{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed","title":"Digital Capitalism","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"2021022153","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed","id":"50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed","uuid":"50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed","title":"Digital Capitalism","normalized_title":"digitalcapitalism","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"2021022153","isbns":["2021022153","9781032119182","9781032119205","9781003222149","2405518376"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":343,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Digital%20Capitalism","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed/search"},"page":{"printed_page":198,"pdf_page":212,"physical_index":212,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"6f2654a190d030de5df38a5885abe28b2299538411dad112ad8c4e3dd898ed91"},"chapter":"DIGITAL CAPITALISM","content":"Lukács was particularly interested in economic and cultural reification. “Reification requires that a society should learn to satisfy all its needs in terms of commodity exchange” (Lukács 1971, 91), which includes “the separation of the producer from his means of production” (Lukács 1971, 91). Lukács added another important dimension to the theory of commodity fetishism: His notion of reified consciousness stressed the subjective dimension of ideology and fetishism. Ideology and fetishism are not just objective structures and strategies, they are also experienced and lived. Ideology aims at influencing human consciousness. Lukács’ works have had major influence on Marxist ideology critique, including the approach of the Frankfurt School.\n\nWe can learn from Chapter 1 of Marx’s Capital that when analysing capitalist phenomena such as advertising and targeted advertising on social media, there are always an economic and a cultural dimensions, as well as aspects of labour and ideology. Dallas Smythe’s notions of audience labour stresses advertising’s labour dimension. Given that, as Marx shows, any commodity also has a fetishistic and ideological dimension, one also needs to look at the ideological dimension of the audience commodity. The works of Sut Jhally and Raymond Williams can help us better understand commodity fetishism in the context of advertising.\n\n8.2.3 Sut Jhally’s “Advertising as Religion” and Raymond Williams’s “Advertising: The Magic System”\n\nSut Jhally’s (2006) essay Advertising as Religion: The Dialectic of Technology and Magic analyses advertising’s fetishistic and ideological structure. Jhally points out that in capitalism, the division of labour ensures that people only work on one part of a product. As a result of the division between mental and physical labours, and the fact that goods come to us through markets, we do not understand their origins. “The social relations of production embedded in goods are systematically hidden from our eyes. The real meaning of goods, in fact, is emptied out in capitalist production and consumption” (Jhally 2006, 88). Advertising taps into this void: commodity fetishism empties commodities of human meaning. We cannot understand the meanings of life and experiences of commodity producers, as these are all removed from the equation. In an artificial way, advertising creates ideological meanings that it bestows on commodities. “Into the void left by the transition from traditional to industrial society comes advertising […] The function of advertising is to refill the emptied commodity with meaning. […] Production empties. Advertising fills. The real is hidden by the imaginary” (Jhally 2006, 88–89). He adds that the “most important functions that advertising performs is to provide meaning for the world of goods in a context in which true meaning has been stolen” (Jhally 2006, 93).\n\n198\n\nThemes","previous_page":197,"next_page":199}