The Spectacle of New Media: Addressing the Conceptual Nexus Between User Content and Valorization

In the second chapter of The Society of the Spectacle (1995), Debord argues that ‘The spectacle is a permanent opium war waged to make it impossible to distinguish goods from commodities, or true satisfaction from a survival that increases according to its own logic’. New media may well offer a critical instance within which to explore this complex border operation between goods and commodities, between satisfaction and survival in the age of late capitalism. Crucially, this exploration turns on the question of the relationship online between production and consumption, between ‘free activity’ and capital’s process of valorisation and accumulation. This chapter seeks to provide a critical reading of relevant interpretative hypotheses concerning the role and function of new media in terms of the processes of production of value. In particular, we aim to focus upon the specific differences in the various interpretations through a reconstruction and critical discussion of the principal positions adopted.

Reference
Debord, Guy. [1967] 1995. The Society of the Spectacle. Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith. Revised ed. edition. New York: Zone Books.