{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611","title":"Critical Theory of Communication New Readings of Lukács, Adorno, Marcuse, Honneth and Habermas in the Age of the Internet","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781911534044","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611","id":"dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611","uuid":"dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611","title":"Critical Theory of Communication New Readings of Lukács, Adorno, Marcuse, Honneth and Habermas in the Age of the Internet","normalized_title":"criticaltheoryofcommunicationnewreadingsoflukácsadornomarcusehonnethandhabermasintheageoftheinternet","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781911534044","isbns":["9781911534044","9781911534051","9781911534068","9781911534075"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":236,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Critical%20Theory%20of%20Communication%20New%20Readings%20of%20Luk%C3%A1cs%2C%20Adorno%2C%20Marcuse%2C%20Honneth%20and%20Habermas%20in%20the%20Age%20of%20the%20Internet","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611/search"},"page":{"printed_page":123,"pdf_page":127,"physical_index":127,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"a6992b24304c674d73a4d47c7a64e3322aa74520d4e47db8dc8f6c238ab99aea"},"chapter":"C H R I S T I A N F U C H S CRITICAL THEORY OF COMMUNICATION","content":"c) The Dialectic of the Subjective and the Objective Dialectic of Capitalism\n\nSocial media is embedded into the dialectic of capitalism’s objective and subjective dialectics. It reflects capitalism’s objective contradictions. One of these antagonisms is the one between real and fictitious value. Financialisation can easily result in the divergence of stock market values and profits. Such a divergence was at the heart of the 2000 crisis of the ‘new economy’. Financialisation is a response to contradictions of capitalism that result in capitalists’ attempts to achieve spatial (global outsourcing) and temporal (financialisation) fixes to problems associated with overaccumulation, overproduction, underconsumption, falling profit rates, profit squeezes, and class struggles (Harvey 2003, 89; Harvey 2005, 115). The ideological hype of the emergence of a ‘Web 2.0’ and ‘social media’ that communicated the existence of a radially new Internet was primarily aimed at restoring confidence of venture capital to invest in the Internet economy. The rise of Google, Facebook, Twitter, Weibo and related targeted advertising-based platforms created a new round of financialisation of the Internet economy with its own objective contradiction: in a situation of global capitalist crisis corporate social media attract advertising investments because companies think targeted advertising is more secure and eficient than conventional advertising (Fuchs 2014c). Financial investors share these hopes and believe in social media’s growing profits and dividends, which spurs their investments of financial capital in social media corporations. The clickthrough-rate (the share of ads that users click on in the total number of presented ads) is however on average just 0.1 per cent (Fuchs 2014c), which means that on average only one out of 1,000 targeted ads yields actual profits. And even in these cases it is uncertain if users will buy commodities on the pages the targeted ads direct them to. The social media economy involves high levels of uncertainty and risk. A social media finance bubble is continuously building itself up. If a specific bankruptcy or other event triggers a downfall of the stock market value of an important social media company, the bubble could suddenly explode because investors may lose confidence in the business model and this may quickly spread and intensify. Financial crises involve complex dialectics of objective contradictions and subjective behaviour.\n\nd) The Dialectic of Chance and Necessity\n\nCapitalism’s objective contradictions with necessity bring about crises. The exact causes and times of crises are however contingent and therefore not predetermined. This means for the capitalist Internet economy that its next crisis will come, but that the point of time and users’ reactions to it are not predetermined. Marcuse’s notion of determined negation as determinate choice is of particular importance in this respect: The next crisis of the Internet economy will come and may result in new qualities of the Internet. We do, however, not know how these changes will look like. They depend on the choices that users collectively make in the situation of crisis. The future of the Internet is dependent on the outcomes of class struggles. If users let themselves be fooled by the ideologies advanced by marketing gurus, capitalists, the business press, neoliberal politicians, and scholars celebrating every new capitalist hype, then no alternatives to the capitalist Internet may be in sight in and after the next crisis of the Internet. If they, however, struggle for an alternative, non-commercial, non-capitalist, non-profit, commons-based and therefore truly social Internet, then alternatives may become possible.\n\nHerbert Marcuse and Social Media\n\n123","previous_page":122,"next_page":124}