Hybrid 6
How does Terranova categorize the relationship of subcultural movements to capitalism? Explain what you think Terranova means when she argues that such movements are to be appropriated by capital from the outside?
Terranova describes the relationship of subcultures to capitalism as a culture that is being constructed and contributed to a digital system that is already capitalism. She states that instead of viewing it as incorporating from the outside, it is already existing and producing creative cultural production. Users are acting out of a desire to produce culture. The work they put out is creative and being knowledgeable is essentially what makes it not capitalism in the traditional fashion, however there is no denying that capitalism is intertwined within subcultural movements. The movements have made companies an enormous amount of money. Any subculture regardless of the their motivations to create it, is either consciously or subconsciously adding to capitalist ideals.
There is not an exploitation blatantly occurring, however even though users volunteer to engage in these communities, once they are created, they are within capitalism. Terranova touches on the notion of labor and the larger pool of social and cultural knowledge and production. There are forms of production that do not immediately showcase labor in the form that we are accustomed to, instead are activities such as posting, updating, blogging etc. It is this that expands and has contributed to the “collective labor” which in turn enhances “capitalist business practices”. Like Barbrook stated with the gift economy concept, he believes that people are more inclined to have collaboration without the mediation of currency and politics. Instead “network communities form through mutual obligation of gifts of time and ideas”. The more people share, the bigger the cultural production is.
