Critical Political Economy Analysis of the Commodifacation of Prosumer Labor in the Case of Twitter

Abstract

Dealing with the commodification processes and exploitation of users who participate in online activities on the social networking site Twitter, this study is based on the critical political economy approach. In this study, in which the rise of social media along with the recent developments in communication technologies was evaluated within the capitalist modes of production and style, the production and consumption relations observed in Twitter were examined. The capitalist relations, processes and forms dominating Twitter have evaluated under the thematic categories of analysis; the determinations made in these categories were obtained from semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted with the chosen research group of 10 participants, by intended sampling technique among Twitter users. It is concluded that Twitter is seen by the participants as a digital space in which production and exchange relations take place and a tool that enables these relations to be actualised.

Keywords

• twitter
• prosumer labor
• audience commodity
• commodification processes
• primitive accumulation