and self-conscious
thinking. What distinguishes a bee from an architect is that the architect
always imagines the result of what he produces before he produces it. This
anticipatory thinking is at the heart of all human work processes. Work
takes its organisational forms through social relations within specific
societal formations ? for example in the capitalist mode of production and
the capitalist mode of the organisation of society. Then the labour theory
of value comes in. Some say this is vital for social media, some say we do
not need this theory because it is completely outdated. There is a lot of
misunderstanding about the labour theory of value. When I read articles
about this topic I always look at the basic concepts used besides value
and labour. A lot of people use the terms money and profit, not
understanding that labour theory of value is a theory of time in society
and the capitalist economy. The crucial thing about how Marx
conceptualizes value is that there is a substance of value and a measure
of value. Human labour power is the substance of value whereas labour time
in specific spaces is the measure of value. The labour value is the
average time it takes to produce a commodity. How does this relate to what
is called social media? The claim that the labour theory of value is no
longer valid implies that time plays no role in the contemporary
capitalist economy. Attention and reputation can be accumulated and
getting attention for social media does not happen simply by putting the
information there ? it requires the work of creating the attention. The
groups on Facebook and Twitter with the largest number of followers and
likes are the ones of entertainers and companies who employ people such as
social media strategists to take care of their social media presence. So
we need to conceptualize value with a theory of time. Therefore, I am
interested in establishing theories of time in society, time in economy
and media theory.
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