网络空间中的用户劳动:技术驯化与“盲点论争”的统一

User Labor in Cyberspace:the Unification of Technology Domestication and"Blind Spot Debate"

达拉斯·斯麦兹提出的“受众商品论”引发了“盲点之争”。在传统媒体的范畴内,学者们对“盲点”各执一词,论争激烈且广泛。随着网络媒体的普及和网络用户这一劳动群体的崛起,网络媒体在巧妙绕开网络用户劳动力再生产的成本负担的情况下,利用泛在化、流动化、大众化和弹性化的方式实现对网络用户劳动力的大规模征用,使网络用户能够随时随地地为网络媒介劳动。在为网络媒介劳动的过程中,网络用户自身、网络用户的劳动时间、信息生成、收听收看以及点击行为都被商品化了。在这种情况下,网络用户虽然还是一个个鲜活的人,但网络媒介公司出售的和广告公司购买的商品,都超出了受众阅读、收听及收看时间这一争论最为激烈的范畴,其包含着网络用户本身及其在信息生产、传播和消费中产生的所有行为。同时,网络媒介在吸引用户劳动的同时也在为他们灌输着意识形态的相关知识。这样一来,“盲点之争”的两个焦点,即受众是不是一种商品、在强调受众的商品属性时是不是忽略了媒体的意识形态生产功能,都得到了统一:网络用户不仅是一种商品,他们还为网络媒介生产各种各样的信息产品;在对网络用户的劳动进行控制的同时,网络媒介还极为重视自身的意识形态生产功能。因而网络空间中的用户劳动使盲点之争趋于统一。

The"Audience Commodity Theory"proposed by Dallas Smetz triggered the"blind spot dispute".In the category of traditional media,scholars hold different views on the"blind spot",and the debate is fierce and extensive.With the popularization of network media and the rise of network users as a labor group,network media skilfully bypasses the cost burden of reproduction of network users'labor force,and realizes the large-scale requisition of network users'labor force by means of ubiquitous,mobile,popular and flexible ways,so that network users can work for network media anytime and anywhere.In the process of working for network media,network users themselves,their labor time,information generation,listening and watching,and clicking behavior are all commercialized.In this case,although the network users are still one by one fresh people,the products sold by the network media companies and purchased by the advertising companies are beyond the scope of the most heated debate about the audience's reading,listening and watching time,which includes the network users themselves and all their behaviors in information production,communication and consumption.At the same time,the Internet media not only attracts users to work,but also inculcates them with ideological knowledge.In this way,the two focal points of the"blind spot struggle",namely whether the audience is a commodity or whether they ignore the media's ideological production function when emphasizing the commodity attributes of the audience,are unified:Network users are not only a commodity,they also produce various information products for network media;while controlling the labor of network users,network media also attach great importance to their own ideological production function.Therefore,the labor of users in the network space makes the blind spot dispute tend to be unified.