At the center of contemporary discourse on technology — or the digital discourse — is the assertion that network technology ushers in a new phase of capitalism which is more democratic, participatory, and de-alienating for individuals. Rather than viewing this discourse as a transparent description of the new realities of techno-capitalism and judging its claims as true (as the hegemonic view sees it) or false (a view expressed by few critical voices), this article offers a new framework which sees the digital discourse as signaling a historical shift in the technological legitimation of capitalism, concurrent with the emergence of the post-Fordist phase of capitalism. Technology discourse legitimated the Fordist phase of capitalism by stressing the ability of technology and technique to mitigate exploitation. It hence legitimated the interventionist welfare state, the central planning in businesses and the economy, the hierarchized corporation, and the tenured worker. In contrast, contemporary technology discourse legitimates the post-Fordist phase of capitalism by stressing the ability of technology to mitigate alienation. It hence legitimates the withdrawal of the state from markets, the dehierarchization and decentralization of businesses, and the flexibilization of production and the labor process.

The rise of digital media has witnessed a paradigmatic shift in the way that media outlets conceptualize and classify their audience. Whereas during the era of mass media, ‘seeing’ the audience was based on a scientific episteme combining social theory and empirical research, with digital media ‘seeing’ the audience has come to be dominated by a new episteme, based on big data and algorithms. This article argues that the algorithmic episteme does not see the audience more accurately, but differently. Whereas the scientific episteme upheld an ascriptive conception which assigned individuals to a particular social category, the algorithmic episteme assumes a performative individual, based on behavioral data, sidestepping any need for a theory of the self. Since the way in which the media see their audience is constitutive, we suggest that the algorithmic episteme represents a new way to think about human beings.

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Recent scholarship has offered a modification to audience labour theory in the context of social media, suggesting that rather than merely working by watching advertisements, social media users also produce data, which is commodified by social media companies. This article offers a further analysis of audience labour in social media using Facebook’s Sponsored Stories as a case study. Sponsored Stories are ads rendered from naturally occurring users’ communication on Facebook. I argue that the value generated by users is based on two additional types of labour: the ‘self’ of users, who are mobilized as ‘celebrity’ avatars to advertise a brand, and the construction and maintenance of networks, or media channels through which ads are disseminated. Such analysis suggests that the audience is involved in three moments along the value chain of social media: consumption, production, and marketing. Put differently, valorization on social media takes place also through the work of the audience as marketers, entailing the construction and maintenance of targeted channels of communication, and the mobilization of ‘selves’ for the promotion of brands. The article suggests a comparison between the mass media and social media, along the coordinates of audience labour and advertisements as theoretical and empirical constants, respectively.

Recent accounts of social media have developed a powerful critical political economy analysis of social media, employing Dallas Smythe's notion of audience labour. Such analysis, which sees audiencing as a form of working producing surplus value, has been criticized for being too high and dry, employing the abstract categories of Marx's labour theory of value to analyse what regular users perceive as a fun, leisure, and empowering activity of using the web. This article concurs with the necessity of critical theory to not only offer an alternative interpretation of reality but to also point to social practices and subjects which manifest these alternative views. The article aims to couple the objective-scientific facet of audience labour theory with the subjective-lifeworld categories of media users that are the carriers of such knowledge. It does that by analysing a class-action lawsuit of Facebook users against the company concerning its Sponsored Stories advertising programme. Based on users' actions in the social network, they are mobilized as sponsors for products in ads, which appear on their friends' News Feed. An analysis of the legal case shows how users attempt to redefine their participation in social media in terms of work. Users put forth a critique of alienation (demanding that they have full control over the information they generate) and exploitation (demanding ownership over a greater share of the surplus value they produce). The article concludes that regular users are employing categories of audience labour theory in their struggle over digital value, making it a doubly suitable framework for analysing the political economy of social media, both objectively and subjectively.