Matt Wright

Professor Faiza Hirji

CMST 2DD3

24 November 2009

The Facebook Agenda and Social Networking Hegemony

Instead of a social networking domain such as Facebook being used to connect

citizens globally and enhance the decency of the human race, corporate strategy has

begun its decadence into the public sphere. Although Facebook itself is a corporation, its

original intent to act as a base for accessible and easy flowing of personal information

amongst like-minded individual has been perverted by alternate business endeavours. By

examining traditional historical hegemonic forces, media capitalist mindset and the

falsity of Facebook diasporic intentions, the corporation itself will be seen as a

destructive tool being manipulated by economic conditions.

Facebook Inc. has estimated revenue of 300 million USD per year, and is

estimated to have 300 million active users (Facebook). Founded at Harvard University in

Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2004, the online utility has transformed itself from a public

sphere connected network of students, into a marketplace that breeds both capitalist

exploitation and overwhelming high levels of privatization of personal information

(Facebook). By exploiting the labour of millions of users, corporations such as Google

have integrated themselves into the fabric of online social networking for the greater

good of shareholders rather than innocent, naïve “consumers”. By utilizing the

commodification of the Facebook audience, any media operation with enough capital to
 Wright 2

commit to a business plan has the ability to spread its messages and products across a

domain which users have little to no control over.

Drawing from McLuhan, consumers are now "doing" new media, as opposed to

'old media' such as television and radio in which they were the audience (Creeber and

Royston 35). Advertisers can manipulate this approach to new media in order to spread

consumerization to unknowing users. The abstract concept of enriching users with such

ideologies is easily accomplished by way of passive audiences (Adorno in Carilli and

Kamalipour 1) and, through constant media exposure, will inevitably become

commonplace (Althusser and Foster in Carilli and Kamalipour 1). While many users are

accepting of constant advertisements during their usual networking, this hegemonic

criterion fits well, according to Stuart Hall, with users who accept and normalize

sponsorship and media placement (Creeber and Royston 150). Just as television watchers

have accepted commercials aired during their regular programming, Facebook is moving

closer and closer to reproducing this same type of cultural hegemonic thought embedded

in its social networking tool - while millions of users are the none the wiser.

This exploitation of advertising space can address many concerns including

agenda setting of political bodies (Trifonas 10), as well as monopolization of market

sharing dependent solely on which corporations have merger deals associated with

Facebook. There is a virtual land-grab, colonized by corporate capitalism, which includes

the migration of previously offline activities into the social realm of online activity

(Creeber and Royston 34). By breaching the public sphere under a banner of social

networking, Facebook has opened the doors for third-party users to access personal

information. While this is ultimately an invasion of privacy and breach of many laws,
 Wright 3

users ‘trust’ Facebook, and thus agree to initiation waivers in order to interact with

applications via the site. This agreement removes any sort of privacy rights on behalf of

the user and creates another network of advertising space for companies.

By examining the creation and spontaneous growth of Facebook, Barthes’ views

regarding systemic distortion come as no surprise (Kellner 146). The culture of Facebook

itself is unregulated by any sort of government body, save the Canadian Privacy

Commission (BBC) which only breaks the surface by informing citizens about the

dangers of online social networking rather than actually intervening. The unrestricted and

unregulated nature is what makes Facebook that much more of a threat. What Marx calls

“false consciousness” (Kellner 148) is the sense of security users feel and the trust they

place in Facebook Inc.’s possession of their personal information. This exploitation of

trust also lies within what Hall refers to as the “agent of production” in that Facebook

users feel that if Facebook trusts a corporation to advertise, it must be safe to allow them

access as well (Kellner 148).

As Edward Herman and Robert McChesney stated, there is a need for non-

commodified public sphere that can serve "as places and forums where issues of

importance to a political community are discussed and debated, and where information is

presented that is essential to citizen participation in community life."(Trifonas 18).

Facebook, at its earliest conception, had the possibility to embody such a non-

commodified approach, one in which the audience or user did not become a commodity

to be bought and sold (Smythe 50). Rather, corporate ambitions and capitalist market

strategy helped Facebook grow into a media conglomerate worth more annually than the

GDP of some of its users’ home countries (Forbes). By blurring the lines between public
 Wright 4

and private sphere, Facebook has successfully created a safe-space where corporations

can remove any sort of oppositional thought. This process of hegemonic culture is yet

another staple of how the buying and selling of audience members lead to the corruption

of news media and television as a whole.

As a generalization for the successful momentum of Facebook: Globalization is

cultural synchronization is westernization is capitalism is exploitation of labour. Before

allowing technology to dictate the future of sociotechnical global societies, there must be

a consensus that corporations cannot be allowed to have such strong stakeholdings in the

digital media landscape (Kellner 658). The cross-linked integration of Facebook with

such Web 2.0 utilities as Youtube, Twitter and RSS feeds represents an overwhelmingly

high degree of control over the usage of internet, not only as an information hub, but as a

way of connecting on a personal level. By interfering with the human condition through

hegemonic cultural control, there is a definite link between how technology is viewed

now and how it was accepted post-Industrial Revolution. There is a privatization of

culture, and a stripping away of intellectual property from users without any regulation or

state intervention to support the integrity of global citizens (Kellner 557).

The availability of Facebook across various media platforms solidifies its

hegemonic presence within modern society - specifically in regards to mobile media.

“Convergence”, as defined by Marshall, “is of the content itself, such as embedding one

internet tool within another or the cross-platform intertextuality of media hybridization”

(Marshall in Creeber and Royston 120). By engaging with Facebook at home, work and

abroad, users and consumers are being constantly bombarded by an unmediated

cyberculture, riddled with advertisements and corporate facades (Creeber and Royston
 Wright 5

118). Before the time of mobile media, such as cell phones with wireless internet

capabilities, a digital divide existed which alienated a market of consumers without

internet access. The primary issue in the new information age, as regarded by Castell, is

not the end of work but the condition of work that consumers are doing when they

interact with media (Trifonas 17). Hegemonic forces at work once again made it possible

for Facebook to become so fully integrated into society that users found it necessary to

have an application or mobile version of the networking utility even when engaging in

other social settings.

As Facebook brings about media convergence of several platforms, the portability

of media devices allows content to diverge into the realm of "real" while still maintaining

virtual status (Galloway in Creeber and Royston 36). This transcendence of socio-

technical pervaise is what was once referred to as media space, and has inevitably created

a hybrid form of connectivity between users and social media, enabled by new

technology (Creeber and Royston 36). The allowance of Facebook users to integrate this

internet utility into entrenched society norms is an indication that Facebook is not

something to be used, but instead something to be interacted with. The intellectual

driving force behind Facebook is, as predicted by Marx and Engels the same class of

societal that produces the majority of advertising and controls production across various

platforms (Kellner 150). Culture can now be defined not only by the relationships

between people, but also the way in which people interact with the elements that connect

them (Williams in Kellner 145).

Facebook can often be regarded as the pinnacle example of how neoliberalism, at

work cultural hegemony, can enhance the influence of corporate power over all aspects of
 Wright 6

daily life (Trifonas 10). From an economic perspective, neoliberalism has resulted in

Facebook granting access for select, private corporations to personal user information,

and, in the absence of regulation, a level of consumerism that is unrivaled in online social

networking (Trifonas 13). As David Gauntlett states, the “creative potential of the global

network [online media] has been killed off by big business” (Creeber and Royston 34).

The neoliberal approach to studying Facebook again shows that as society enriches itself

with the face values of online social networking, culture is susceptible to market

dominance by media firms, and the inherent value of information diminishes with every

merger and advertising attempt.

In order to cloak the obvious wave of neoliberal economics at play within

Facebook, the creation of the application ‘Causes’ brought about a public consciousness

of right-doing by a corporation. This false sense of community network has netted $2.5

million for 40,000 different charitable and political causes worldwide (Watson 13) and

again shows the cultural dominance of Facebook from a humanitarian outlook. Not to be

outdone, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg graciously opened the network’s doors

beyond college students, to a vast array of untapped markets (Watson 25). To grasp the

hegemonic forces that are being engrained into society, it is important to consider that

even charitable organizations are, for lack of better terminology, cashing on in the

success of Facebook. What set Facebook apart from other modes of advertising is the

mentality that the entire system is fueled by the same conglomerates which control most

of the news and print media of our world.

If Facebook looks to avoid scrutiny of its obvious cultural hegemonic presence, it

will have to focus its attention towards the grassroots nature of participatory culture. As
 Wright 7

online media continues its transition from purely information based to social networking

and integrated content variables, a corporate-based model will not suffice (Jenkins in

Creeber and Royston 557). By allowing the internet to become so deeply hegemonized,

much like radio and television, networking sites such as Facebook will lose their original

intentions to a sea of neoliberal mentalities, and moreover, the trust of its users. From

Smythe's dependency thesis, Facebook has changed its users into media audiences, and

their interaction with the domain allows for the marketing of capitalism (Bird in Fletcher

and Everett 434). In order to avoid this cultural dependency, users must be made aware of

critical assessments of the underlying intentions of Facebook, and advocacy must be put

in place to combat further media convergence.

From a Marxist perspective, Facebook appears to be a collection of commodities

(Marx in Hirst and Harrison 39) such as Causes, messaging, user interaction, gaming and

the spread of personal information, but in reality it is a reference point for advertisers to

use this social labour as a means of production for their goods and services (Mosco 146).

Once in place, Facebook users have been subject to constant hegemonic forces to

conform to the allowance of corporations accessing their personal information as a

requirement for the utility's free usage (Lukács “Phantom Objectivity” in Hirst and

Harrison 42). In reality, the zero-cost of Facebook is a subsidized operation that requires

corporate investment and business partners as exchange value in order to stay functional

(Smith in Doyle 11). From an alternative perspective, the Facebook user community is

under surveillance by advertising firms in order to gather demographics and data

collections to be used in external operations (Meehan in Mosco 150). This

commodification takes Facebook to a different level of cybernetic commodity.

 Wright 8

There is a definite "doubling up" approach to consuming advertising when uses

interact with Facebook. While users consider posting a link to a favoured Youtube video

as a way of disseminating their personal information to other users, this is cross-linked

promotion for the Youtube website itself. As another avenue of revenue, Google Inc. is

the owner of Youtube, which increases its exposure from another stance; thus

constructing a colonization of private, individual life from seemingly unrelated market

forces. This top-down corporate strategy, coupled with bottom-up participatory culture is

precisely the hegemonic motives embedded within Facebook that are of greatest

consideration (Jenkins 2006a: 243 in Creeber and Royston 7).

The Facebook platform, with proper utilisation, has unlimited potential. If each

consumer is considered to have unlimited wants and only limited resources, this leaves a

market gap to be fulfilled by some sort of online organization (Parkin et. al in Doyle 4). It

is the law of diminishing marginal utility that has driven the market economics of social

networking to such drastic changes as allowing private information to third party

companies. Until Facebook can find a way to meet every demand of consumers, there

will not exist a complete hegemonic dominance of its user community. In this timeframe

however, economies of scale will hopefully keep one giant media convergence to take

absolute control over Facebook, and its users as a whole (Doyle 9). The hegemonic

tendencies of Facebook over unknowing consumers seems paralleled to the overarching

of theme of Murdoch-esque control over various non-online sectors. While users search

aimlessly amongst their own personal information, there is a constant struggle to

eliminate firms for the global media market (McChesney 32).

 Wright 9

There is no definite market ideology that can narrow down how strong the

hegemonic forces will dominate users of the online social networking utility, Facebook.

If Facebook is compared to historic hegemonic entities, examined as a wolf in sheep’s

clothing of capitalist online endeavours, or ridiculed for its false diasporic façade, there is

evidence to show just how powerful it has become in five short years. As online digital

media crosses from digital realms into everyday culture, the westernization of the global

market will create a hegemonic overspill of culture into various parts of the globe. Unless

consumers, users, audiences alike realize their imminent situation and stop normalizing

the pressures of online mass media, the information superhighway will slowly become a

digitzed path littered with billboards at every turn.

 Wright 10

Bibliography

Adorno, T. The schema of mass culture. In J. M. Bernstein (Ed.), The culture industry:

Selected essays in mass culture. London: Routledge. 1991. Print.

Creeber, Glen, and Royston, Martin. Digital Culture: Understanding New Media.

McGraw-Hill International (UK) Ltd, 2009. Print.

Doyle, G. Introduction to Media Economics. Sage Publications, 2002. Print.

“Understanding Media Economics”

Everett, R. & Fletcher, F.J. Canadian Politics in the 21st Century. Cengage Learning

Nelson Education. 2000. Print. “The Media and Canadian Politics in an Era of

Globalization”

Hirst, M., and J. Harrison. The Political Economy of Communication and Media. Aust:

Oxford UP, 2007. Print. “Communication and New Media: From Broadcast to

Narrowcast”

Kamalipour, Yahya R., and Carilli, Theresa. Cultural Diversity and the U.S. Media.

SUNY Series in Human Communication Processes. Albany State University of

New York Press, 1998. Web.

Kellner, Douglas. Media and Cultural Studies. Malden, MA: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.,

2006. Print.

McChesney, R.W. Electronic Empires: Global Media and Local Resistance. Edward

Arnold. 1988. Print. “Media Convergence and Globalisation”

Mosco, V. The Political Economy of Communication: Rethinking and Renewal. Sage

Publications. 2006. Print. “The Political Economy of Communication”

 Wright 11

Rampell, Catherine (2008-02-23). "What Facebook Knows That You Don't". The

Washington Post: p. A15. Retrieved 2009-10-14.

Smythe, D.W. Dependency Road: Communications, Capitalism, Consciousness.

Greenwood Pub Group. 1981. Print. “On the Audience Commodity and Its Work”

Trifonas, Peter Pericles. Communities of Difference Culture, Language, Technology.

New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Print.

Watson, Tom. CauseWired : Plugging In, Getting Involved, Changing the World. John

Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2008. Print.

Facebook. “Press Room”. 2009. Web. Retrieved 2009-10-14.

<http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics>

BBC News Online. "Facebook 'breaches Canadian law'". 2009-07-17. Web. Retrieved

2009-10-14. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8155367.stm>

Forbes. Bertoni, Steven and Gell, Erin. "By The Numbers: Billionaire Bachelors". 2008-

09-16. Web. Retrieved 2008-09-20.

<http://www.forbes.com/2008/09/16/billionaire-bachelors-single-lists-

cx_mm_0916bachelor_slide_11.html?thisSpeed=30000>