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How is labour changing in the age of computers, the Internet, and ""social media"" such as Facebook, Google, YouTube and Twitter? In Digital Labour and Karl Marx, Christian Fuchs attempts to answer that question, crafting a systematic critical theorisation of labour as performed in the capitalist ICT industry. Relying on a range of global case studies--from unpaid social media prosumers or Chinese hardware assemblers at Foxconn to miners in the Democratic Republic of Congo--Fuchs sheds light on the labour costs of digital media, examining the way ICT corporations exploit human labour

The Internet has been transformed in the past years from a system primarily oriented on information provision into a medium for communication and community-building. The notion of "Web 2.0", social software, and social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace have emerged in this context. With such platforms comes the massive provision and storage of personal data that are systematically evaluated, marketed, and used for targeting users with advertising. In a world of global economic competition, economic crisis, and fear of terrorism after 9/11, both corporations and state institutions have a growing interest in accessing this personal data. Here, contributors explore this changing landscape by addressing topics such as commercial data collection by advertising, consumer sites and interactive media; self-disclosure in the social web; surveillance of file-sharers; privacy in the age of the internet; civil watch-surveillance on social networking sites; and networked interactive surveillance in transnational space. This book is a result of a research action launched by the intergovernmental network COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology)

This article asks: How can we best conceptualise and analyse media systems and media organisations today? A discussion of approaches to media systems and organisation analysis shows that many of them seem to assume the correctness of Francis Fukuyama's claim that liberal democracy has after the breakdown of the Soviet system been universalised. This article argues that the contemporary world situation shows that Fukuyama's concept of the end of history is wrong and that we, therefore, need to rethink approaches to media systems and organisation analysis. This article introduces one such approach that is based on a concept of society that argues that all social systems and organisations have economic, political and cultural dimensions and that there is an antagonism between self-management and alienation. The article builds on and extends a typology of media organisations introduced by Colin Sparks. It introduces a systematic model of 12 different types of media organisation and six types of media systems. It stresses the importance of discerning between and analysing the interactions of capitalist media, public service media, civil society media, state media, authoritarian media and democratic media.

AbstractAt the end of his life, Stuart Hall called for the reengagement of Cultural Studies and Marxism. This paper contributes to this task. It analyses Stuart Hall's works on communication and the media.The goal of the paper is to read Stuart Hall in a manner that can inform the renewal of Marxist Humanism and the development of a Marxist-Humanist theory of communication. This involves reconstructing elements of Hall's approach, criticising certain aspects of his work, and through this engagement developing new theory elements.The article's analysis of Stuart Hall's theory of communication and the media is conducted in four steps. First, the paper reengages and re-evaluates what Hall called the two paradigms of Cultural Studies: Structuralism and "Culturalism"/Humanism. It discusses the role of human agency in society. Second, the paper engages with Hall's and Althusser's notions of articulation and sets the notion of articulation in relation to the concept of communication. Third, it discusses the relationship between communication and work in the context of Hall's works. Fourth, the article revisits and engages with Hall's encoding/decoding-model in the context of digitalisation.This paper grounds a dialectical concept of communication that is based on the dialectic of articulating and articulatedness, the dialectic of work and communication, as well as the dialectic of communication in the public sphere and society's power forcefields. It shows how a critical, dialectical theory of communication benefits from engagement with Stuart Hall's works. The present work argues with, for, against, and beyond Stuart Hall in order or productively draw on ideas that emerge from this engagement.

Humanity has experienced an explosion of anti-humanism in the form of authoritarian capitalism, postmodern filter bubbles, and global problems. Marxist/Socialist Humanism is the proper answer to the deep crisis of humanity. In this context, this article asks 'How can Cornel West's works inform a contemporary Marxist humanist theory of society?' Taking West's works as a starting point, what are the key elements of a Marxist humanist theory of society? Cornel West is one of the leading critical intellectuals today. His work has fused anti-racist theory, Black Liberation Theology, Marxist theory, pragmatism, and existentialism. This article especially focuses on West's understanding of humanism and culture. It shows how his works and praxis can inform the reinvigoration of Marxist Humanism in the age of authoritarian capitalism as a socialist response. West's thought can and should also inform the analysis of alienation, exploitation, domination, culture, the public sphere, the critique of ideology, and popular culture.

This paper asks: what are the democratic potentials of the digital commons and the digital public sphere? First, the article identifies ten problems of digital capitalism. Second, it engages with the notion of the digital public sphere. Third, it outlines the concept of the digital commons. Fourth, some conclusions are drawn and ten suggestions for advancing digital democracy are presented. This article contributes to theorising and the analysis of digital capitalism, Internet platforms, the digital public sphere, the digital commons, digital democracy, public service Internet platforms, civil society/community Internet platforms, platform cooperatives, open access, corporate/capitalist open access, and diamond open access. This work also outlines ten problems of digital capitalism as well as ten principles of digital progressivism, a politics that advances the public sphere and the commons and thereby (digital) democracy in society. There are natural, economic, political, and cultural dimensions of the commons and the digital commons. Capitalism, public service, and civil society media/community media/cooperatives are three forms of organisation and governing the Internet and digital media/technologies. Capitalism colonises and commodifies the (digital) commons and the (digital) public sphere. Alternative models are located outside of capitalism in the realms of the public sphere and civil society as well as their interactions.