Abstract
Marxist Internet scholars have recently shed light on the commodification and exploitation of social media users. While some of these studies have also acknowledged the ideological nature of how online sociality is understood and discussed, they have not yet addressed in great detail the ways in which ideology figures in the process of commodification of social media users. We address this question by combining Marxist ideology theory with insights from cognitive pragmatics. Focusing on the idea of illusion, we draw on Relevance Theory and employ the notions of “relevance” and “cognitive illusion” to discuss the ideological process we call context manipulation, a concept that helps bring to focus the discursive obscuring of the capitalist operational logic of social media corporations. We illustrate our cognitivepragmatic model of ideology with examples of Facebook’s discursive practices. The paper contributes to the discussion on ideology in cultural studies and the discussion on commodification of online sociality in critical Internet and media studies by offering a revised interpretation of Marx’s ideology theory that highlights the discursive and cognitive nature of ideological processes, and by elaborating on the workings of ideology in the specific context of corporate social media.
References
Althusser, Louis. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.” On Ideology, edited by Louis Althusser, Verso, 2008 [1971], pp. 1-60.Search in Google Scholar
Bauman, Zygmunt. Identity: Conversations with Benedetto Vecchi. Polity Press, 2004.Search in Google Scholar
Baym, Nancy, K. “Social Media and the Struggle for Society.” Social Media + Society, 1-2, 2015. doi: 10.1177/2056305115580477Search in Google Scholar
Briziarelli, Marco. “The Ideological Reproduction: (Free) Labouring and (Social) Working within Digital Landscapes.” tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique, vol. 12, no. 2, 2014, pp. 620-631, www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/537.10.31269/triplec.v12i2.537Search in Google Scholar
Campbell, John Edward and Matt Carlson. “Panopticon.Com: Online Surveillance and the Commodification of Privacy.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, vol. 46, no. 4, 2002, pp. 586-606, doi:10.1207/s15506878jobem4604_6.Search in Google Scholar
Corner, John. “‘Ideology’ and Media Research.” Media, Culture & Society, vol. 38, no. 2, 2016, pp. 265-273, doi:10.1177/0163443715610923.Search in Google Scholar
Dahlberg, Lincoln. “Computer-Mediated Communication and the Public Sphere: A Critical Analysis.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, vol. 7, no. 1, 2001, doi:10.1111/j.1083-6101.2001.tb00137.x.Search in Google Scholar
Downey, John. “Recognition and Renewal of Ideology Critique.” The Media and Social Theory, edited by D. Hesmondhalgh and J. Toynbee, Taylor & Francis, 2008, pp. 59-74.Search in Google Scholar
Downey, John et al. “Ideology Critique: The Challenge for Media Studies.” Media, Culture & Society, vol. 36, no. 6, 2014, pp. 878-887, doi:10.1177/0163443714536113.Search in Google Scholar
Downey, John and Jason Toynbee. “Ideology: Towards Renewal of a Critical Concept.” Media, Culture & Society, vol. 38, no. 8, 2016, pp. 1261-1271, doi:10.1177/0163443716671494.Search in Google Scholar
Dyer-Witheford, Nick. Cyber-Proletariat: Global Labour in the Digital Vortex. Pluto Press, 2015.10.2307/j.ctt183p1zgSearch in Google Scholar
Eagleton, Terry. Ideology: An Introduction. Verso, 1991.Search in Google Scholar
Elster, Jon. An Introduction to Karl Marx. Cambridge University Press, 1986.10.1017/CBO9781139163620Search in Google Scholar
“Facebook Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2017 Results.” Facebook Investor Relations, 31 January 2018, investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/2018/Facebook-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2017-Results/default.aspx.Search in Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman. Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. Routledge, 2003.10.4324/9780203697078Search in Google Scholar
Fisher, Eran. “Contemporary Technology Discourse and the Legitimation of Capitalism.” European Journal of Social Theory, vol. 13, no. 2, 2010, pp. 229-252, doi:10.1177/1368431010362289.Search in Google Scholar
Fisher, Eran and Christian Fuchs, editors. Reconsidering Value and Labour in the Digital Age. Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.10.1057/9781137478573Search in Google Scholar
Fuchs, Christian. “Dallas Smythe Today - the Audience Commodity, the Digital Labour Debate, Marxist Political Economy and Critical Theory. Prolegomena to a Digital Labour Theory of Value.” tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique, vol. 10, no. 2, 2012, pp. 692-740, www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/443.10.31269/triplec.v10i2.443Search in Google Scholar
---. Digital Labour and Karl Marx. Routledge, 2014.Search in Google Scholar
---. “Marx’s Capital in the Information Age.” Capital & Class vol. 41, no. 1, 2017, pp. 51-67. doi: 10.1177/0309816816678573Search in Google Scholar
Garnham, Nicholas. “‘Information Society’ as Theory or Ideology: A Critical Perspective in Technology, Education and Employment in the Information Age.” Information, Communication & Society, vol. 3, no. 2, 2000, pp. 139-152, doi: 10.1080/13691180050123677.Search in Google Scholar
Gee, James P. Social Linguistics and Literacies: Ideology in Discourses. 3rd edition. Routledge. 2008 [1990].10.4324/9780203944806Search in Google Scholar
Cadwalladr, Carole and Emma Graham-Harrison. “Revealed: 50 million Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach.” The Guardian, 17 Mar. 2018, www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/cambridge-analyticafacebook- influence-us-election.Search in Google Scholar
Gibbs, Samuel. “Facebook facing privacy actions across Europe as France fines firm €150k.” The Guardian, 16 May 2017, www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/16/facebook-facing-privacy-actions-across-europe-as-france-fines-firm-150k.Search in Google Scholar
Gill, Rosalind and Kanai, Akane. “Mediating Neoliberal Capitalism: Affect, Subjectivity and Inequality.” Journal of Communication, vol. 68, pp. 318-326, 2018. doi:10.1093/joc/jqy002Search in Google Scholar
Grice, Herbert Paul. “Logic and Conversation.” Syntax and Semantics, Vol. 3, Speech Acts, edited by Peter Cole and Jerry L. Morgan, Academic Press, 1975, pp. 41-58.10.1163/9789004368811_003Search in Google Scholar
---. “Meaning.” The philosophical review, vol. 66, no. 3, 1957, pp. 377-388, www.jstor.org/stable/2182440.10.2307/2182440Search in Google Scholar
Hall, Stuart. “Signification, Representation, Ideology: Althusser and the Post-Structuralist Debates.” Critical Studies in Mass Communication, vol. 2, 1985, pp. 91-114, doi: 10.1080/15295038509360070.Search in Google Scholar
---. “The Problem of Ideology: Marxism without Guarantees.” Journal of Communication Inquiry, vol. 10, no. 2, 1986, pp.28-44, doi: 10.1177/019685998601000203.Search in Google Scholar
Harvey, David. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford University Press, USA, 2005.10.1093/oso/9780199283262.003.0010Search in Google Scholar
Hern, Alex. “Facebook personal data use and privacy settings ruled illegal by German court.” The Guardian, 12 Feb. 2018, www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/feb/12/facebook-personal-data-privacy-settings-ruled-illegal-german-court.Search in Google Scholar
Herzog, Benno. “Marx’s Critique of Ideology for Discourse Analysis: From Analysis of Ideologies to Social Critique.” Critical Discourse Studies, 2018, doi: 10.1080/17405904.2018.1457549.Search in Google Scholar
Hogan, Libby and Michael Safi. “Revealed: Facebook hate speech exploded in Myanmar during Rohingya crisis.” The Guardian, 3 Apr. 2018, www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/03/revealed-facebook-hate-speech-exploded-inmyanmar-during-rohingya-crisis.Search in Google Scholar
Johnson-Laird, Philip N. and Fabien Savary. “Illusory Inferences: A Novel Class of Erroneous Deductions.” Cognition, vol. 71, no. 3, 1999, pp. 191-229, doi: 10.1016/S0010-0277(99)00015-3.Search in Google Scholar
Johnson-Laird, Philip N. How We reason. New York: Oxford University Press. 2006.Search in Google Scholar
Kang, Hyunjin and Matthew P. McAllister. “Selling You and Your Clicks: Examining the Audience Commodification of Google.” tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique, vol. 9, no. 2, 2011, pp. 141-153, www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/255.10.31269/triplec.v9i2.255Search in Google Scholar
Laclau, Ernesto. “The Death and Resurrection of the Theory of Ideology.” MLN, vol. 112, no. 3, 1997, pp. 297-321, www.jstor.org/stable/3251278.10.1353/mln.1997.0038Search in Google Scholar
Larrain, Jorge. “Stuart Hall and the Marxist Concept of Ideology.” Theory, Culture & Society, vol. 8, no. 4, 1991, pp. 1-28, doi: 10.1177/026327691008004001.Search in Google Scholar
Levinson, Stephen C. Pragmatics. Cambridge University Press, 1983.10.1017/CBO9780511813313Search in Google Scholar
Lillqvist, Ella and Anu A. Harju. “Discourse of Enticement: How Facebook Solicits Users.” Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis Across Disciplines (CADAAD journal), vol. 10, no. 1, 2018, pp. 63-80.Search in Google Scholar
Lovink, Geert. “On the Social Media Ideology.” e-flux journal, vol. 75, 2016, pp. 1-10, www.e-flux.com/journal/75/67166/on-the-social-media-ideology/.Search in Google Scholar
Maillat, Didier and Steve Oswald. “Defining Manipulative Discourse: The Pragmatics of Cognitive Illusions.” International Review of Pragmatics, vol. 1, no. 2, 2009, pp. 348-370, doi: 10.1163/187730909X12535267111651.Search in Google Scholar
Martin, Craig. “Ideology and the Study of Religion: Marx, Althusser, and Foucault.” Religion Compass, vol. 7, no. 9, 2013, pp. 402-411, doi: 10.1111/rec3.12062.Search in Google Scholar
Marx, Karl. Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. International Publishers, 1964.Search in Google Scholar
---. A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. Progress Publishers, 1977.Search in Google Scholar
---. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. (Online Version: Marx/Engels Internet Archive). Vol. I, Harmondsworth: Penguin/New Left Review, 1995, www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/index.htm.Search in Google Scholar
---. The German Ideology. Electric Book Company, 2000.Search in Google Scholar
Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. The Communist Manifesto. Electric Book Company, 2000.Search in Google Scholar
Mey, Jacob L. Pragmatics: An Introduction. 2nd edition, Blackwell, 2001.Search in Google Scholar
Myers West, Sarah. “Data Capitalism: Redefining the Logics of Surveillance and Privacy.” Business & Society, 2017, pp. 1-22, doi: 10.1177/0007650317718185.Search in Google Scholar
Morris, Warren Frederick. Understanding Ideology. University Press of America, 2010.Search in Google Scholar
Mosco, Vincent. The Political Economy of Communication. SAGE Publications, 2009.10.4135/9781446279946Search in Google Scholar
Na, Yuqi. “Advertising on Social Media: The Reality Behind the Ideology of ‘Free Access’. The Case of Chinese Social MediaSearch in Google Scholar
Platforms.” Reconsidering Value and Labour in the Digital Age, edited by E. Fisher and C. Fuchs, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.Search in Google Scholar
Rancière, Jacques. Althusser’s Lesson. Translated by E. Battista, Continuum, 2011 [1974].Search in Google Scholar
Skeggs, Beverley and Simon Yuill. “Capital Experimentation with Person/A Formation: How Facebook’s Monetization Refigures the Relationship between Property, Personhood and Protest.” Information, Communication & Society, vol. 19, no. 3, 2016, pp. 380-396, doi:10.1080/1369118X.2015.1111403.Search in Google Scholar
Smythe, Dallas W. “Communications: Blindspot of Western Marxism.” CTheory, vol. 1, no. 3, 1977, pp. 1-27, journals.uvic.ca/index.php/ctheory/article/view/13715/4463.Search in Google Scholar
Sperber, Dan and Deirdre Wilson. Relevance: Communication and Cognition. 2nd edition, Blackwell 1995.Search in Google Scholar
Srnicek, Nick. Platform Capitalism. Polity Press, 2017.Search in Google Scholar
Thompson, John B. Ideology and Modern Culture: Critical Social Theory in the Era of Mass Communication. Polity Press, 1990.10.1515/9781503621886Search in Google Scholar
Thurlow, Crispin. “Fakebook: Synthetic Media, Pseudo-Sociality and the Rhetorics of Web 2.0.” Discourse 2.0: Language and New Media, edited by D. Tannen and A.M. Trester, Georgetown University Press, 2013, pp. 225-249.Search in Google Scholar
Van Alsenoy, Brendan et al. From social media service to advertising network: A critical analysis of Facebook’s Revised Policies and Terms, 2015, www.law.kuleuven.be/citip/en/news/item/facebooks-revised-policies-and-terms-v1-3.pdfSearch in Google Scholar
van Dijck, J. The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media. Oxford University Press, 2013.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199970773.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
van Dijk, T. A. “Ideology and Discourse Analysis.” Journal of Political Ideologies, vol. 11, no. 2, 2006, pp. 115-140, doi: 10.1080/13569310600687908.Search in Google Scholar
Wilson, Deirdre and Dan Sperber. “Relevance Theory.” Working Papers in Linguistics, 2002, www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/publications/WPL/02papers/wilson_sperber.pdf.Search in Google Scholar
Wilson, Deirdre. “Relevance Theory.” Oxford Handbook of Pragmatics, edited by Y. Huang, Oxford University Press, 2013.Search in Google Scholar
Žižek, Slavoj. “The Spectre of Ideology.” Mapping Ideology, edited by S. Žižek, Verso, 1994, pp. 1-33.Search in Google Scholar
© by Anu A. Harju and Ella Lillqvist, published by De Gruyter
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.
