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History of the Digital Audience Commodity

The digital audience commodity is understood as a phenomenon that digital audiences are targeted and categorized which then they are sold to advertisers. The term audience commodity can be defined as an "economic relationship which demonstrates the main purpose of media centering on audiences and their numbers that have the potential to be sold to advertisers". The term previously mentioned was created by a researcher named Dallas Walker Smythe in 1981 who criticizes that the audience be sold as a commodity to advertisers, noting that audience power is produced, sold, purchased, consumed, how it commands a price and is a commodity. Television and ratings that were assumed to be popular programs because or high ratings which in reality does not seem to tell companies anything other a number that had on the television on that station. Today streaming services are used instead which does not rely on a rating system Instead online streaming allows a person to select a show and will play in sequence and ask a person if they are still watching by pressing okay or completely stopping.However, Smythe also believed that audiences were contributors.This notion was believed because of unpaid work time that was traded in exchange for program material and explicit advertisements.

An accumulation strategy is a part of the commodity labour process used for capital purposes and in return provides users with free access to services and platforms. It works by allowing users to produce content that results in an accumulation of a mass number of users being sold as a commodity to third party advertisers. Fuchs discusses that there is no product sold to users but rather that users were sold as a commodity to advertisers. The theory of the audience commodity is discussed by Cohen that refers to Smythe's idea who believes that "the audience works by learning to desire,generating demand for and consuming of mass marketed goods and services"Smythe had viewed audiences broadly especially within media production purposes.

It was believed that the work of the audience had taken place after the work was produced because it involved users uploading their own content which generated that companies are able to sell. Television programming is used as an example because it is produced then broadcasted then at that time the work of the audience actually begins.Internet prosumer commodity is a term used to describe how user generated content such as emails, social media posts, and transaction data that is sold to advertisers.The audience not only produced content but also free time that they may not have viewed as labour which required an approach that accounted for the labour involved in the production of content business models like web 2.0. However, they tend to rely on the performance of free labour.Without this, there would not be any content resulting in the absence of profit to benefit the company which is the main concern.

Digital Audience Commodity

Online work and free labour relate to companies and consumption when referring to the offloading of work by companies affecting consumers.Cohen focuses on "what has been problematized form of work which is the particular role online that is referred to as free labour".Free labour is defined as an excessive activity not viewed as work, performed on the internet that creates value for capital.In the early 1980's a scholar named Alvin Toffler introduced the term prosumer.It is defined as "the blurring line that separates a producer from a consumer".The term Prosumption is used to make users work,without pay.This free labour produced by users raisedsurplus valuewhich then transformed into corporate profit.Essentially,the notion of the prosumer discussed important changes in media structures and practices.The age of prosumption helped to understand the new time of the producer and consumer being treated as a whole.It was viewed as"the arrival of a new form of economic and political democracy,self-determined work,labour autonomy,local production and autonomous self-production".

Audience power. according to Smythe was a "concrete product used to accomplish economic and political tasks that are the reason for the existence of commercial mass media".The audience power can be produced, sold, purchased, and consumed it commands a price and is the reason it is known as a commodity.Work is also an essential part of the labour power process.Work can be defined as"whatever one does and receives pay for". Both digital and non digital audience members do not receive pay for their use of audience power.Work played a role in being able to produce something creative changing the way in which people live through labour.Work for human beings is different because they rely on application and thinking that use both theory and practice thus creating a struggle between capital and labour.Human Beings stand out because they are able to"alter their own nature for the lives of people".Esentially, the digital audience is online doing what they want for example streaming, shopping,and connecting with family members as well as friends.This resulted in Human Beings being influenced by both what is produced and how it is produced".

Referring to both the digital audience versus the televised audience it is important to understand that what advertisers are buying which are the services of the audiences that pay close attention "to numbers,times,and particular types of communication such as television,radio,magazines,billboards,etc".These predictable numbers at particular times to specific means of communication in certain areas are seen as collective audiences.Audiences fall into two categories when it comes to the interests of the advertiser the first is "those who are connected to marketing for consumers goods and producers goods".

Advertising becomes a very small part of the analysis that does not pay attention to the category of audience digitally but through television and radio it is different because the rating and time slots for age group are alotted.The second and most important is "how audiences are produced for advertisers marketed for consumer goods". Therefore these audiences are viewed as commodities and dealt with in markets by producers and buyers.The markets establish prices as a monopoly capitalism,the process of both the market and the audience commodity are traded in and specialized.The specifications for the audience commodity include age,gender,income level,family composition etc.This is respective of the fact that they cater to specific demographics.

Digital Audience Influence

Smythe's approach is relevant today because of its "ability to discuss commodification on the internet that shares a focus with exploitation".The difference between the digital audience commodity is compared to traditional mass media that allows "users were content producers engaging in creative activity, communication, and content building". Other types of mass media focusing on specifically digital media, viewed how users produced content and engaged in creative activity online and are part of a communication community.One of the main themes that is discussed by scholar Manzerolle uncovers the emerging process of mediation that enables the audience to become a commodity.The commercial broadcasting model is used as an example that requires viewers attention to commercial messages. The messages are exchanged for television programs.

The digital audience participates in necessary work by consuming and responding to commercial messages represented."The audience works for media capital by marketing goods and services to themselves and others".Mass communication and communication capacities through the productive framework of mass production and consumption which are able to outline and considers them to be of high importance. Mass communication and communication consumption have played a role in realizing and conserving surplus value within its circulation which is central and vital to audience commodity.

The broadcasting model that Smythe referred to was able to define the rise of the audience commodity emphasis is placed on the capitalist application of information communication technologies that is productive in two ways. The first way is that it works to "facilitate the expanded circulation of economies that relate to the accumulation of surplus value".The second facilitates "the reproduction of wage labourers themselves which is the end of the capitalist application ICTs". The idea of the consciousness industry is discussed by Smythe which is a group of institutions emphasizing the productive articulation of communicative capacities that have a much broader base of information production and exchange. As a result, it is the overall management of consciousness.

The consciousness industry is able to verify and determine the size of the digital audience's influences advertising. The behaviour of the members of the dighital audience under the impact of advertising and the other content of the mass media is the object of market research by a large number of independent market research agencies.As well as by similar staff in advertising agencies,in corporations which advertise,and are involved in many media enterprises.

Audiences that are produced for sale fall into two groups, the first is those produced in connection with marketing consumers goods and those for producer goods.Advertising is quite a small part of the total following the analysis which disregards category of the digital audience.The second and most important class of audiences are produced for advertisers marketing consumers goods. There are also two classes the first are for producers of homogeneous packaged goods(HPG) that are soft drinks, candy, perfume, cosmetics and other restaurants."The second subclass of audiences for consumers goods is that for durable consumer goods".Some examples of this are automobiles,clothes, shoes,and hobby equipment. It is the consumer goods advertisers whose digital audiences are produced by the mass media.

Prices happen to differ when in accordance with the types of demand for audience power.Newspapers are separate from national retail advertisers which are charged much higher rates.Markets for radio and television audiences are small and display more competition for advertisers than those of newspapers.Television audiences have very competitive networks.Audiences for television and radio also have different prices more often than not they were priced according to whether they were priced as a network package or the product of a single station.Ditgital audiences are much different and are discussed as creative power but is able to incorporate play.Free labour remains an important part of the digital economy relating to aspects of Neoliberalismand the value of productive processes.By the 1970s few of the programs were broadcasted,instead,it was specialized prime time. Furthermore,the bulk of the audience on television and radio are now sold mostly by networks but also directly through station representatives to advertisers.

Digital Media in Relation to the Audience Commodity

The commodified audience has shifted from Smythe's view which has been reviewed by scholars Cote and Pybus as "discrete, measurable, quanta in the chain of production, circulation, consumption to more dynamic, productive, collection of bodies coming together in a networked environment". Digital media has become very prominent for many people and work environments it is often used for staying connected and self-promotion on social media sites member activity is viewed as immaterial labour that is able to benefit a company.Adding friends on social media platforms helps to link people together and is viewed as connectivity and is definitely part of their growth strategy.Social network sites in particular Facebook recruits it members by providing the convenience of the internet with a simple click of the mouse people can connect to an address book inviting others to join. It is presented as a useful tool to connect you and the people around you together.

The use of social media and digital labour developed into an accumulation strategy. The term incorporated play and labour (playbour) introduced by Kucklich in 2005.The Internet is viewed as the playground and factory which has helped the discourse about digital playbour."Digital playbour is a term based on the collapse of the distinction between work time and play time"."In contemporary capitalism play and labour are presented as the pleasure principle and death drive that converge".

It is believed that audiences that are referred to as workers are expected to have fun during work time and at play time become productive and work-like. Data on social network sites that is publically available can be positive; such as social relationships with family, problematized happen, friends, colleagues but also can have drawbacks such as job discrimination, and stalking for users.Privately generated user data and individual problematized happen to be behaviors can become commodified by having both types of data sold to advertising companies to target users and generate more private revenues.Users are excluded from ownership of monetary capital and not paid for their creation of surplus value.

Since commodification, for the most part, advertising involves specific information the data contra advertising is not known.Audiences are unfortunately unable to control their data use or protect themselves from its commodification. Social Networked sites, in particular, Facebook happen to view a user as a worker and consumer(prosumer). "Protection of consumers, prosumers, and workers privacy do not tend to get considered and are only achieved in an economy that is not ruled by profit interests"

Instead, privacy tends to get controlled and managed by prosumers, consumers, and producers, therefore, that come to the conclusion of ending the privacy rules that protect domination.Fuchs believed that "If there was no profit motive on internet platforms, there would be no need or purpose to commodify data and behaviour of internet users".

With the emergence of social media and other forms of digital media, networks claimed the internet had become a participatory democracy.This term Participatory Democracy was introduced in 1965 by Staughton Lynd "the term was used to describe organizing principles of the Students for a Democratic Society".There were two theorists that were influenced by participatory democracy which was Crawford Brough Macpherson and Carole Pateman it was described as "the democratic rights that needed to be extended from the state to the economic enterprise and other central organizations of society".The key feature was the direct participation of citizens in the regulation of the key institutions of society,including the workplace and local community.

Complications with The Digital Audience Commodity

Scholar Karatani discusses the contemporary media landscape," media consumers became producers working and created surplus value that shows the important role of consumers in contemporary capitalism when workers and consumers intersected".This brings up the actualization of a movement of transnational association of workers and consumers that were put forward by Karatani."This presents the class struggle against capitalism of workers versus consumers or consumers versus workers".

It is believed that citizens, consumer groups, social movements groups etc. should closely observe the surveillance operations of corporations documenting mechanisms and corporations.It should also take into consideration measures that threaten privacy or increase surveillance of citizens.Documentation is considered effective because it can help to watch the watchers and raise public awareness.

Prosumers and data are only made visible, not transparent. Surveillance is presented as an operation of authority and transparency suggests democracy being powerful.Wikileaks is a digital media platform and a mechanism "used to try and make power transparent leaking secret documents about political and economic power".Wiki leaks do not engage in collecting information about those in power, relying on anonymous online submissions, insiders, who realize the wrongdoings of companies and want to expose what is happening.It is believed that "more scrutiny leads to reduced corruption and stronger democracies in all institutions".

With the information that has been revealed, it has more closely looked at government transparency as opposed to corporate transparency.Wikileaks and corporate watch platforms can have some common factors such as they are both internet projects that try to make powerful structures transparent and are part of the struggle against powerful institutions. Users could have the choice to opt out of social media services, but media corporations would still continue to collect, assess, and sell personal data, thus selling users as an audience commodity to advertising clients,giving personal data to those in power like the police.

In the past and what also still currently tends to occur is the alienation of workers from means of producing and reproducing themselves."The work of the audience commodity has been discussed using the commercial mass broadcasting as an example which views the appearance of the audience as a saleable commodity".Its purpose is to provide the means of harnessing communicative capacities for purposes of circulation as if they were producing surplus value. "The work of the audience is an abstract category that reflects the conversation of surplus value speeding up circulation through communicative mobilization of consumers".The audience as a commodity guides the development and deployment of commercial media systems, in particular, the commercial application of spectrum-based technologies.

The exchange involved in digital media is slightly similar to Smythe's approach where audiences received programming for their labour. Users online invest time, participants receive information, generating a feeling of belonging and fulfillment.It is also able to create a large social network as a means for peer valorization for one's online subjectivity.However, because of the fact that participants engage labour is not always seen as being exploited because when labour is performed on sites they are produced as economic needs of capital. People participate for entertainment, enjoyment, and desire invested in production as well as consumption.

Instead, the idea brought forward is that digital media platforms could be viewed as a business strategy that capital reacting to and attempting to exploit the way in which people seek non-commodified relationships online.It also must be kept in mind that there is no guarantee of how the site will be used.It also should not be presented and misunderstood as open democratic resulting in users acting as they please.While users are able to construct an online identity having a sense of empowerment which are set to the economic imperative of the company.

With the reliance on general intellect and free or immaterial labour for capital accumulation does not move away from the idea of the audience commodity but instead, the consistency of capitalism remains and also in cyberspace. Cohen believes that it must be remembered that there is nothing capitalist or non-capitalist about social media networking sites and they can be used for profit or fun. Although, social knowledge, relationships human agency, and productive forces in social media which must happen to extract profit.

This presents the idea that there is vast potential for social networking sites that have not been realized outside a commerce driven model.Social media is viewed as a crowdsourcing of knowledge or sharing of information that was effective and highlights the importance of collective and social knowledge.

Diaspora is considered an alternative internet platform which has developed as an open-source social networking site created by four New York University students. "It describes itself as privacy aware, personally controlled, and open sourced".What is interesting is that it is set up in a way based on simplicity and ownership letting one support one's own connections into groups.Diaspora ensures personal files like pictures, and stories only get shared with intended users.It works by giving one full control of how everything is distributed making it clean and easy. Diaspora is presented and can be "viewed as a socialist internet project that strives to acknowledge a socialist conception of privacy".

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For more information about sources used visit York University's website http://www.yorku.ca/index.html