ABSTRACT
This third volume in Christian Fuchs’s Media, Communication and Society book series illuminates what it means to live in an age of digital capitalism, analysing its various aspects, and engaging with a variety of critical thinkers whose theories and approaches enable a critical understanding of digital capitalism for media and communication.
Each chapter focuses on a particular dimension of digital capitalism or a critical theorist whose work helps us to illuminate how digital capitalism works. Subjects covered include: digital positivism; administrative big data analytics; the role and relations of patriarchy, slavery, and racism in the context of digital labour; digital alienation; the role of social media in the capitalist crisis; the relationship between imperialism and digital labour; alternatives such as trade unions and class struggles in the digital age; platform co-operatives; digital commons; and public service Internet platforms. It also considers specific examples, including the digital labour of Foxconn and Pegatron workers, software engineers at Google, and online freelancers, as well as considering the political economy of targeted-advertising-based Internet platforms such as Facebook, Google, YouTube, and Instagram.
Digital Capitalism illuminates how a digital capitalist society’s economy, politics, and culture work and interact, making it essential reading for both students and researchers in media, culture, and communication studies, as well as related disciplines.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part I|37 pages
Introduction
part II|135 pages
Theorists
chapter Chapter Three|26 pages
History and Class Consciousness 2.0: Georg Lukács in the Age of Digital Capitalism and Big Data
part III|134 pages
Themes
chapter Chapter Seven|16 pages
From Digital Positivism and Administrative Big Data Analytics Towards Critical Digital and Social Media Research
chapter Chapter Ten|23 pages
Capitalism, Patriarchy, Slavery, and Racism in the Age of Digital Capitalism and Digital Labour
part IV|9 pages
Conclusion