5.5.1. Mark Andrejevic and Eran Fisher on Digital Alienation
Some authors have discussed what alienation means in the world of Facebook. Mark Andrejevic (2012) argues that corporate social media only promise to overcome alienation, but in reality constitute digital alienation, a ‘form of the enclosure of the digital commons’ (84). ‘Users have little choice over whether this [surveillance] data is generated and little say in how it is used’ (85). Such ‘external, storable, and sortable collection of data about’ users’ ‘social lives’ is ‘separated from us and stored in servers owned and controlled by, for example, Facebook’ (2011, 88). ‘The result of the form of separation facilitated by Facebook is […] the alienability of the product of their online social activity: the fact that the fruits of this activity can become a resource whose uses range far beyond their control’ (88). ‘The data shadow is a figure of the alienated self’ (Andrejevic 2014, 182) and results in ‘algorithmic alienation’ (189) that determines life chances based on data mining, big data analysis and statistical correlations.
Eran Fisher (2012) in contrast to Mark Andrejevic argues that alienation ‘signals an existential state of not being in control over something (the labour process, the product, etc.)’ (173). Less ‘alienation refers to a greater possibility to express oneself, to control one’s production process, to objectify one’s essence and connect and communicate with others. Thus, for example, working on one’s Facebook page can be thought of as less alienating than working watching a television program’ (173).
The two processes that SNS [social networking sites] facilitate – the exacerbation of exploitation and the mitigation of alienation – are not simply co-present but are dialectically linked. SNS establish new relations of production that are based on a dialectical link between exploitation and alienation: in order to be de-alienated, users must communicate and socialize: they must establish social networks, share information, talk to their friends and read their posts, follow and be followed. By thus doing they also exacerbate their exploitation (179).
5.5.2. Nine Forms of Alienation on Facebook
Andrejevic and Fisher both take a critical theory perspective and agree that Facebook usage means exploitation of users’ digital labour (see also: Fuchs 2014a, 2014b, 2015). They however have diferent understandings of alienation and therefore conceive Facebook either as alienated (Andrejevic) or dealienated (Fisher). My argument is that these claims are not mutually exclusive in a dialectical concept of alienation. Honneth’s distinction between subjective, intersubjective, and objective alienation helps us to map these diferences: Andrejevic refers to the objective dimension (data as objects), whereas Fisher refers to subjective experiences. Table 5.3 outlines nine dimensions of alienation on Facebook.
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Critical Theory of Communication