The field of communication is greater than simply a study of mediums. Some theorists argue that communication itself can be viewed as an action or process where our interpretation of reality can be “produced, maintained and transformed”. Central to our examination of communication studies are issues relating to media spaces where approaches to power are realized. Within modern day capitalism, social media has become so universally pervasive that its ideology and commodification are all but naturalized in our society. By exploring concepts of hegemony, commodification and ideology, social media serves as a lens to demonstrate the influence and power of this medium in a capitalist society.
The commonplace use of ideology is in reference to set …show more content…
Hegemony is the capacity of the dominant classes to exercise social and cultural leadership, this is done not through the intimidation or oppression of those outside the ruling class, rather it is gained through developing a consent from those who would be subjugated. Within Marxisim, hegemony is the idea that the views of the ruling class become ruling views because they are able to wield the power to manipulate the values and mores of a society. One way to achieve this influence is through the control of the messaging. Hegemony is a negotiation, in a government setting leaders take into account criticism and draw in to policies to gain consent, for social media this can be demonstrated in a company offering it’s online platform for free, but using the information freely shared as a means to generate revenue for the site itself. Users of social media are not forced into sharing, however the very nature of the platform encourages them to participate. For hegemony to be sustained it must always adapt to changing social attitudes and conditions, these concessions are often reflected in changes to user policies and platform functionality in response to consumer criticism. As the ruling class often also controls the means of communication media and mental …show more content…
This includes items that were perhaps not originally considered products but have had a monetary value placed on them and become a commodity for the purpose of making a profit. Social media in its capitalist form reduces its users to the position of consumers of “advertising and commodities”, as these social media consumers become commodities themselves by being sold as an audience to the social media’s advertising clients. (Fuchs, 3.5). The commodity is the cell or basic unit of capitalistic profit making and this process of commodification is essential to a capitalist economy with key featuring being continued growth. Without this growth capitalistic enterprises fall into crisis and can dire out. To survive capitalism is on an unending search for both to new things and activities to monetize. Also bound up in the ongoing search for new consumers and a relenting search for new places to sell its products, new countries, new areas in this way, commodification has not just economic but spatial or geographic element to it. As an example, social media which had humble origins as a networking tool has since developed into a prosumer commodification system that is based on commodifying networks, contacts, users profiles, all examples of user-generated content that are created by the unpaid labour of their client base.
The commonplace use of ideology is in reference to set …show more content…
Hegemony is the capacity of the dominant classes to exercise social and cultural leadership, this is done not through the intimidation or oppression of those outside the ruling class, rather it is gained through developing a consent from those who would be subjugated. Within Marxisim, hegemony is the idea that the views of the ruling class become ruling views because they are able to wield the power to manipulate the values and mores of a society. One way to achieve this influence is through the control of the messaging. Hegemony is a negotiation, in a government setting leaders take into account criticism and draw in to policies to gain consent, for social media this can be demonstrated in a company offering it’s online platform for free, but using the information freely shared as a means to generate revenue for the site itself. Users of social media are not forced into sharing, however the very nature of the platform encourages them to participate. For hegemony to be sustained it must always adapt to changing social attitudes and conditions, these concessions are often reflected in changes to user policies and platform functionality in response to consumer criticism. As the ruling class often also controls the means of communication media and mental …show more content…
This includes items that were perhaps not originally considered products but have had a monetary value placed on them and become a commodity for the purpose of making a profit. Social media in its capitalist form reduces its users to the position of consumers of “advertising and commodities”, as these social media consumers become commodities themselves by being sold as an audience to the social media’s advertising clients. (Fuchs, 3.5). The commodity is the cell or basic unit of capitalistic profit making and this process of commodification is essential to a capitalist economy with key featuring being continued growth. Without this growth capitalistic enterprises fall into crisis and can dire out. To survive capitalism is on an unending search for both to new things and activities to monetize. Also bound up in the ongoing search for new consumers and a relenting search for new places to sell its products, new countries, new areas in this way, commodification has not just economic but spatial or geographic element to it. As an example, social media which had humble origins as a networking tool has since developed into a prosumer commodification system that is based on commodifying networks, contacts, users profiles, all examples of user-generated content that are created by the unpaid labour of their client base.