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Leading up to Theorizing the Web 2013, we’ll be posting a series of previews of some of the papers we’ll be showcasing at the conference. This is one of those. Stay tuned for more!<\/em><\/p>\n Mohammad Kazeroun – “Social Media and reproduction of prosumer<\/i> identity: Re-considering advertising strategies in the age of ubiquitous social media” <\/strong><\/p>\n Panel:<\/strong> The Facebook Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism <\/strong><\/p>\n \u2018Decentralised\u2019 structure of the Internet does not seem to have resulted in \u2018democratisation\u2019, at least in a universal and straightforward format. Commercialisation of the Internet as well as state control and surveillance revealed a darker side of the new media technologies, which is less explored in the academic literature. The rise of collaborative and interactive Web technologies and the emergence of Web 2.0 in the past decade have made the matter more complex. Although the new technologies seem to have \u2018empowered\u2019 individuals and allowed them to challenge the traditional information gatekeepers, the increasing tendency to share different aspects of \u2018private\u2019 and everyday life in the, so called, \u2018social media\u2019 seems to have some serious negative consequences on individual\u2019s freedom and privacy. The dominant culture of \u2018confessional society\u2019 (Bauman 2007) forces individuals to provide bits of information that ultimately result in domination of a new form of capitalism.<\/p>\n This \u2018culture of sharing\u2019 is rapidly becoming the main theme in the digital era, and commercial corporations cannot afford to miss some invaluable opportunities that it could bring for them. They were, in fact, amongst the pioneers of the Web 2.0, and invested a lot in developing commercially-driven online communities and social web platforms, as well as monitoring information and communications in the third party Web 2.0 environments such as social networking websites. Advertising and PR agencies also did, and they are still doing, all efforts to exploit different aspects of social interaction online, and they have implemented different methods and techniques to \u2018monetise\u2019 the new Web environments. They systematically monitor, \u2018data-mine\u2019 and \u2018harvest\u2019 user-generated information online, in order to target the most relevant customers according to their individual desires and interests. The \u2018big data\u2019 in the social Web, therefore, is a new potential source of power, by which commercial companies (as well as states and other traditionally empowered institutions) try to monitor and \u2018control\u2019 individual\u2019s behaviours. The new strategies of control, however, require software \u2018sinking\u2019 into everyday lives and \u2018sorting\u2019 bits of personal information, which will results in a \u2018softer\u2019 and more intelligent power structure (Beer 2009).<\/p>\n This notion of control, however, is in contrast with the notion of \u2018democratisation\u2019 and \u2018empowerment\u2019 that was considered before, and demonstrates that even \u2018decentralised\u2019 media are not inherently liberating, and they are limiting our freedom in a more complex and intelligent way. Although consumers, in the age of collaborative and interactive Web, are \u2018smarter\u2019 and better considered as \u2018prosumers\u2019, capitalism is reconstructing itself by adapting with the new conditions. The same old-fashion logics of \u2018exploitation\u2019, \u2018commodification\u2019 and \u2018hegemony\u2019 still rule the market, but new forms of power<\/i> are emerging. This \u2018post-hegemonic power\u2019 (Lash 2007) is more complex, more insistent, and less visible, and rules from inside.<\/p>\n Technical developments in advertising industry were crucial to sustain capitalism in the age of new media. New marketing, advertising and PR strategies are being implemented to maintain the established structure of power in the Web 2.0-mediated communications. The \u2018social ads\u2019 should be consistent with the culture of social media, in order to remain \u2018persuasive\u2019 and effective. To grab attentions in the over-crowded and noisy environment of social networking websites, for instance, brands and ad agencies need to use new creative and intelligent techniques. They use the social Web to build a \u2018personalised\u2019 relationship with individuals and also to gather as much information about their habits and interests as possible in order to improve their \u2018algorithmic control\u2019. This will allow them to predict individuals\u2019 behaviours and chose the best path of marketing and advertising, based on the mathematical calculations. They also tend to exploit prosumer<\/i> culture of the Web by creating participatory ad campaigns and highly developed methods of crowdsourcing.<\/p>\n These strategic improvements, in my view, indicate a shift from traditional advertising to \u2018commercialised communication\u2019, which is aimed to be more persuasive and entertaining (or \u2018cool\u2019). The ultimate consequence of this shift, however, is to maintain power<\/i> by generating and regenerating \u2018prosumer identities\u2019, which have absorbed the \u2018post-hegemonic\u2019 power structure, and are \u2018controlled\u2019 from inside. This softer version of domination rules over individuals who have internalised the new structure of power, and is reproduced in their everyday interaction within the Web 2.0 environments. That is how the \u2018prosumer capitalism\u2019 (Ritzer and Jurgenson 2010) builds itself.<\/p>\n In the age of Web 2.0, the \u2018hidden persuaders\u2019 (Packard 1970) are even more \u2018hidden\u2019.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Cited works:<\/p>\n Bauman, Zygmunt. 2007. Consuming Life<\/i>. Wiley.<\/p>\n Beer, David. 2009. \u201cPower Through the Algorithm? Participatory Web Cultures and the Technological Unconscious.\u201d New Media & Society<\/i> 11 (6) (September 1): 985\u20131002. doi:10.1177\/1461444809336551.<\/p>\n Lash, Scott. 2007. \u201cPower After Hegemony Cultural Studies in Mutation?\u201d Theory, Culture & Society<\/i> 24 (3) (May 1): 55\u201378. doi:10.1177\/0263276407075956.<\/p>\n Packard, Vance. 1970. The Hidden Persuaders<\/i>. Pocket Books.<\/p>\n Ritzer, George, and Nathan Jurgenson. 2010. \u201cProduction, Consumption, Prosumption The Nature of Capitalism in the Age of the Digital \u2018prosumer\u2019.\u201d Journal of Consumer Culture<\/i> 10 (1) (March 1): 13\u201336. doi:10.1177\/1469540509354673.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Leading up to Theorizing the Web 2013, we’ll be posting a series of previews of some of the papers we’ll be showcasing at the conference. This is one of those. Stay tuned for more! Mohammad Kazeroun – “Social Media and reproduction of prosumer identity: Re-considering advertising strategies in the age of ubiquitous social media” Panel: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1760,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19746],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ttw13"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1760"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14375"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14376,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14375\/revisions\/14376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}