An analysis on the commodification of prosumer labor in the case of Twitter

This study tries to examine the forms of exploitation and the commodification processes of Twitter users. The research, grounded on the critical political economy approach, mainly focused on the fundamental logic of accumulation and commodity production in the capitalist mode of production, along with how this rationale process occurs on Twitter has been examined. The development of internet technologies and the ascent of social media accordingly are discussed whether there is a disengagement of capitalist relations of production. Besides, the relationships of production and exchange that exist within Twitter comprehensively evaluated. The users' statuses of both being the commodity and the producer of the commodity were examined. An in-depth reasoning attempt has been made regarding who has (have) seized productions of the users that have production capability, and what is the nature of those produced and exchanged commodities. It's been tried to explain via factual circumstances why it is not possible to delimit Twitter into one solid form and meaning. A concretized exposition was aimed at showing the fragmented structure of Twitter. In this regard, all the capitalist forms, relations, and processes within Twitter were reviewed under thematic categories. Tools that make this review possible were found in the key concepts of critical political economy. The determinations made in the mentioned categories were obtained from the semi-structured in-depth interviews made with the 10-person interviewees created with the purposeful sampling technique among the Twitter users. The interviewees were evenly composed of both digital natives and digital immigrants. As a result of the analysis, it has been determined that Twitter is a digital space in which production and exchange relations take place and a tool that allows these relationships to occur. It's been also determined that the participants were aware that Twitter is a capitalist company. Either way, Twitter users are involved in the production processes, had the quality of free labor, and are become the center of exploitation. Also, Twitter users and user accounts on Twitter are included in the commodification processes. Keywords: Twitter, Prosumer labor, Audience commodity, Commodification process, Primitive accumulation