From Audience Commodity To Digital Labor: The Discussion And Comparison About Audience Of Political Economy Of Communication

As an important area in the research of Communication,audience research is always playing a fundamental role.Unlike the practical school of communication focusing on the quantitative analysis,the critical school of communication embrace approach of the qualitative analysis to analyze the audience,which made the critical school attach importance to the analysis of theory.From audience commodity,proposed by Dallas Symthe in the age of traditional media,to the digital labor debate in the age of Internet,the perspective about audience is so complicated and being in debate in the research of political Economy of Communication.This research contrives to elaborate the transition of audience theory about political economy communication,according to the content of blindspots debate and digital labour debate.After the comparison of audience commodity and digital labour,we find that these two different kinds of audience are the result of alienation.In the age of traditional media,the audience is aliened to commodity,while in the age of Internet,the audience is aliened to labour exploited by capitalists.However,in the age of latter,audience has a bit of freedom,this freedom exists under the condition of controlling of media and capital.When apply the theory to the phenomenon of contemporary China,we find that the theory explains them perfectly.We set the online living for example and find that the broadcaster and the audience are sold to advertiser and exploited by capitalists.