Audience Labour on Social Media: Learning from Sponsored Stories

Abstract

This chapter offers an analysis of the political economy of social media through audience labour theory. It uses the case study of Facebook's Sponsored Stories advertising plan in order to show how audience labour occupies a central role in a digital economy, which relies increasingly on the commodification of personal information. The chapter also explores the ways in which social media users critique and challenge the contemporary arrangements of --- or relations of production around --- social media, where media companies have virtually an exclusive control over personal information.