Capitalism and the Ideologies of the Social

Abstract

The question now turns toward how the use value of online social communication gets converted to a kind of exchange value. The first step will be to discuss the theoretical frontiers of capitalism as it pertains to social media, and to drill down to some specific strategic examples. The normalisation of social media is expressed by its ubiquity and apparent necessity. To abstain from social media might be considered by some as proof of abnormality and a cause for suspicion. Hiring firms may pass over a candidate if said person does not use social media. In some cases, employers have flouted labour laws in demanding password access to social media accounts of prospective employees to invasively see who they ‘really are’ – a significantly more overt yet no less disturbing trend reminiscent of Henry Ford’s penchant for sending agents to covertly surveil workers in their off-hours to report back on various behaviours, such as alcohol consumption. With the thickening of the US and Canadian border, the US Department of Homeland Security has refused entry to those travellers who do not hand over full password access to their social media accounts, or who may be put under additional scrutiny for not having any social media accounts at all. In less severe cases, some people may become inadvertently excluded from social functions that are organised solely on Facebook, based on the assumption that everyone has an account there. For others, there simply little choice but to engage in social media as part of the requirements of work due to how much social media has become integrated as part of a communications strategy for everything from marketing products and services, to the daily operations of local governments. Just as there are more opportunities for social inputs using social media, a rise in apparent necessity in their use has been capitalised by social network owners as providing ever more economic inputs for profit generation. As more social competition may become manifest on social media in attempting to