Prosuming (the) Self

Abstract

Copyright © the author(s) 2016. Web 2.0 has placed prosumption at the very centre of economic value creation. Digital prosumption has been usually associated with user-generated content. However, recent studies argue for a need to also treat user generated data as a form of prosumption labour, as it is the appropriation and exploitation of these data that fuels digital capitalism. In this paper I analyze self-tracking as a form of digital prosumption. When people use the increasingly popular self-tracking devices, they produce huge amounts of data about themselves, referred to as self-quantification, which firms draw on to create value. The paper aims to expand on the notion of data production as prosumption labour by focusing on self-quantification. I draw on Dallas Smythe’s concept of the ‘audience commodity’ to analyze the commodification and valorization of life through selfquantification practices. I argue that through the generation of data the quantified-self becomes the ‘prosuming self’ that generates value through her own tracked life, but also the ‘prosumed self’, an active and entrepreneurial subject that is governed to produce the kinds of data that can create value for firms.