Christian Fuchs's book “Social media: a critical introduction” is a timely addition to the current literature on the study of social media. In this text, Fuchs takes a critical approach to the topic at hand, in a departure from many other books that promise the reader an in-depth and critical evaluation of a topic but fail to fulfill their promise. In this case, Fuchsdelvess into the details of the potentials of social media, as well as the complications and challenges facing it. He proceeds to lay the foundation for issues of ethics and power as they relate to social media. He is also cognisant of the importance of social philosophy and social theory regarding social media regulations and their impact on society. Towards this end, Fuchs argues that ‘we need a society and a social media that benefit not just some of us, but all of us’ (p. 11). This underscores the importance of critical approaches. The author has borrowed heavily from renowned scholars such as Emile Durkheim, Michael Foucault, and Theodor Adorno, among others, in an attempt to demonstrate therelevancey of varied topics to social media. Examples of the topics that Fuchs has given considerable attention to in his book, in a bid to connect with the theories by the aforementioned scholars,s include historical events that have been influenced by social media, labour exploitation, and the influence of corporate agents on social media. By exploring these varied themes, Fuchs wishes to delve into the wider discussion of the level of access to which social, in addition to exploring its participatory and representative nature. Moreover, Fuchs seeks to examine the problems that often accompany the consumption of social media, including unethical practices, corporate interests, and class inequalities.
In chapter 1 of his book, Fuchs adopts a Marxist approach in a bid to set a strong ground for defining critical theories and styles of application. In the second 3 chapters, Fuchs works hard to put the issue of social media into perspective in relation to general social theories. In the second half of Fuchs's book, the author links critical theory to varied social media issues. In particular, Fuchs addresses diverse political and philosophical ideations of privacy, access, participation, and surveillance. The author dedicates a full chapter to addressing in-depth the key social media platforms, namely Facebook, Twitter, and Wikipedia. Other social media platforms included are Google and WikiLeaks. Indeed, his choice of Facebook, Twitter, and Google is suited to the topic of discussion, taking into account that these three social media platforms are the most dominant tools of online presence at the moment. Fuchs's inclusion of Wikipedia and WikiLeaks is a deliberate attempt on his part to demonstrate the democratic potential of social mediaand ise hence deemed as an alternative social media platform.
The author presents the contents of his books in the form of concise summaries and in an accessible language, while the inclusion of chapter exercises and supplementary readings makes it a useful read in the classroom setting. On numerous occasions throughout the book, Fuchs reiterates the complex nature of the internet, outlining its ability to both constrain and enable human activity. He views the internet through a similar lens to capitalism, by observing that the internet exploits users in the same way that capitalism exploits human capital. The author views the issue of labour exploitation from a very interesting angle, choosing to explore various ways in which social media sustains unethical labour practices globally, in addition to doing an injustice to workers. Fuchs delves into the 'prosumerism' phenomenon that is quite prevalent in the internet culture. This refers to the obscure connection between consumer and producer that enables users to develop such content as blogs, photography, and reviews. Such content, so created,d is in turn linked to digital media consumption.
According to Fuchs, pro-sumption is the modern Marxist form of labour exploitation in which consumers and users work as unpaid outsourced labourers (2013). Scholz (2013) opines that many of us are victims of digital labour in which we get nothing except the social and affective capital that we earn in the form of measurable attention to content that we help create. In the meantime, our unpaid labour acts as monetary capital for corporate giants like Verizon and Google (Scholz, 2013).
Fuchs has also delved into the issue of labour exploitation of workers in non-Western emerging economies. Over the past years, Foxconn, a multinational manufacturer of electronics often outsourced by leading companies like Apple, has been in the news for the wrong reasons, nd in particular, over cases of overworked and underpaid workers who live under deplorable conditions, are subjected to unsafe working conditions, and harsh management (Fuchs, 2014). In 2010, some 18 Chinese workers at Foxconn attempted to take their own lives over labour exploitation, and a dozen were successful (The Guardian, 2011). Fuchs has also explored the issue of worker exploitation in mines across Africa, and in particular, the Democratic Republic of Congo, where workers are subjected to salve-like conditions. These minerals are used in the manufacture of various electronic devices, including mobile phones. In this respect, Fuchs succeeds in connecting social media practicestoo the context of class politics (Fisher, 2015). Such exploitative labour practices depict a worldwide division of labour that is inclined towards capitalism, and in which both the social media and the Internet play an active role (Hirst, 2014). Fuchs contends that while social media helps to create awareness of such evil practices, leading corporations like Facebook, Apple, and Google are the largest beneficiaries.
A key strength of Fuchs's book is his ability to marry social media with philosophical theories like capitalism and to also depict various examples in which labour exploitation is perpetuated. Fuchs makes convincing and well-calculated arguments that give the reader a very succinct understanding of the application of social theories into practice in the field of social media. His book is, without a doubt, a noteworthy addition to existing literature in the field.
References
Fisher, E. 2015. Class struggles in the digital frontier: audience labour theory and social media users. Information, Communication & Society, 18(9), pp. 1108-1122.
Fuchs, C. 2013. Social media: a critical introduction. London: Sage.
Fuchs, C. 2014. Digital Labour and Karl Marx. London: Routledge.
Hirst, M. 2013. The Twitter float and free labor: The political economy of digital communication.
The Guardian 2011. Apple factories accused of exploiting Chinese workers.
Scholz, T. 2013. Digital labor: The Internet as playground and factory. New York: Routledge.
