%0 Journal Article
%T FCJ-138 This is not a Bit-Pipe: A Political Economy of the Substrate Network
%A Rachel O¡¯Dwyer
%A Linda Doyle
%J Fibreculture Journal
%D 2012
%I Fibreculture Publications
%X Critiquing ¡®free culture¡¯ as a utopian gesture that fails to engage with the material circuits of cognitive capitalism, this paper proposes a political economy attendant to the circulation of capital at all layers of the communications network. Applying the newly invigorated theories of ¡®rent¡¯ to the shifting commons/property dialectics of the information economy, we explore the role of network infrastructure in the extraction of surplus. How is surplus from the digital commons channelled through a material substrate? How is network infrastructure transforming in response to the fluid and fluctuating dynamics of cognitive capitalism? Finally, what possibilities for political engagement and material exploit are emerging?
%K FLOSS
%K free
%K culture
%K cognitive capital
%K political economy
%K networks
%K rent
%K commons
%U http://twenty.fibreculturejournal.org/2012/06/18/fcj-138-this-is-not-a-bit-pipe-a-political-economy-of-the-substrate-network/