Theorizing Social Media from Capitalism and Culture Industry Perspective

Abstract

This article proposes PRANC as a theoretical framework to help rethink, understand, and deconstruct the monopolizing influence of mass media in this social media age. From Marxist perspective, mass media centered on and dominated capital accumulation through excessive culture production such as television drama programs. Mass media was also manipulated and controlled from the center with producer-consumer dichotomy. However, I argue in this article that through its affordances social media disrupts a centeralized information production and dissemination discouraging mass media’s monopoly on capitalism and culture industry. Social media also serves as a platform with which societies challenge dictatorship, expose, and withstand various forms of oppression as has been witnessed in different parts of the world over the last decade. Portability of communication technologies enabled users to carry along their devices that enables them have access to social media anytime anywhere, while retrievability allows users to search and recover information shared on social media. Affordability is another social media feature that promotes broader participation in sociocultural and political activities, while networkability is the ability of agile social media to empower marginalized voices to stand united for a common good fighting oppression. On the other hand, customizability of social media enables users to conceal and shape their identities to protect themselves from attack due to the content they share or due to their engagement with contents users share. Social media viewed from PRANC framework offers a new opportunity for the powerless communities to struggle for their rights. It fosters inclusivity, democratizes cultural landscapes, and redefines how culture is produced, disseminated, and consumed in the digital age, challenging capitalism and culture industry. Keywords: PRANC, portability, retrievability, affordability, networkability, customizability, capitalism, culture industry, creative culture