Blog post 1 by Chan Ho Ming, SID: 10482943

Andrejevic, M. (2002). The Work of Being Watched: Interactive Media and the Exploitation of Self-Disclosure. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 19(2), 230-248. [Blog 1]

At What costs is Consumerism?

From the phenomenological point of view, Andrejevic considers Interactive Media a phenomenon that is poised to replace the conventional mass production, pioneered by Henry Ford and Frederick Taylor. His prediction on cybernetics as a megatrend not likely to be reversed is perhaps true.

From the issue of surveillance, he feels that it is a mutually beneficial activity. Consumers give up their privacy but it is more conducive to the consumers than the corporations. From the productivity angle, better products are made because consumers are monitored in their daily activities. Such surveillance may cut into citizens’ daily lives, but he feels it is worth it. I beg to differ in this regard. Freedom has been earned through many years of struggle and why should we give it up so quickly in the name of consumerism. Andrejevic argues that so far nothing unbecoming has happened but does not mean it will not to be.

As for Andrejevic’s claim that interactive marketing allows consumers to directly input their data by being watched as a useful process. But useful to whom if now corporations do not need to hire marketing firms to collect marketing data. The actors or actresses in most ‘real TV’ shows are unpaid audiences. This definitely is a pretext when he says, “...an incitement to self-disclosure as a form of self-expression and individuation.” (Andrejevic, P. 237) From a psychological standpoint, Mass Media has exploited a human weakness of vanity. There is this human inspiration wanting to be looked upon as cherishable. I see the exploitation somewhat sinister.

Michel Foucault’s theory in explaining the relationship of consumers and corporations as power based. Andrejevic believes that even panoptic relationships between the two parties exist, it is for the good cause. But panopticism in and of itself is repressive. He feels at least in this way, it is transparent. It is transparent alright for all the ones being monitored, but how the corporations or even governments use the data is unknown. George Orwell’s Big Brother is not a caricature, it is in fact quite real in Stalin’s time. Authoritarian countries today are still using it as a surveillance tool.

As we cannot reverse a tide that is too strong to oppose, we must make a firm stand in that we must protect our privacy. The question remains: To what extent we can sacrifice our sovereignty in the wake of tidal consumerism that is beginning to gobble up the fundamental right of our existence?

Word Count: 400 words