ABSTRACT
This chapter develops a critical approach to social network sites (SNSs) with emphasis on the monetization process of SNSs with the case of Facebook. It focuses on the notion of free labor in terms of its work as unpaid, because social media users are being exploited in the digital capitalism era, although social network site users perhaps do not care to be paid. In SNSs, including Facebook, users are the producers and the consumers. The chapter examines the process of commodification of Facebook users as free labor. It deals with audience commodity theory to frame an analysis of free labor in an era of social media. The chapter explores that the terms audience commodities and audience work warrant a new look due to the importance of the changing nature of Web 2.0 participants, unlike audience commodity theory previously emphasizing the role of audiences in mass communication, such as television and newspapers.
