Türk Akademik Sosyal Bilimler Araştırma Dergisi

Öz

This study investigates the convergence of Digital Taylorism and digital colonialism as central mechanisms in the transformation of labor and power under digital capitalism. Digital Taylorism refers to the algorithmic management of labor processes, where work is broken down, monitored, and optimized by automated systems that prioritize productivity over human agency. This model intensifies surveillance and reduces labor to data points, reinforcing alienation and commodification. Simultaneously, digital colonialism extends these dynamics globally, as technology corporations from the Global North impose platforms, infrastructure, and labor regimes upon the Global South. In doing so, they replicate colonial dependencies through data extraction, cultural imposition, and labor exploitation. The study adopts the Critical-Humanist Political Economy of Communication framework, emphasizing class, labor, and structural domination, and integrates Georg Lukács’s concept of reification to examine how commodification permeates both work and public life. It argues that Digital Taylorism and digital colonialism together deepen the reification of labor, transforming human activity into quantifiable, monetizable elements. Furthermore, the logic of commodification spills into the public sphere, reshaping it into a fragmented, profit-driven environment—the “post-public sphere.” Drawing on interdisciplinary literature, the study reveals how digital technologies extend capitalist control, restrict autonomy, and erode democratic participation. Ultimately, it calls for critical awareness and regulatory intervention to resist the pervasive commodification of life under digital capitalism and to reclaim digital spaces for public good, labor justice, and cultural sovereignty.