The Impact of Social Media on Cultural Production

“Neptūnus,” Musée du Bardo, Tunis, Tunisia

Picture taken by Jonathan Acuña (2019)

 

The Impact of Social Media on Cultural Production

The death of Cultural Keepers? 

“Anything that evidences the social, political, economic or religious organization of the people whom they belong to” (Yelnick, 2014) can be labeled as a cultural artifact. Following this definition, it can be said that social media is flooded with all types of evidences that help us make sense of what is going on around the globe with people’s culture and their cultural artifacts. Thus, the Internet has served as a means to spread digital artifacts that reveal much about societies, politics, economy, and religion. But what are the implications if any Internet user is able to create cultural artifacts?

What sociologists, politicians, economists, and theologists have probably witnessed in new creations of cultural production is a true disruption of the former status quo. “Disruption, such as the removal of cultural gatekeepers, such as curators and critics, can impact on the producer/consumer relationship and the thinking around this media” (University of Sydney, 2020). Who are then the new cultural gatekeepers? Who is curating cultural productions and under what criteria is it being made? “In this regard, cultural production is a process that is often prized by those with expertise or specialized knowledge in the field and is generally controlled by institutions” (University of Sydney, 2020). However, this sense of control, expertise, and some sort of monetary value assignment is something that is ambiguously and cloudedly happening yielding a fuzzy effect that is making us all rethink the status quo that cultural gatekeepers used to possess. As coherently stated by the University of Sydney (2020), “cultural production is challenged when new plays emerge from within the field to disrupt the existing norms and governance structures.”

Going back to the initial inquiry: what are the implications if any Internet user (e.g. in social media) becomes a generator of cultural artifacts? If we take Bourdieu’s argument against Kantian view of pure aesthetics, it can be stated that it “fails to recognize that tastes are socially conditioned and that the objects of consumer choice reflect a symbolic hierarchy that is determined and maintained by the socially dominant in order to enforce their distance or distinction from other classes of society” (Allen & Anderson, 1994). Put in simple words digital culturally generated productions disrupt this belief of aesthetics conditioned by a controlling class. That is, “this kind of disruption ultimately impacts the cultural and economic value of the media” (University of Sydney, 2020) in ways that theorists did not foresee with the advent of social media. If “an item that, when found, reveals valuable information about the society that made or used it” (Yelnick, 2014), this cultural artifact does not fit the current status quo of a dominant class that imposes their way of thinking.

Based on Blewitt’s (1993) study of Bourdieu’s understanding of taste, “institutions tend to transmit and legitimize certain cultural practices which can be both at variance with the experiences of subordinate classes and translated, under certain circumstances, into economic capital, wealth and power.” Social media communities do find their governance of cultural practices that may deviate from a dominant social stratum, and they are bound to be rejected by this upper layer of society but still continue to be relevant for subordinate classes. Based on Bourdieu and his analysis of more mundane and functional items of consuption, memes -the digital cultural artifact of the 21^st Century- defy social class strata and the upper layer’s dominance. And what about musical remixes of late 20^th Century hits that are freely shared on the Internet? Or all smartphone/tablets apps to be freely downloaded to a mobile device? What can be seen here is a philosophical disruption that also covers ethics and its scope.

To conclude, social media users’ cultural artifacts may be revolutionizing the social structure people no longer question. Ethically speaking, there may be a group of individuals who -for sure- want to profit from the proliferation of artifacts that are available at no cost on the Internet, especially through the collaboration that distinguishes social media communities from networks. As stated by Allen and Anderson (1994), and extending their study to what happens in social media today, “taste becomes a ‘social weapon’ that defines and marks off the high from the low, the sacred from the profane, and the ‘legitimate’ from the ‘illegitimate’ in matters raging from food and drink, cosmetics, and newspapers;” This social weapon may eventually backfire into the current status quo proposing a new social order where “social media users might develop appraisals that differ substantially from given cultural hierachies” (Alexander, Blank, & Hale, 2018).

References

Alexander, V., Blank, G., & Hale, S. (2018). Digital traces of distinction? Popular orientation and user-engagement with status hierarchies in TripAdvisor reviews of cultural organizations. New Media & Society, 4218-4236.

Allen, D., & Anderson, P. (1994). Consumption and Social Stratification: Bourdieu's Distinction. (C. Allen, & John, D., Eds.) NA- Advances in Consumer Research, 21, 70-74. Retrieved August 30, 2020, from https://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/7565/volumes/v21/NA

Blewitt, J. (1993, October 1). Film, Ideology and Bourdieu's Critique of Public Taste. The British Journal of Aesthetics, 367-372. doi:https://doi.org/10.1093/bjaesthetics/33.4.367

University of Sydney. (2020). The Impact of Social Media on Cultural Production. Retrieved August 29, 2020, from FutureLearn.Com: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/ethical-social-media/1/steps/824150

Yelnick, J. (2014, September 2). Cultural Artifact: Definition & Examples. Retrieved August 29, 2020, from Study.Com: https://study.com/academy/lesson/cultural-artifact-definition-examples-quiz.html

 

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