The Routledge Companion to Critical Marketing brings together the latest research findings from Critical Marketing Studies. This second edition includes new research on digital technologies including AI, social media, consumer data protection, and power relation as well as on sustainability and degrowth from the perspective of critical Marketing studies.
Christian Fuchs’s chapter analyzes the significance of social media and big data from a critical-theoretical perspective. It shows that platforms such as Google and Meta primarily operate as global advertising companies whose business model is based on the systematic collection and analysis of user data.
It also highlights that through their online activities, users perform a form of unpaid digital labor that contributes to value creation. Furthermore, the chapter demonstrates that advertising on social media often fulfills ideological functions by presenting consumption in a positive light while obscuring production conditions.
Overall, the publication underscores the need for a critical examination of power and exploitation structures in digital capitalism.
Further information at: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003561347-36
