tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique. Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society

The Transformative Potential of Platform Cooperativism: The Case of CoopCycle

Vangelis Papadimitropoulos — 2024-01-04

The paper sets out to dissolve a contrast between traditional coop sectoral enclosure, on the one hand, and platform coop diversity, on the other hand, which often resonates with precariousness, marginalisation, fragmentation, whitewashing and corporatisation. To tackle traditional and platform coop discordance, the paper draws on the model of open cooperativism introduced by Vasilis Kostakis and Michel Bauwens, passed through the lens of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s discourse theory of hegemony, to weave a narrative that seeks to unite and broaden the scope of the cooperative sector. In doing so, the paper reviews CoopCycle as an illustrative case study of platform cooperativism. CoopCycle is a global federation of bike delivery coops that deploy the digital commons to install workplace democracy in the bike delivery sector. The paper aims at contributing to the understanding of platform cooperativism, all the while embedding the model of platform cooperativism into the counter-hegemony of open cooperativism aiming to challenge the current hegemony of neoliberalism. The main argument here is that the model of open cooperativism bears comparative advantages vis-à-vis closed proprietary socio-economic models.

Development of Media Technologies as “New Media” from the Perspective of a Critique of the Political Economy of the Media

Manfred Knoche — 2024-02-06

This paper analyses the emergence and development of new media technologies based on the approach of the Critique of the Political Economy of the Media.
First, a critical overview of approaches to the genesis and diffusion of technologies is given. Second, the connection between media technologies and capital accumulation is discussed. Third, the role of media technologies in capitalism as a means of investment, production, distribution, and consumption is analysed. Fourth, the connection between innovation, commodity aesthetics, and planned obsolescence is discussed. Fifth, the antagonistic character of the media system’s convergence, universalisation and diversification is shown. The article shows that technological development is not autonomous but depends on and is shaped by the development of capitalist society. In capitalism, factors such as capital accumulation strategies, crises, competition, advertising and marketing, market research, the state’s economic, technology and media policies, and science and engineering influence the emergence and development of new media technologies.

Acknowledgement: This article was first published as book chapter: Manfred Knoche. 2005. Entwicklung von Medientechnologien als „Neue Medien“ aus der Perspektive einer Kritik der politischen Ökonomie der Medien. In Alte Medien – neue Medien: Theorieperspektiven, Medienprofile, Einsatzfelder. Festschrift für Jan Tonnemacher, edited by Klaus Arnold and Christoph Neuberger, 40-62. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Translated and published with permission by SNCSC.

An Uncritiqued Frontier of Social Media: The Social Media Subscription Model

Paul Geyer — 2024-02-13

Even after Elon Musk announced Twitter Blue, subscription services such as Snapchat+, YouTube Premium and Meta Verified, remain an uncritiqued aspect of social media. Within this article, subscription services on social media take centre stage. This article focuses on three key points: First, subscription services have remained uncritiqued because of the blind spot created by the emphasis on data collection. Second, the Social Media Subscription Model (SMSM) now asserts social media as part of a mixed model (Fuchs 2020, 134) instead of only being considered as an advertising model. Third, applying the classical Marxian twist of capitalism as self-negating, the SMSM is also a structural response to a contradiction of "peak data", meaning how does social media sustain itself if commodifies all data? Stressing the necessity of viewing the SMSM and social media as part of a Mixed Model.

Errand Runners of Digital Platform Capitalism: The Errand Economy as a Contribution to the Discussion on the Gig Economy

İsa Demir — 2024-02-27

This article describes a new concept called the errand economy. It examines the dark side of the platform economy and the gig economy and makes a valuable contribution to the field. The concepts, especially for liberal scholars, hide the negative impact of platform capitalism on production relationships and the working class by emphasising digital technologies and piecework. The errand economy, however, especially highlights the degradation of labour, regardless of its qualifications, alongside processes such as flexibilisation, precarisation, and informalisation. That is because, under the conditions of the errand economy, platforms treat all types of work as cheap, worthless and degraded errands. The main mission of the platform economy is to end employment by using the discourse of flexibility and entrepreneurship and to transform all employees into errand workers by classifying them as self-employed. For this reason, the article proposes to use the concept of the errand economy together with the platform economy, which refers to digital infrastructures, and the gig economy, which emphasises the piecework.

Theorising Digital Dispossession: An Enquiry into the Datafication of Accumulation by Dispossession

Aishik Saha — 2024-03-14

In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, the question of work and labour was being deeply pondered upon. The demarcations that emerged out of this juncture led to a bifurcation of labour into ‘essential workers’, who are pushed into precarity from the threat of disease and contractual uncertainty in employment, and those who ‘work from home’. While geo-spatial segregation of these distinctions is contingent upon the specific relation of the nature of work with datafication, we are impelled to ponder upon the role that the accumulation of surplus value plays in this process. More specifically we must ask, what role does digital labour play in the datafication and datafied reorganization of work and workplaces? The inadequateness of data colonialism as a theoretical tool that accounts for the historical-materialist and dialectical roots of extraction and accumulation of user data requires a retheorization of the process. In this paper, I shall examine the ontological inadequacies of the metaphors of colonialism, and its extractivist logic, being transposed and mapped onto the studies of datafication. Following this I shall explore ‘digital dispossession’ as a convergence of Digital Capitalism and the neoliberal reorganization of digitized social labour, alongside its necropolitical implications. Drawing upon David Harvey’s theorization of ‘Accumulation by Dispossession’, I argue for a classical Marxist interpretation of datafication as a new reorganization of capitalist accumulation that acts and appropriates surplus generated by prosumers through the unpaid and discursive digital labour performed on digital platforms.

Critical Political Economy of Culture and Communication: An Interview with Graham Murdock

Graham Murdock — 2024-02-14

This paper presents an interview with Graham Murdock. It was conducted by Thomas Allmer and Christian Fuchs for tripleC. In it, Graham Murdock reflects on the field of Critical Political Economy of Culture and Communication, his contributions to and work in this field of studies, the role of Karl Marx in this field, Stuart Hall, Critical Political Economy and Cultural Studies, Raymond Williams, the climate crisis and the environmental movement, Materialism, New Materialisms, Postmodernism, Pierre Bourdieu, the future of society, culture, and the media. The topics the interview covers are structured into three parts: 1. Critical Political Economy, 2. Critical Political Economy and Cultural Studies, 3. Questions of Materialism.

The present text is based on an interview with Christian Fuchs and Thomas Allmer conducted during my visit to Paderborn to present a guest lecture. It includes additional material indicating sources and clarifying and elaborating on key points. The lecture, Critical Inquiry and Climate Catastrophe: Digital Media and the Battle for Sustainability, was given as part of the lecture series Critical Theories and Analyses of Digital Capitalism at Paderborn University on October 17, 2023.

Graham Murdock’s talk can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuYUuqvj6AM

Vincent Mosco’s Critical-Humanist Political Economy of Communication

Christian Fuchs — 2024-03-20

Vincent Mosco (1948-2024) grounded and advanced the approach of the Political Economy of Communication (PEC). This paper discusses some aspects of his Critical-Humanist approach to the Political Economy of Communication: It engages with the foundations of Vincent Mosco’s thought; the roles that labour and communication play in it; his focus on Karl Marx and Marxian scholarship, culture, ideology critique, the digital sublime, democracy, the media, and the public good. Vincent Mosco’s life and work will be remembered. His approach will shape future generations of activist-scholars.

A video version of some aspects of this paper that Christian Fuchs presented at an online event that remembered Vincent Mosco's works can be watched here.

Critical Perspectives on Digital Capitalism: Theories and Praxis. Introduction to the Special Issue

Christian Fuchs — 2024-04-22

Digital capitalism matters. Digital capitalism shapes our lives. Digital capitalism needs to be better understood. We need critical theories of digital capitalism. We need to better understand praxes that challenge digital capitalism and aim at fostering digital democracy and digital socialism. tripleC’s special issue on “Critical Perspectives on Digital Capitalism: Theories and Praxis” wants to contribute to establishing foundations of critical theories and the philosophy of praxis in the light of digital capitalism. This article introduces the topic and provides an overview of the special issue.

Critical Theory Foundations of Digital Capitalism: A Critical Political Economy Perspective

Christian Fuchs — 2024-04-22

The overall task of this paper is to outline some foundations of a critical theory of digital capitalism. The approach of the Critique of Political Economy is taken as the starting point for theorising (digital) capitalism.

First, the paper discusses selected classical definitions of capitalism. Theories of digital capitalism must build on definitions and theories of capitalism. If capitalism is not only an economic order but a societal formation, the analysis of capitalism is the analysis of economic exploitation and non-economic domination phenomena and their interaction. Theories of digital capitalism should also address the question of how class, racism, and patriarchy are related in the context of digitalisation.

Second, the author introduces a notion of digital capitalism that is based on Marx’s approach of the Critique of Political Economy.

Third, the paper engages with one influential contemporary approach to theorising capitalism, Nancy Fraser’s Cannibal Capitalism. The author discusses what we can learn from Fraser’s approach to theorising digital capitalism.

Fourth, the author discusses existing understandings of digital capitalism that can be found in the academic literature. These definitions are compared to the understanding advanced in this article.

Fifth, the paper discusses the relationship of the notion of digital capitalism from a Critical Political Economy perspective in comparison to the notions of the network society/informational capitalism (Manuel Castells), surveillance capitalism (Shoshana Zuboff), and platform capitalism (Nick Srnicek).

Sixth, the paper reflects on the relationship between digital capitalism and violence as we live in a (digital) age where a new World War is all but uncertain.

Finally, some conclusions are drawn.