[ICTs-and-Society] Fwd: Discussion post from m.andrejevic at uq.edu.au

[Christian Fuchs]

 From m.andrejevic at uq.edu.au

I agree with Andrew -- an economic approach will not fully explain the 
Internet; I see what's taking place here not as an attempt to saturate 
the field of explanation with economics, but rather to try to figure 
out, from a critical perspective, just what is taking place economically 
in the realm of social media. Not trying to explain everything with 
economics, in other words, but rather highlighting that there is an 
economic bit that still needs explaining and understanding, precisely 
because there are important ways in which it differs from what came 
before. To pick up on Andrew's invocation of Marx, one of the bases for 
collection action is some understanding of the terms of exploitation 
that structure social relations. From this perspective to analyze and 
critique exploitation is not to constrain "agency" but rather to start 
to trace the outlines for the impetus and ends for collective action. I 
use scare quotes, because "structure-agency" talk tends to reproduce a 
false opposition (familiar in the so-called debate between political 
economy and cultural studies) -- as if pointing out the way in which 
power relations structure available options poses a challenge to the 
idea that political action is possible (rather than an incitement to 
it). To my mind wrestling with these questions and trying to update or 
reconsider our formulations is doing precisely what Andrew suggests: not 
discounting future forms/bases of collective action, but figuring out 
what form they might take, and on what basis.  I'm very much looking 
forward to hearing more about these.

As for Andrew's claim that there is a "notable absence of reflection on 
the agency of users in the political economy of the Internet" -- I'd 
need a bit more context/explanation to know whether I agree. Clearly, 
the "agency" of users has been a central theme of the theoretical 
reception of the Internet more broadly -- and, from what I've seen, this 
has carried over into political economic analyses which try to make 
sense of the ways in which interactivity, choice, pleasure, sociability, 
etc, co-exist with forms of exploitation, the reproduction and 
exacerbation of existing power relations, and so on. Much of the 
critical political economic work followed upon the celebratory claims 
made for the empowering/democratizing character of the Internet -- not 
to write them off so much as to figure out how they might live up to 
their promise (which meant pointing out the ways in which they fell 
short, and why). But I feel I'm missing the main point here. I'm looking 
forward to hearing more about the forms of user "agency" that have not 
(yet) been reflected on.

-------------- next part --------------
An embedded message was scrubbed...
From: Mark Andrejevic <m.andrejevic at uq.edu.au>
Subject: RE: [ICTs-and-Society] Plenary 7: ?The Internet and Critical Theory Today? (Mark Andrejevic, Andrew Feenberg)
Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2012 02:27:58 +0000
Size: 67123
URL: <http://lists.icts-and-society.net/pipermail/discussion-icts-and-society.net/attachments/20120412/e32aa1d5/attachment-0002.eml>
-------------- next part --------------
An embedded message was scrubbed...
From: discussion-request at lists.icts-and-society.net
Subject: confirm 0003acaedc0432ef2af85debd9dc336051db720b
Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2012 19:28:07 -0700
Size: 805
URL: <http://lists.icts-and-society.net/pipermail/discussion-icts-and-society.net/attachments/20120412/e32aa1d5/attachment-0003.eml>