[ICTs-and-Society] Graham Murdock's talk "The Digital Lives of Commodities: Consumption, Ideology and Exploitation Today"

[Christian Fuchs]

The theme of the conference opening plenary is “Marx is Back: The 
Importance of Being Critical and Media and Communication Studies Today”.

The second lecture in this plenary is by Graham Murdock and focuses on 
the topic "The Digital Lives of Commodities: Consumption, Ideology and 
Exploitation Today". He ask the question: How does commodification look 
in the media landscape today, especially in relation to "prosumption" 
and digital media?
The discussions about media commodification have in Critical Media and 
Communication Studies got a new impetus by Dallas Smythe's introduction 
of the notion of "audience commodification" in 1977. The "Blindspot 
Debate", in which Graham was involved, was discussing fundamental 
aspects of the role of commodification in the media and the status and 
qualities of a Marxist Theory of Communication that Smythe was 
interested in. Almost 35 years after this debate started (and resulted 
in a lively discourse that never stopped), we can ask questions like: 
What is the role of commodification today? Are there new qualities of 
"audience commodification" today, which ones? How is resistance to 
commodification possible? What are the perspectives for overcoming 
exploitation today? What is the role for a Marxist Theory of 
Communication today and how can it be institutionalized? How has Marxist 
thinking and practice faced repression by neoliberalism and other 
practices inside and outside of academia in the past years? Is it likely 
that this will change now in the climate of a global capitalist crisis 
or not?


The Digital Lives of Commodities: Consumption, Ideology and Exploitation 
Today
Graham Murdock

Abstract

Marx famously placed the process of commodification at the centre of his 
analysis of capitalism. Stripped of other means of support workers 
traded their labour power for wages to buy the goods they needed to 
live. The structurally exploitative nature of this contract was in turn 
concealed by the relentless promotion of consumption as the primary 
sphere of personal choice and individual freedom. So far, so familiar. 
But the intersection of aggressive marketization and the rise of digital 
media is extending commodification - both structurally and ideologically 
- in new ways. We see the progressive commodification of online activity 
and engagement, overtly with the rise of ‘prosumption’, where users 
labour in their leisure time to boost corporate profits, and covertly 
through the mobilization of personal data for marketing. We also see the 
development of new forms of ubiquitous and immersive product promotion 
that inte-grate commodities ever more securely into the fabric of 
everyday digital life. Placing these developments firmly in the context 
of the critical analysis of commodification inspired by Marx, this paper 
takes stock of what we know about these emerging processes and their 
implications.

SPEAKER INFO: Graham Murdock is Professor of Culture and Economy at the 
Depart-ment of Social Sciences at Loughborough University. He is a 
leading scholar in the Sociology and Political Economy of Culture.

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Prof. Christian Fuchs
Chair in Media and Communication Studies
Department of Informatics and Media
Uppsala University
Kyrkogårdsgatan 10
Box 513
751 20 Uppsala
Sweden
christian.fuchs at im.uu.se
Tel +46 (0) 18 471 1019
http://fuchs.uti.at
http://www.im.uu.se
NetPolitics Blog: http://fuchs.uti.at/blog
Editor of tripleC: http://www.triple-c.se
Chair of ESA RN18-Sociology of Communications and Media Research
ICTs and Society Network: http://www.icts-and-society.net