A Regulation Theory Perspective on the Relationship Between Playbour and Internet Social Media Platforms
Abstract
Playbour, as a new type of digital labor, is commonly exploited and involves everyone using the Internet social platforms. The present study will mainly analyze how playbour is regulated by Platform capitalists based on Michel Foucault’s “Theory of Regulation”, and the regulation process will be presented in the early, middle, and mature stages of platform development. In the early stage, the platform is immature. In order to attract users, the platform will give them a high degree of sovereignty. In the middle stage, Platform capitalists gradually reclaim their sovereignty and the user becomes less autonomous, thus becoming a playbour. In the later stage, the playbour becomes an object of the platform and loses its sovereignty completely in the Cyberspace after being disciplined by the platform. Platform capitalists The purpose of disciplining the playbour is to increase the viscosity of users to the platform and to produce a constant stream of new cultural products for its profit. Through this analysis, this paper argues that such regulation not only exacerbates playbour’s exploitation, but also leads users towards commodity worship and deification of the Internet social media platform. The ideological and linguistic culture of the labor community will be hit hard by such an impact. This paper attempts to argue the seriousness of the problem through analysis.
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