Sorry all, having trouble posting with the other comments again.
Kate asks, “Do you agree with Terranova’s arguments of free labor regarding the internet?”
This is of current interest to me as I am writing a Marxist critique on “old media” this semester for one of my other classes. Because of that, I will try to draw out some key differences I noticed from how Terranova critiques free labor on the internet in comparison with how I critique “old media” – reality TV show – Undercover Boss.
I think there are several key differences in which Terranvova argues in “new media” that warrants a different approach of labor from Classic Marxist thought. First, that human intelligence differs from more traditional types of labor and therefore cannot be “managed” the same; second, from the chapters, I gather that Terranova is discussing computers as enhancing human productivity, instead of more traditional uses of machines – on assembly lines, etc. or of human’s bodies in factories/assembly lines; thirds, the internet is less transparent, with less boundaries and hard to pinpoint limits than in comparison to television; fourth, not must emphasis is placed on morality in the digital economy; fifth, biological computing functions in a bottom up system of power; and lastly, as we have been discussing in class this semester, from a Foucauldian perspective, control exists on the Internet, but exists at the level of self-regulation.
Terranova’s observations significantly differ with the arguments I making about a type of “old media.” Reality TV, as Terranova discusses, is geared towards the audience. Reality TV participants are labor members who usually are a part of the “cheap labor” market in which they are usually just experiments in a fixed, capitalist system. As Hasinoff (2008) found in her analysis on America’s Next Top Model and as I am arguing for my own essay, labor exists in a fixed capitalist system in which the tokened/picked winner(s) have the opportunity to rise out of a class division within capitalist structures. But, they can only do so, through individual success, and not collectively- thus reiterating a “Horatio Alger pull yourself up alone” narrative. This narrative of individualism is crucial to the lively structures of capitalism in a classic Marxist perspective. It stabilizes the system of power because very few people will actually be able to individually achieve a higher class rank. In my opinion, I see this perspective very different from Terranova’s because in her argument, it seems that “free labor” seems more collective – not necessarily people doing things collectively, but a collective, at least a fluidity, of free flowing information in space makes it hard to see how labor is transferred/exists from a classic Marxist perspective.
Also, on the internet, Terranova asserts that self-regulation occurs; I find this to greatly differ from a Marxist perspective in my analysis, along with countless other analyses of television. On reality TV, contestants usually do not regulate themselves; rather, at least on Undercover Boss and America’s Next Top Model, there is already a fixed system in place in which both workers and contestants know they have to abide by. Yes, reality TV participants make changes to their selves, but it comes from a top-down structure, either by the CEO or Tyra Banks and her judges. Lastly, while Terranova observes that the digitial economy doesn’t take great interest in morality, I find the political economy to care greatly about morality and base its capitalist structures around this notion. For example, getting back to the capitalist value of individualism, it is ingrained in the idea of moral values and what a citizen should do morally to stabilize these capitalist structures – that they are needed and serve a GOOD purpose for life. That is one narrative that comes from the top down by CEOs who talk to their employees on Undercover Boss.
So, to conclude, as Kate asks, Do I agree with Terranova’s position on “free labor” – Yes and No. While I think a Marxist approach is the best approach to critiquing media in general, especially “old media,” I see many relevant and possibly necessary points made by Terranova, especially the idea of the fluidity of information as not being able to be critiqued from a Classic Marxist Perspective. If only Marx was alive today to answer back to Terranova’s analysis and critique “new media” himself!
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