SavedAdd your journal

Journals / Gümüşhane Üniversitesi İletişim Fakültesi Elektronik Dergisi / 2026 / Cilt: 14 Sayı: 2

WHO OWNS LABOR? ALIENATION AND ANONYMITY IN SOCIAL MEDIA CULTURE IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF MARX AND TAYLOR

EMEĞİN SAHİBİ KİM? MARX VE TAYLOR’UN İZİNDE SOSYAL MEDYA KÜLTÜRÜNDE YABANCILAŞMA VE ANONİMLEŞME

Yağmur Gümüşboğa(BEYKENT ÜNİVERSİTESİ)0000-0001-5055-5440
Pages
1602–1633
Publication Date
2026-10-01
🏛️Bibliographic metadata and full text access for this article are provided via DergiPark.
DergiPark Record ↗
✨

AI Summary & Key Takeaways

AI Insight
⚡ TL;DR(Too Long; Didn't Read)

By reframing digital labor through the concept of anonymization, the article seeks to contribute to debates in communication studies on labor, ownership, visibility, and subjectivity in contemporary digital culture.

📌 3 Key Takeaways

🎯
Objective & Hypothesis:In the contemporary regime of platform capitalism, labor is no longer only commodified; it is also increasingly rendered untraceable, detached from authorship, and displaced from historical visibility.
📊
Key Findings & Data:In this framework, anonymization is conceptualized as an expanded form of alienation in which labor is separated not only from its product, process, social relations, and human essence, but also from the visibility, recognizability, and historical trace of the producer.
💡
Conclusion & Impact:By reframing digital labor through the concept of anonymization, the article seeks to contribute to debates in communication studies on labor, ownership, visibility, and subjectivity in contemporary digital culture.
🔬Design:Teorik Makale
📍Scope:Comprehensive Sample
⚙️Variables:Platform Kapitalizmi · Algoritmik Yönetim · Anonimleştirme

Abstract

In the contemporary regime of platform capitalism, labor is no longer only commodified; it is also increasingly rendered untraceable, detached from authorship, and displaced from historical visibility. Drawing on Marx’s theory of alienation and Taylor’s principles of scientific management, this article argues that digital platform economies produce a further transformation in labor relations: the systematic anonymization of the producing subject. In this framework, anonymization is conceptualized as an expanded form of alienation in which labor is separated not only from its product, process, social relations, and human essence, but also from the visibility, recognizability, and historical trace of the producer. The article is primarily theoretical in scope and develops this argument through a critical reading of digital labor, platform capitalism, and algorithmic management literature. To support the conceptual discussion, the study also refers to limited digital observations drawn from circulating social media trends on Instagram and TikTok, using them as illustrative cases rather than generalizable empirical evidence. These examples are employed to show how authorship becomes blurred, attribution chains weaken, and labor is absorbed into platform-centered circuits of visibility and value extraction. In this sense, anonymization is discussed not as an incidental outcome of digital circulation, but as a structural logic of platform-based production. By reframing digital labor through the concept of anonymization, the article seeks to contribute to debates in communication studies on labor, ownership, visibility, and subjectivity in contemporary digital culture.

Özet

Çağdaş platform kapitalizmi rejiminde emek yalnızca metalaştırılan bir faaliyet olmaktan çıkmakta; aynı zamanda yazarlıkla kurduğu bağdan, izlenebilirliğinden ve tarihsel görünürlüğünden de giderek koparılmaktadır. Marx’ın yabancılaşma kuramı ile Taylor’ın bilimsel yönetim anlayışını birlikte düşünen bu makale, dijital platform ekonomilerinde emek ilişkilerinin yeni bir dönüşüme uğradığını ileri sürmektedir: üretici öznenin sistematik biçimde anonimleştirilmesi. Bu çerçevede anonimleştirme, emeğin yalnızca ürününden, üretim sürecinden, toplumsal ilişkilerinden ve insani özünden değil; aynı zamanda üreticinin görünürlüğünden, tanınabilirliğinden ve tarihsel izinden de koparıldığı genişlemiş bir yabancılaşma biçimi olarak kavramsallaştırılmaktadır. Çalışma esas olarak kuramsal bir nitelik taşımakta; dijital emek, platform kapitalizmi ve algoritmik yönetim literatürüne yönelik eleştirel bir okuma üzerinden bu kavramsal çerçeveyi geliştirmektedir. Kavramsal tartışmayı desteklemek amacıyla ise Instagram ve TikTok’ta dolaşıma giren bazı sosyal medya trendlerine ilişkin sınırlı dijital gözlemlerden yararlanılmakta; bu örnekler genellenebilir ampirik kanıtlar olarak değil, tartışmayı görünür kılan açıklayıcı vakalar olarak ele alınmaktadır. Söz konusu örnekler, yazarlığın nasıl belirsizleştiğini, atıf zincirlerinin nasıl zayıfladığını ve emeğin görünürlük ile değer üretiminin platform merkezli dolaşımına nasıl eklemlendiğini göstermektedir. Bu doğrultuda anonimleştirme, dijital dolaşımın rastlantısal bir sonucu olarak değil, platform temelli üretimin yapısal bir mantığı olarak tartışılmaktadır. Makale, dijital emeği anonimleştirme kavramı üzerinden yeniden düşünerek iletişim çalışmaları literatürüne emek, mülkiyet, görünürlük ve öznellik ilişkileri bakımından katkı sunmayı amaçlamaktadır.

🔖

Cite This Article

Gümüşboğa, Y. (2026). WHO OWNS LABOR? ALIENATION AND ANONYMITY IN SOCIAL MEDIA CULTURE IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF MARX AND TAYLOR. Gümüşhane Üniversitesi İletişim Fakültesi Elektronik Dergisi, Cilt: 14 Sayı: 2, 1602–1633. https://doi.org/10.19145/e-gifder.1858786

📄 Full Text PDF Viewer

📄

PDF görüntüleyici hazırlanıyor...

References (69)

  1. Adams, Z., & Grosse Ruse-Khan, H. (2021). Work and works on digital platforms in capitalism: Conceptual and regulatory challenges for labor and copyright law. International Journal of Law and Information Technology, 28(4), 329–370. https://doi.org/10.1093/ijlit/eaaa017
  2. Andersen, C. U., & Cox, G. (2024). Content / form (Peer-reviewed newspaper) (Vol. 13, No. 1). Digital Aesthetics Research Center. https://darc.au.dk/fileadmin/DARC/newspapers/Content-Form_A-Peer-Reviewed-Newspaper-Volume-13-Issue-1-2024.pdf
  3. Bagger, C. (2022). The medium in the middle: Workplace from Meta, enterprise social media, and the intersection of the personal and the professional (Doctoral thesis). University of Copenhagen. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.19576.01287
  4. Berardi, F. (2019). Futurability: The age of impotence and the horizon of possibility. Verso.
  5. Bergmann, R., & Lauritzen, G. D. (2019). Dis/organizing co-production: Liminal spaces haunted by the spirit of formal organizing. In 11th International Critical Management Studies Conference: Precarious presents, open futures (pp. 190–191). The Open University Business School. http://business-school.open.ac.uk/sites/business-school.open.ac.uk/files/files/ICMS/Abstracts-Booklet.pdf
  6. Bergmann, R., & Plotnikof, M. (2019). The performativity of (non)sense-making: Reflexive leadership in the Danish public sector. In 11th International Critical Management Studies Conference: Precarious presents, open futures (p. 192). The Open University Business School. http://business-school.open.ac.uk/sites/business-school.open.ac.uk/files/files/ICMS/Abstracts-Booklet.pdf
  7. Bigo, D., Isin, E. F., & Ruppert, E. (2019). Data politics: Worlds, subjects, rights. HAL. https://hal.sciencespo.fr/hal-03385170
  8. Blum, I. (2024). “Facebook is a bit like a lost cause”: Social movement actors’ perspectives on social media affordances. In ECREA 2024: Electronic book of abstracts (pp. 133–134). Czech Technical University in Prague. https://flore.unifi.it/retrieve/cb6590cb-c6f1-4442-8592-c006efbc3c8b/ECREA-2024-Abstract-Book.pdf
  9. Bolt Rasmussen, M. (2025). Hvad må der gøres med “Hvad må der gøres?” efter afslutningen på “historiens afslutning”: En teorihistorisk skitse til genetableringen af en marxistisk samtidsanalyse. Nordiske Udkast, 50(2), 25–41. https://doi.org/10.7146/nu.v50i2.153138
  10. Chicchi, F., & Marrone, M. (2023). A new subjectivity in digital platform capitalism? Work Organisation, Labour & Globalisation, 17(2). https://doi.org/10.13169/workorgalaboglob.17.2.0197
  11. Christin, A. (2020). The ethnographer and the algorithm: Beyond the black box. Theory and Society, 49(5), 897–918. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-020-09411-3
  12. Cini, L. (2023). How algorithms are reshaping the exploitation of labour-power: Insights into the process of labour invisibilization in the platform economy. Theory and Society, 52(5), 885–910. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-023-09520-9
  13. Comor, E. A. (2010). Contextualizing and critiquing the fantastic prosumer: Power, alienation and hegemony. Critical Sociology, 37(3), 309–327. https://doi.org/10.1177/0896920510378767
  14. Couldry, N., & Mejias, U. A. (2020). The costs of connection: How data are colonizing human life and appropriating it for capitalism. Social Forces, 99(1), 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soz172
  15. Dean, J. (2005). Communicative capitalism: Circulation and the foreclosure of politics. Cultural Politics, 1(1), 51–74. https://doi.org/10.2752/174321905778054845
  16. Dean, J. (2009). Democracy and other neoliberal fantasies: Communicative capitalism and left politics. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822390923
  17. Dean, J. (2019). Communicative capitalism: This is what democracy looks like. Revista de Comunicação e Linguagens, (51), 32–49. https://revistas.fcsh.unl.pt/rcl/article/view/1447/1315
  18. Deleuze, G. (2017). Postscript on the societies of control. In T. Jones & T. Newburn (Eds.), Surveillance, crime and social control (pp. 35–39). Routledge. (Original work published 1992)
  19. Doorn, N. van, & Badger, A. (2020). Platform capitalism’s hidden abode: Producing data assets in the gig economy. Antipode, 52(5), 1475–1495. https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12641
  20. Ekbia, H., & Márton, A. (2018). Dividing labour between humans and machines: Heteromation as a new mode of organizing work. In Proceedings of the 8th Organizations, Artifacts & Practices Workshops (pp. 87–89). Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
  21. Foucault, M. (2012). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. Pantheon.
  22. Fuchs, C. (2013). Digital prosumption labour on social media in the context of the capitalist regime of time. Time & Society, 23(1), 97–123. https://doi.org/10.1177/0961463X13502117
  23. Fuchs, C. (2020). Towards a critical theory of communication as renewal and update of Marxist humanism in the age of digital capitalism. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 50(3), 335–356.
  24. Fuchs, C., & Trottier, D. (2015). Towards a theoretical model of social media surveillance in contemporary society. Communications: The European Journal of Communication Research, 40(1), 113–135.
  25. Gomes, S. L. R., & Barros, A. R. (2008). Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide (H. Jenkins). RECIIS – Revista Eletrônica de Comunicação, Informação & Inovação em Saúde, 2(1), 116–119. https://doi.org/10.3395/reciis.v2i1.165pt
  26. Gandini, A., Gerosa, A., Giuffrè, L., & Keeling, S. (2023). Subjectivity and algorithmic imaginaries: The algorithmic other. Subjectivity, 30(4), 417–431. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41286-023-00171-w
  27. Gruszka, K., Scholz-Wäckerle, M., & Aigner, E. (2020). Planetary carambolage: The evolutionary political economy of technology, nature and work. Review of Evolutionary Political Economy, 1(3), 273–291. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43253-020-00030-3
  28. Hall, S. (1997). Representation: Cultural representations and signifying practices. Sage.
  29. Hardt, M., & Negri, A. (2000). Empire. Harvard University Press.
  30. Hesselink, M. W. (2023). Alienation commodification: A critique of the role of EU consumer law. European Law Open, 2(2), 405–427. https://doi.org/10.1017/elo.2023.33
  31. Hine, C. (2020). Ethnography for the internet: Embedded, embodied and everyday. Routledge.
  32. Hoang, Q., Cronin, J., & Skandalis, A. (2022). High-fidelity consumption and the claustropolitan structure of feeling. Marketing Theory, 22(1), 85–104. https://doi.org/10.1177/14705931211062637
  33. Huopalainen, A., & Satama, S. (2019). Exploring humanimal interactions and the ‘hands-on’ practices of care at the veterinary clinic. In 11th International Critical Management Studies Conference: Precarious presents, open futures (p. 234). The Open University Business School.
  34. Husted, E., Moufahim, M., & Fredriksson, M. (2022). Political parties and organization studies. In 11th International Critical Management Studies Conference: Precarious presents, open futures (pp. 365–366). The Open University Business School.
  35. Jin, H. (2025). Towards non-linear cultural production and systems of machinic agency: In the case of TikTok value generation (arXiv:2503.16137). arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2503.16137
  36. Karakilic, E. (2019). Rethinking intellectual property rights in the cognitive and digital age of capitalism: An autonomist Marxist reading. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 147, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2019.06.007
  37. Kellogg, K. C., Valentine, M. A., & Christin, A. (2020). Algorithms at work: The new contested terrain of control. Academy of Management Annals, 14(1), 366–410. https://doi.org/10.5465/annals.2018.0174
  38. Kienscherf, M. (2022). Surveillance capital and post-Fordist accumulation: Towards a critical political economy of surveillance-for-profit. Surveillance & Society, 20(1), 18–36. https://doi.org/10.24908/ss.v20i1.14235
  39. Llaguno, T. (2025). Alienated dependence: The unfreedom of our social relations. Journal of Social Philosophy. https://doi.org/10.1111/josp.12551
  40. Lubacha-Sember, J., Mäihäniemi, B., & Wisła, R. (2023). The European digital economy. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003450160
  41. Maloul, E. (2024). Structures of repetition: The feminine mediation of digital culture. Deep Blue (University of Michigan). https://doi.org/10.7302/23815
  42. Marx, K. (2016). Economic and philosophic manuscripts of 1844. In Social theory re-wired (pp. 152–158). Routledge.
  43. Marx, K. (1990). Capital: A critique of political economy (Vol. 1; B. Fowkes, Trans.). Penguin Classics. (Original work published 1867)
  44. Mengay, A. (2020). Digitalization of work and heteronomy. Capital & Class, 44(2), 273–292. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309816820904032
  45. Mirghaderi, L. (2022). Social media users’ free labor in Iran: Influencers, ethical conduct and labor exploitation. Frontiers in Sociology, 7, Article 1006146. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2022.1006146
  46. Moore, P. (2023). Workers’ right to the subject: The social relations of data production. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 30(3), 1076–1092. https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565231199971
  47. Noponen, N., Feshchenko, P., Auvinen, T., Luoma-Aho, V., & Abrahamsson, P. (2023). Taylorism on steroids or enabling autonomy? A systematic review of algorithmic management. Management Review Quarterly, 74(3), 1695–1733. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11301-023-00345-5
  48. Øversveen, E. (2021). Capitalism and alienation: Towards a Marxist theory of alienation for the 21st century. European Journal of Social Theory, 25(3), 440–459. https://doi.org/10.1177/13684310211021579
  49. Pfeiffer, S. (2014). Digital labour and the use-value of human work. TripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique, 12(2). https://doi.org/10.31269/triplec.v12i2.545
  50. Reeves, C., & Sinnicks, M. (2023). Totally administered heteronomy: Adorno on work, leisure, and politics in the age of digital capitalism. Journal of Business Ethics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-023-05570-2
  51. Rodríguez-Prieto, R. (2020). Mecanismos de explotación en el capitalismo digital. Teknokultura, 17(2), 131–141. https://doi.org/10.5209/tekn.69454
  52. Rosenblat, A., & Stark, L. (2016). Algorithmic labor and information asymmetries: A case study of Uber’s drivers. International Journal of Communication, 10, 3758–3784. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/4892
  53. Salman, C. (2024). The universal fix: Computing pacification in times of crisis. Deep Blue (University of Michigan). https://doi.org/10.7302/23788
  54. Schneider, T., & Eli, K. (2022). The digital labor of ethical food consumption. Agriculture and Human Values, 40(2), 489–503. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-022-10390-7
  55. Smythe, D. W. (1977). Communications: Blindspot of Western Marxism. Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory, 1(3), 1–27.
  56. Spinney, J., & Lin, W.-I. (2021). A vehicle for valorising the labour power of commuting. Journal of Transport Geography, 94, 103129. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2021.103129
  57. Srnicek, N. (2022). Valor, renda e capitalismo de plataforma. Revista Fronteiras, 24(1).
  58. Susen, S. (2023). A new structural transformation of the public sphere? Society, 60(6), 842–851. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-023-00908-y
  59. Tang, X. (2025). Creative labor and platform capitalism (SSRN Working Paper No. 5399407). Social Science Research Network. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5399407
  60. Taylor, F. W. (1911). The principles of scientific management. Harper & Brothers. https://archive.org/details/principlesofscie00taylrich
  61. Terranova, T. (2000). Free labor: Producing culture for the digital economy. Social Text, 18(2), 33–58. https://doi.org/10.1215/01642472-18-2_63-33
  62. Venturini, T. (2022). Toward a sociology of online monsters. HAL. https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03464174
  63. Vernik, E. (2023). Simmelian contributions to a relational sociology of senses and emotions. Digithum, 29, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.7238/d.v0i29.396232
  64. Veryard, R. (2023). As we may think now. Subjectivity, 30(4), 339–349. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41286-023-00175-6
  65. Wall, T., Robinson, S. M., Elliott, C., Blasco, M., Kjærgaard, A., Callahan, J. L., Padan, T., & Bergmann, R. (2019). The plurality of academic activism. In 11th International Critical Management Studies Conference: Precarious presents, open futures (p. 317). The Open University Business School.
  66. Wang, J., & Tomassetti, J. (2024). Labor–capital relations on digital platforms. Sociology Compass, 18(3). https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.13192
  67. Williams, R. (1977). Marxism and literature. Oxford University Press.
  68. Xu, R., Millo, Y., & Spence, C. (2024). The mountains are high and the emperor is far away. Contemporary Accounting Research, 41(2), 781–812. https://doi.org/10.1111/1911-3846.12925
  69. Zuboff, S. (2023). The age of surveillance capitalism. In Social theory re-wired (pp. 203–213). Routledge.