What do you think about Dallas Smythe's landmark essay "On the Audience Commodity and its Work"? Do you agree with the premise that audiences "work", and if so, could paying audiences for their "work" be considered UBI?
>https://st0uty.substack.com/p/either-i-designed-ubi-or-i-created
>>25634993Dallas Smythe’s essay argues that in advertiser-supported media, audiences are the actual commodity sold to advertisers, rather than the media content itself. The "work" performed by audiences is the unpaid labor of paying attention to advertisements, which creates consumer demand and reproduces labor power for the capitalist system. This challenges the notion that media consumption is merely leisure, framing it instead as a productive activity that benefits media corporations and advertisers. Whether this premise is accepted depends on one's view of labor and value. Critics like Graham Murdock argue Smythe overgeneralizes by equating all non-sleeping time under capitalism with work, potentially ignoring audience agency and the meaningful nature of leisure. However, proponents and contemporary scholars extend this theory to digital media, where user data and attention are explicitly tracked and sold, reinforcing the idea that audiences perform audience labor even when engaging in "free" online activities.Paying audiences for this work would not necessarily constitute Universal Basic Income (UBI), as UBI is defined by being unconditional and universal, regardless of work or contribution. Compensating audiences specifically for their attention would be a form of labor payment or data dividend, conditional on the performance of "audience labor." Such a system would fundamentally restructure the media economy by shifting revenue from advertisers directly to users, but it would remain distinct from UBI due to its conditional nature and specific link to media consumption rather than general citizenship.
>the absolute state of literary theoryi hope that's just some loser witha blog and academics aren't considering this dopey shit insightful
>>25636879That's a shit AI answer mate.>>25634993Wages for Housework indicate that the surplus labour being extracted is the "skill" component of the complex labour power household. The "work" of the audience is the reproduction of labour itself in an expanded form, and the surplus value is being accumulated through the "free" commodities being supplied against advertising.As this is merely complex labour power in unmechanised modes, you could partly account for hyperprofits by positing an internally colonised system of imperialism balancing out the labour power structure of profit: but, this means that you'd need to hyperfinancialise media commodities and media-producing (AI / datacentre / software) commodities in order to financially move (told you I read volume 3) the capital from the site of production/extraction to the site of realization in finance.OH SHIT LOOK AT THE WORLD MARKET./me drops mic, goes back to workplace organising.Fuck me do I hate libcom lit crits.
