The data show that the capitalist economy has since the middle of the 1970s been shaped by the capitalist class’ neoliberal struggle against the working class, increasing inequality between capital and labour, an increase of household debts, a decrease of capital taxation, a rising financialisation of the economy, and as a consequence an increased crisis volatility. The contradictions between capital and labour, fictitious value and actual profit, the production and consumption/investment of capital were heightened by the development dynamics of neoliberal capitalism and finally resulted in a new world economic crisis and a crisis of capitalist society.
Sections 9.3–9.5 aim to show that capitalism and its crisis are an important factor that has shaped social media. One aspect is that capitalism’s crisis has favoured the expansion of targeted online advertising.
9.3 Targeted Advertising and the Crisis
Table 9.1 shows the development of the global advertising revenues. Whereas the share of broadcast advertising (radio and television) has, in the years from 2009 until 2013, slightly declined from 43.6% to 42.0%, the decline was more drastic in the print industry, where the share went from 32.4% to 25.2%. At the same time, the share of Internet advertising increased from 15.7% to 24.8%. These statistical data give grounds to the assumption that advertisers find online advertising more secure than other forms of advertising because it can be targeted, personalised, and it is based on consumer- and user-surveillance. The new capitalist crisis may have accelerated this shift from traditional advertising to online advertising because corporations are then especially afraid of bankruptcy and making losses. The crisis of journalism and the print news media stands in the context of the commercialisation of the media and the changes of advertising. In the United Kingdom, 37.1% of the advertising revenue was spent in the online industry, 28.3% in broadcasting, 18.7% in the print industry, 9.5% on direct mail advertising, 5.3% on outdoor ads, and 1.0% in the movie industry (Ofcom 2015, 375).
In 2014, Google had a share of 31.10% in the global digital ad revenue, Facebook 7.75%, Baidu 4.68%, Alibaba 4.66%, Microsoft 2.72%, Yahoo! 2.36%, IAC 1.00%, Twitter 0.84%, Tencent 0.83%, AOL 0.81%, Amazon 0.70%, Pandora 0.50%, LinkedIn
Chapter Nine | Social Media and the Capitalist Crisis
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Targeted Advertising and the Crisis