Informational cognitive exploitation: concealed relationships behind prosumers' activity on the World Wide Web

DOLCEMÁSCOLO, AGOSTINA; YANSEN, GUILLERMINA

Sociologia del Lavoro

Franco Angeli Edizione

Año: 2017 p. 61 - 77

0392-5048

Over the last few decades, a distinctive ambiguity related to prosumers' productive activity has been addressed by the literature. On the one hand, it is associated with users´ unrestricted freedom, will and desire to be engaged in creative and collaborative activities on the Web. On the other hand, it is emphasized that such freedom is at the price of unpaid work which capitalist companies take advantage of in novel ways. In this framework, the literature has linked prosumers´ productive activity with the notion of exploitation. Despite the important contributions of previous studies on the subject where exploitative relationships within prosumers? activities has been pointed out, the literature still lacks a more detailed theoretical approach capable of grasping the differences between this type of exploitation and classical exploitation, and casting light on its defining aspects. Faced with this, the aim of this paper is to reflect on the productive activity of ?prosumers´ on the Web, as a specific portion of free work, from the point of view of informational cognitive exploitation. Thus, this paper will attempt to develop the idea that cognitive exploitation constitutes a concealed relationship of prosumer activity and, taking the knowledge support that drives it as the main criteria, the characteristics of this novel type of exploitation will be studied. The article is organized as follows. Firstly, the concepts for approaching exploitation on the Web are presented. Secondly, the process of this novel type of exploitation is shown by the paradigmatic example of YouTube. Thirdly the literature is reviewed. The fourth section, the core of this article, is dedicated to characterizing the informational cognitive exploitation behind the prosumer´s activity, revising the classical concept of exploitation from the perspective of informational capitalism in order to enrich the notion of informational cognitive exploitation. Finally, some conclusions are drawn.