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The fetishization of content underwrites the fantasy that it is somehow detachable from the infrastructure that supports it. The thrust of Smythe's argument is to dismantle this fantasy, a task which remains a pressing one on the digital era in which, we are told, everyone (or at least a lot more p…

It is precisely because these companies are not content providers themselves that they can be portrayed as post-ideological. Smythe's critique remains germane because it enjoins us to consider the production regimes that structure the relations between the affordances of the platform or application…

[...] This is not to blame the university, which had to make the best use of its scarce resources, but rather to point out the structural pressures that make such a decision seem optimal. It is also to anticipate the hazards of the failure to consider the relationship between the "free lunch" offer…

The question then posed for a critical analysis of the political economy of new media is somewhat different than that outlined by Smythe. If the new "free lunch" is information organization, search, and retrieval (in addition to content), how are these influenced by the commercial imperatives that …

[...] The work that audiences do, according to Smythe, "is to learn to buy particular 'brands' of consumer demands, and to spend their income accordingly. In short, they work to create demand for advertised goods" (1977, 6). The fact that not all viewers see the ads or respond in anticipated fashio…