[ICTs-and-Society] Plenary 7: “The Internet and Critical Theory Today” (Mark Andrejevic, Andrew Feenberg)

[Christian Fuchs]

Friday, May 4th, 2012
* Mark Andrejevic (University of Queensland, Australia): Social Media: 
Surveillance and Exploitation 2.0
* Andrew Feenberg (Simon Fraser University, Canada): Great Refusal and 
Long March: How to Use Critical Theory to Think About the Internet.
Chair: Christian Fuchs

Mark's and Andrew's talks will bring up questions like the following 
ones: How do corporations use social networking sites? What is 
exploitation 2.0 and how does the exploitation of labour work on social 
media? How is online life commercialized, branded, and monetized? What 
is the role of surveillance in online exploitation? How can critical 
theory adequately reflect and criticize these developments?
How relevant is Herbert Marcuse's thinking and critical theory today? 
What is an adequate strategy for transforming the Internet? Does it 
require a "Great Refusal" (Marcuse) or a "Long March through the 
Institutions" (Dutschke, Marcuse)? Does Critical Theory require a 
blanket condemnation of the Internet? Does Critical Theory need a long 
march strategy that assesses the Internet's reality against its 
potentials? What is the essence of the Internet? What is the existence 
of the Internet? Is there a difference between essence and existence of 
the Internet? What is a true Internet? What a false Internet?

Pre-conference discussions on these and related questions are welcome 
over the mailing list.

***

MARK ANDREJEVIC
University of Queensland, Australia

Social Media: Surveillance and Exploitation 2.0

ABSTRACT: This presentation explores the ways in which social networking 
technologies are being taken up by the commercial sector as ways for 
integrating social and work life. Thanks to the popularity and ubiquity 
of social network technologies in some sectors of the population, 
companies are finding ways to exploit the social connections of their 
employees, customers, and clients, leading to start-up companies that 
seek to monetize social network data by linking it with consumer 
relations databases and other technologies for target marketing. When 
important aspects of people’s social lives migrate onto commercial 
platforms these become subject to marketing imperatives, self-branding 
becomes a new (or updated) form of employee asset. The goal of the 
presentation is to develop a theoretical approach to the 
commercialization and monetization of online social life. To what extent 
might the critique of exploitation be updated and brought to bear upon 
the productivity of social networks? What aspects of this critique help 
illuminate the wholesale commodification of social relationships, and 
what are the implications of relying upon a privately owned commercial 
infrastructure for their development? The critique of exploitation 
directs us back to these questions. It urges us to consider the ways in 
which the commercialization of the platform turns our own activity back 
upon ourselves in the service of priorities that are not our own, and it 
reminds us of the double duty done by the privately controlled 
interactive infrastructure. This infrastructure might serve as a 
platform for new forms of creativity, deliberation, communication, 
interaction, and consumption. At the same time, though, it works to 
assemble the most comprehensive system for mass monitoring in human 
history. The accusation associated with the critique of exploitation 
reminds us of the ways in which new forms of marketing driven 
surveillance help turn our own productive activity back upon ourselves 
in the service of ends that are not our own.

SPEAKER INFO: Mark Andrejevic is a media scholar at The University of 
Queensland, Australia. He writes about surveillance, new media, and 
popular culture. In broad terms, he is interested in the ways in which 
forms of surveillance and monitoring enabled by the development of new 
media technologies impact the realms of economics, politics, and culture.

***

ANDREW FEENBERG
Simon Fraser University, Canada
Great Refusal and Long March: How to Use Critical Theory to Think About 
the Internet

ABSTRACT: Herbert Marcuse suggested two different strategies at 
different points in his career. The Great Refusal implied a strategy of 
non-cooptable demands. This notion stemmed from a dystopian sense of the 
total systematization of society and was in harmony with the 
uncompromising opposition of the early New Left. But in the later period 
of what Marcuse called the “preventive counter-revolution”, he adopted 
Rudi Dutschke’s slogan of “the long march through the institutions”. The 
choice at this time was between withdrawal, terrorism and participating 
critically. Marcuse advocated the latter.
I want to think about our critical stance toward the Internet in terms 
of these two strategies. Does Critical Theory require a blanket 
condemnation of the Internet? This seems to be the conclusion drawn by 
many observers. Hypothetically, this could lead one to a Great Refusal 
of the Internet and all its works, withdrawal to an Internet-free zone 
of some sort. I will argue that we need a long march strategy based on a 
much more nuanced critique. We need to measure the Internet against its 
real potentials and defend it against real dangers rather than 
condemning it unqualifiedly.

SPEAKER INFO: Andrew Feenberg holds the Canada Research Chair in 
Philosophy of Technology in the School of Communication, Simon Fraser 
University, where he directs the Applied Communication and Technology 
Lab. His main areas of research are Critical Theory and philosophy of 
technology.