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Digital Capitalism: Media, Communication and Society Volume Three book cover

1st Edition

Digital Capitalism Media, Communication and Society Volume Three

By Christian Fuchs Copyright 2022
    342 Pages 21 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    342 Pages 21 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    342 Pages 21 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge
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    This third volume in Christian Fuchs’s Media, Communication and Society book series illuminates what it means to live in an age of digital capitalism, analysing its various aspects, and engaging with a variety of critical thinkers whose theories and approaches enable a critical understanding of digital capitalism for media and communication.

    Each chapter focuses on a particular dimension of digital capitalism or a critical theorist whose work helps us to illuminate how digital capitalism works. Subjects covered include: digital positivism; administrative big data analytics; the role and relations of patriarchy, slavery, and racism in the context of digital labour; digital alienation; the role of social media in the capitalist crisis; the relationship between imperialism and digital labour; alternatives such as trade unions and class struggles in the digital age; platform co-operatives; digital commons; and public service Internet platforms. It also considers specific examples, including the digital labour of Foxconn and Pegatron workers, software engineers at Google, and online freelancers, as well as considering the political economy of targeted-advertising-based Internet platforms such as Facebook, Google, YouTube, and Instagram.

    Digital Capitalism illuminates how a digital capitalist society’s economy, politics, and culture work and interact, making it essential reading for both students and researchers in media, culture, and communication studies, as well as related disciplines.

    Part 1: Introduction

    1. Introduction: What is Digital Capitalism?

      2. Part 2: Theorists

    2. Friedrich Engels in the Age of Digital Capitalism

    3. History and Class Consciousness 2.0: Georg Lukács in the Age of Digital Capitalism and Big Data

    4. Adorno and the Media in Digital Capitalism

    5. Communication in Everyday (Digital) Life. A Reading of Henri Lefebvre’s Critique of Everyday Life in the Age of Digital Capitalism

    6. Dallas Smythe and Digital Labour

      7. Part 3: Themes

    7. From Digital Positivism and Administrative Big Data Analytics Towards Critical Digital and Social Media Research

    8. Social Media, Big Data, and Critical Marketing

    9. Social Media and the Capitalist Crisis

    10. Capitalism, Patriarchy, Slavery, and Racism in the Age of Digital Capitalism and Digital Labour

    11. Digital Labour and Imperialism

    12. The Information Economy and the Labour Theory of Value

      13. Part 4: Conclusion

    13. Conclusion

    Biography

    Christian Fuchs is a critical theorist of communication and society. He is co-editor of the journal tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique. He is author of many publications, including the books Foundations of Critical Theory (2022), Communicating COVID-19: Everyday Life, Digital Capitalism, and Conspiracy Theories in Pandemic Times (2021), Marxist Humanism and Communication Theory (2021), Social Media: A Critical Introduction (3rd edition 2021), Communication and Capitalism: A Critical Theory (2020), Marxism: Karl Marx’s Fifteen Key Concepts for Cultural & Communication Studies (2020), Nationalism on the Internet: Critical Theory and Ideology in the Age of Social Media and Fake News (2020), Rereading Marx in the Age of Digital Capitalism (2019), Digital Demagogue: Authoritarian Capitalism in the Age of Trump and Twitter (2016), Digital Labour and Karl Marx (2014), and Internet and Society (2008).

    "Drawing on his unrivalled command of the key architects of critical theory, from Marx and Engels to Dallas Smythe, by way of Georg Lukács, Theodor W. Adorno and Henri Lefebvre, Christian Fuchs demonstrates their continuing indispensability to understanding how digital technologies and data analytics are reshaping the exercise of power and exploitation within contemporary capitalism and transforming lives, labour, and life chances across the globe. Comprehensive, combative, accessible, and essential. A book to learn from and argue with."

    Graham Murdock, Emeritus Professor of Culture and Economy, Loughborough University

    "Christian Fuchs shows us once again why he is today’s leading scholar of what happens when Marxism meets the digital. Digital Capitalism offers a wide range of essential critical lenses for examining the most pressing concerns of the contemporary economy."　

    Kylie Jarrett, Associate Professor, Maynooth University

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