Recent years have seen a return of political economic approaches to analyzing manifold facets of digital media (see, e.g., Gehl, 2014; Rigi & Prey, 2015; Obar & Oeldorf-Hirsch, 2018). This perspective is especially relevant, as the hegemonic influence of technology on society is perhaps best understood as a confluence of powerful political, economic, and social forces. From this understanding, this essay will address the question “Does Content Creation Matter to Cultural Production?” Of particular importance are the convergence of mobility, socialiabilty, and streaming video, the historical role of neoliberal ideology on technology policy, and processes of cultural adaptation.
Mobility, Socialability, and Streaming Video in Living Networks
A logical starting point for examining contemporary forms of content creation and cultural production is the digital services that facilitate these actions. Global platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Twitch, and WeChat are some of the most popular (Statista, 2018). While each offer slightly different affordances, all facilitate both social and informational exchanges between users (Scheepers, 2014; Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010). They also allow for the creation, publication, and promotion of content in the form of User Generated Content (UGC). Rainie and Wellman (2012) note that UGC on social networks contributes to a “virtuous circle between supply-side creation and demand-side participation… As networks have grown, the value of being connected to the network not only has grown, but also has grown exponentially, constantly producing fuel for further expansion” (p. 70). Arguably, this self-reinforcing symbiosis is further augmented by the relatively recent convergence of mobility, socialability, and streaming video in online networks.
The growth of mobility, which refers to both mobile phone and untethered device adoption, greatly enhanced the promise of socialability through social networking. According to one industry study, nearly 60% of users in North America accessed social media through mobile devices, enabling users to connect online more often, from more places (We Are Social, 2018). As mobility grew, so too did bandwidth, facilitating the development of new technologies like high-quality streaming video. Streaming video was a pivotal development, attracting more users online, and supporting the growth of peer-to-peer exchanges (Ranie and Wellman, 2012, p 73). By mid 2011, 71% of Internet users were regularly watching online videos (p. 73).
Upgrading bandwidth capacities also increased network usability, attractiveness, and profitability (p. 62). Without these underlying economic benefits, the revolution in social networks may not have been possible. The ability of users to create, upload, consume, and interact with content through social media is foundational to understanding the digital economy. Writing on the topic of the first online commercial services, Smyrnaios explains that “the economic value of these services resided not only in their technical features but also in creating and maintaining user communities” (Smyrnaios, 2018, p. 14).
The Rise of Neoliberalism
The election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 marked a significant shift in the ideological orientation of American politics. Media scholar Robert McChesney (2004) described this new era as one “based upon the ‘neoliberal’ view that markets and profit making should be allowed to regulate every aspect of social life possible” (p. 49). Extensive government deregulation, particularly regarding American media institutions, characterized this period. In the 1990s, these policies greatly influenced the burgeoning information technology industry. Smyrnaios (2018) identified the new (de)regulatory approach as resulting in the privatization of the technical infrastructure required for telecommunications development and the legitimization of neoliberal doctrine. This, he argues, enabled the commodification of the Internet (pp. 12–14) . Today the “free” Internet, is policed not by the state, but by powerful corporate interests motivated, above all else, by profit. This relegation of oversight into private hands makes every Internet policy decision an inherently economic one, with value extraction and maximization serving as guiding principles.
The Commodification of the Internet
A Marxist perspective is particularly instructive for elucidating the tensions between free labor, the cultural production of content across screens, and the commodification of the Internet. Here, screens refer to laptops and mobile devices that enable social media use. One popular approach in the Marxist tradition conceives of the audience (i.e., social media users) as the commodity in the production of capital (Fuchs, 2014). As Beverungen et al. (2015) write, “Without the status updates, photographs, ‘likes’, ‘recommends’, comments, posted video clips, and fan pages that its users create, Facebook [and other social media platforms] would have nothing to draw an audience that it can sell to advertisers. The audience’s attention is produced by users both in their participation as an audience to other users’ content and through their own production of content, which constitutes others as an audience” (p. 479). The power of network advantages, the difficulty of removing the content created through interactions on the network, and the ceding of personal data ownership typify all this form commodification (Beverungen et al, 2015).
Today more than 2 billion users worldwide have a Facebook account (Facebook, 2018). This staggering fact underpins the nature of contemporary cultural production. As society almost everywhere moves towards an increasingly digitized existence, the network effects of social media ensure that online spaces must become a primary vector for cultural production. Developments like virtual reality are the harbinger of this evolution. It is not impossible to envision a future in which cyber spaces supplant the physical as primary venues for creating and interpreting cultural meaning.
In answer to the question posed at the start of this essay, yes, content creation does matter to cultural production. If we continue on our current trajectory, however, this path risks being dominated by the vagaries of inscrutable corporate arbiters. The scale and rate at which the cultural adaptation of the Internet generally, and social media specifically, occurred underscore the need for critical examination of its operation. Technology is neither inherently bad nor good. Its ultimate impacts should be judged by the morals and ethics guiding its development and contemporary utility. This essay has illuminated several causes for concern, including unbridled corporate power, the exploitation of the individual user by economic forces, and the dilution of culture.
Normative Assessments
Tracing the history of the Internet, Smyrnaios (2018) explored how Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link (WELL), arguably the first digital social network, enabled the commodification of user generated content. This form of commodification is “now one of the main sources of value creation that internet oligopoly relies on” (p. 14). To make a normative assessment on this topic requires an appreciation for the central role neoliberalism and technological determinism played in technology development. As Ranie and Wellman (2018) argue, the abdication of government authority allowed for the rapid pace of technological developments. However, this has come at the cost of severe societal harms, for a disempowered regulatory body is unable to rectify imperfections that arise in the marketplace. In present context, two issues underline this assertion. First, revelations that Facebook inadequately protected the private data of its users has spurred widespread outrage and renewed conversations about data privacy (Timberg, Romm, & Dwoskin, 2018). Second, the scourges of fake news and hate speech, facilitated by the affordances of social media, are also a global concern. Tragically, the impacts of theses latter pernicious trends have been attributed to ethnic cleansing in Myanmar, among other frightening effects (Specia & Mozur, 2018).
The laptop and mobile based screens examined in this essay are not materially different from the online Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) of the WELL era. Both are technological devices that mediate the creation and dissemination of cultural content and communication; both benefited from free market ideologies that contributed to their meteoric rise. However, WELL was not decried as threatening the very foundation of democratic governance. As global attention turns towards the currently dominant technology platforms, a reassertion of state power might be the only remedy to bring us back towards the liberating possibilities of a networked society.
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