Critical Response: Learning to Immaterial Labour 2.0: MySpace and Social Networks

 Coté, Mark and Jennifer Pybus. 'Learning to Immaterial Labour 2.0: MySpace and Social Networks.' Ephemera. 7.1
http://www.ephemeraweb.org/journal/7-1/7-1ephemera-feb07.pdf    pp.88-108


       Learning to Immaterial Labour 2.0: MySpace and Social Networks by Mark Cote and Jennifer Pybus asserts that learning to labour immaterially is a major aspect of the web 2.0 experience using the example of social networks and in particular MySpace. Users learn to create and then participate in the very systems of organization and network connections that become the bonds of control imminent to the system of capitalism. The labour being described as immaterial is such due to the lack of material goods produced by the efforts of participants. Users toil by participation in the creation and extension of social networks during leisure time creating individual subjectivities interconnected with each other’s nodes in relation to tastes, opinions, affinities and of course commodities. Self-defined interests and affinities identify and offer up the user to targeted advertisements, and created subjectivities are mined for valuable market research. The myriad of routes of valorization and pleasure gained from participation maintain the good will of the user toward learning to create surplus value for the marketeers. Seemingly unwittingly through their leisure activities.
      Active participation in the network of capitalistic control, regardless of the opacity of the mechanisms which allow it, is important due to it’s ubiquity and fiscal clout. This system of participation in control and organization produces gains for both the network of subjectivities and the top-down interests of MegaCorp inc. The network society is inescapable and permeates the most mundane and everyday activities of modern living. It has become near impossible to exist outside at least some network relationship. Thus the activities and results of these relationships are relatable to nearly everybody. The products and power of the socially networked can be recognized for use by not only the management of capital but resistance as well.
       The authors make reference to Hardt and Negri’s framework of immaterial labour, referring to it as immaterial labour 1.0. Version 1.0 includes three types of immaterial labour: intellectual labour such as problem solving, emotional labour such as in the service and care industries, and the evolution of manufacturing in relation to new communication technologies in the sense that  an order to begin material manipulation may come from an office computer half a planet away from the factory. Immaterial Labour 2.0 surpasses 1.0 to include leisure time in the realm of productivity. Leisure time as represented by the types of activities engaged in during social networking that are mined by capital.
      The authors argue MySpace and in extention capital, harnesses immaterial labour through biopower as described by Michel Foucault.  Biopower is the extension of the evolution from sovereign to disciplinary power. Sovereign power extends from a sovereign directly to the body of an individual where a king could cause the torture or death of any person. Disciplinary power is associated with segregation and individualization where subjects have internalized a behavioural guard that monitors their activities whether a real guard is watching or not. The internalization of behavioural guards and participation in common institutions such as schools and hospitals reinforce the production of certain behaviours and thus certain types of people and associations. The types of people produced are those most productive and useful for capitalism. A person’s production of themselves as a subject within this network is key. “In other words, disciplinary societies were a matter of spatially and temporally ordering things in a discrete manner that composed bodies in a way that made them greater than the sum of their parts.” (p. 92). As society becomes increasingly interconnected and mobile the usual geographically fixed institutions are swapped for virtual relationships and social networks. Biopower exists as the entirety of society, regulated by itself in an interconnected and generative fashion where each individual polices themselves and each other with power embedded flexibly within the system and not through an external body. (Bio)Power relationships permeate all relationships and the very fabric of everyday life.
    Participation on MySpace is synonymous with attempts at extention of one’s social network and bids for valorization. Building larger networks enhances one’s cultural capital and by extrapolation marketability. The rewards of participating in something bigger than oneself and interpersonal triumphs of accumulation drive a natural desire to build networks and accumulate capital. The rewards, like dog biscuits reinforce profitable behaviour. Relationships that are built that can be monitored and/or packaged are the most valuable commodity to capital. Summarized on page 95: “...Not only socially ‘profitable’ for youth, it helps capital construct the foundations of a future of networked subjectivity and affect.” Capital currently consumes this cultural content by directly targeting for in-monitor advertisement words and topics used during real time network participation. The trade value of this information was worth $580 million to News Corp.
      The networks inherent to self organization during immaterial labour, though the delicious tender meat of capital niche-seeking is also a realm for resistance. The article asserts resistance comes first. A line is drawn to a soft revolution where social networks of positive respect and affinity are proliferated resulting in social change. The large musical segment within MySpace is an example of a body of individuals and works that circumvents the usual corporate boxing of art, participating in free trade. “So once again, there is always something within MySpace that remains a refuge, albeit one always being surveyed by capital for enclosure.” (p. 103).
      In conclusion biopower is non-coercive in that people use leisure activities they enjoy to produce work that is useful if not essential (within network society/ network based power structures) for capitalism to find and exploit. However people are active, and not passive audiences that are simply bought and sold. The activity of immaterially labouring may produce alternative solutions.

    The argument is convincing to me in that I can see and understand in an everyday way how aspects of any monitor-able activities such as those performed online, and particularly in an interactive medium such as a social network that any marketable reference is catered to. By extension I also understand a marketeer's interest in finding niches to exploit and what a goldmine social networks offer as a rich source of market information. I also enjoy the example of musicians on MySpace as resistance workers existing outside of the general corporate overlord scheme and the dreamy idea of soft revolution. I would like to continue an essence of resistance in the groups I participate in through ideas such as repair over renewed consumption and sustainable enjoyable areas of interest.
       I also feel it understandable that people are active in their own control and affix themselves representations and niches as dictated by their desired internal behaviour guards and immediate social influences. Opening the dialogue to being and active participant in one’s control may help design a system of product placement that is organic to people’s needs and desires. Along the lines of producing the self as a particular kind of individual perhaps through the right networks and enthusiasms tools and infrastructure could be put into place to assist humans in development and aspirations beyond current hopeful wildest dreams.


Questions to consider:
Given the construction and subsequent exploitation of niches is social networking more positive or more negative? Are niches that are created amenable to the positive advancement of society or are people pushed toward destructive consumption of commodities and subjectivities?

How likely is a soft revolution?





Additional Resources:
Web 2.0
MySpace
MySpace privacy policy
Subjectivity
Network Society
Immaterial Labour
Biopower