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This paper contributes to the social theoretical foundations of a sociology of media and communication by making use of the cultural–historical school in psychology. Such perspective gains relevance in digital capitalism and the blurring of production and Internet usage. The paper first revisits Habermas's influential notion of communicative action and agency. Second, it uses activity theory as an alternative, more promising way of theorising because it links communication closer to work. A model of communicative action is introduced and a conceptual link between media and human tool use is established. Third, the paper elaborates on the notion of activity in the digital world and posits that digitalisation can be understood as a 'machinisation' of mental and communicative-coordinative work. The developed perspective, the paper concludes, allows critical media and communication sociology to operate with meaningful concepts of communicative expropriation, exploitation and alienation.

ZusammenfassungAusgangspunkt dieses Beitrages ist die These eines immanenten Zusammenhangs zwischen der Kommodifizierung persönlicher Daten, der damit verbundenen ökonomischen Überwachung als Merkmal eines informationellen Kapitalismus und einer Krisenwahrnehmung der Privatheit (1). Kommodifizierung, d.h. das 'Zur-Ware-Werden' wird hier als eine Praxis des Tausches, aber zugleich auch als eine spezifische Sicht auf die Welt verstanden, die diese Praxis begleitet. Es wird argumentiert, dass das einflussreiche besitzindividualistische Verständnis von Privatheit der Kommodifizierung von Privatheit nichts entgegenzusetzen hat (2). Dies ist aber vor dem Hintergrund durch die Kommodifizierung perpetuierter Entfremdungsverhältnisse als problematisch zu betrachten (3). Aus dieser Betrachtungsweise ergibt sich die Frage, von welcher alternativen Konzeption eine Kritik an der Kommodifizierung stattdessen ausgehen könnte (4). Eine Perspektive könnte ein dialektisches Privatheitskonzept darstellen, das die liberalen Ideen der Selbstverwirklichung und Selbstbestimmung nicht gegen deren gesellschaftlich zu organisierenden Ermöglichungsbedingungen ausspielt und die Freiheit von Entfremdung zum Prüfstein einer kritischen Theorie der Privatheit macht.

This article introduces the reader to the so called 'digital labor debate' in the context of the political economy of (new) media and (digital) communication. The political economy of social media is best qualified as surveillance-driven production of culture and as an interplay between distinct modes of production (commons based peer production and commodity production). The latter gives rise to the problem of how to understand the interplay between these modes. The article discusses contributions from different theoretical angels, such as the materialist theory of communication, the theory of cognitive capitalism, the theory of prosumption, and the theory of rent in the informational age. The discussion is organized by three topics: Does the use of social media qualify as work? Are users subsumed to capital control? Are users exploited? The article marks theoretical challenges for a critical theory of informational capitalism.

"This article introduces the reader to the so called 'digital labor debate' in the context of the political economy of (new) media and (digital) communication. The political economy of social media is best qualified as surveillance-driven production of culture and as an interplay between distinct modes of production (commons based peer production and commodity production). The latter gives rise to the problem of how to understand the interplay between these modes. The article discusses contributions from different theoretical angels, such as the materialist theory of communication, the theory of cognitive capitalism, the theory of prosumption, and the theory of rent in the informational age. The discussion is organized by three topics: Does the use of social media qualify as work? Are users subsumed to capital control? Are users exploited? The article marks theoretical challenges for a critical theory of informational capitalism." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

This contribution deals with classification processes as an element of surveillance in the context of the growing relevance of (online) markets in information and the blurring line between production and consumption in current informational capitalist societies. Using the example of social media, I argue that classification does not only appear as feature of the demand and supply side of information markets but is also an aspect of informational production. In doing so, the paper discusses insights from critical surveillance and advertising studies and relates it to important strands of class theory in order to learn about the social mechanism that establishes inequality between Internet service owners and users. The paper argues that a (revised) notion of exploitation and antagonistic social relations should not be omitted from theorizing the information economy. Exploitation establishes an antagonism between all Internet users and the owners of the means of communication, surveillance, and classification.

The paper describes the relationship between the concept of privacy and a culture of exchange. First, I will ground a notion of a culture of exchange on a critical political economy analysis. Second, I will follow this line of argumentation by having a look at the realm of ideas within a culture of exchange. It is shown that current notions of privacy fall within the framework of possessive individualistic thinking. Third, I will show for social networking sites (SNS) that privacy and its supposed opponent surveillance are both related to private property and belong genuinely to a culture of exchange. In the concluding section, I will briefly discuss normative problems of a culture of exchange in general, its influence on SNS, and the issue of privacy.

Despite property being a basic institution in capitalist societies it is rarely addressed directly and seldomly linked to media transformation outside of critical scholarship. This introduction gives an overview over the contributions in this special issue. The special issue is part of a revived interest in property in the social sciences and goes back to an intensive paper workshop hosted by this journal, which took place at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria on 29 September 2023. The contributions are organised in three themes: property and the transformation of media in digital capitalism, public media in the twenty-first century and their limits, and media ownership beyond the legal form.