Network User Labor Between Technological Empowerment and Capital Control

This chapter first explores the liberation of users’ labor spaceLiberation of labor space under the empowerment of network technology, aiming to understand the capacity of network technology to create this new labor space and the extent of liberation achieved by users’ labor in cyberspace. Based on this, the chapter examines how network media as capitalists conceal their power, the logic behind this hidden power, and how they produce power. Finally, the chapter delves into the fundamental logic system: through studying the control methods employed by network media as capitalists—including technical, spatial, economic, and cultural capital control—analyzing how network users’ labor production processes revert to the power control system of network media. This chapter effectively responds to the logical framework of “technology and power relations,” as indicated in the book’s subtitle, laying a solid foundation for subsequent research.