Theories of the Information Society, Third Edition - Cryptome

INFORMATION AND THE MARKET
potato’ lifestyles. Moreover, as these and other information technologies further
penetrate the home, so, too, does their programming bear the imprint of those
who would use it to stimulate consumption further. Advertisers and sponsors
especially have created more, and more intensive, ways of getting across their
messages to audiences: one thinks here of more careful targeting of images that
can accompany subscription television, of the spread of advertorials, of judicious
product placement amidst the television serial and movie.
Second, the programming itself encourages a consumerist lifestyle. Thus the
symbols of success, beauty, fashion, popularity, approval and pleasure that are
displayed in everyday television are presented to the public which in response
yearns for them and seeks for them on the market (Ewen, 1976, 1988; Ewen and
Ewen, 1982). The cult of ‘celebrity’ (Rojek, 2001) exacerbates these tendencies.
These are, of course, arguments routinely presented in condemnations of the
‘means of persuasion’: the populace are brainwashed into chasing after ‘false
needs’ that are manufactured to aid in capitalism’s perpetuation rather than
in response to the wishes of ordinary people. The third argument, however, is
less frequently made. This suggests that ICT is exacerbating the tendency for
the marketplace to replace self and communal organisation. Where once, for
instance, people grew much of their own food in the garden, or perhaps made
their own clothes, nowadays virtually all of our requirements are met at the
supermarket or through the chain store (Seabrook, 1982b). Similarly, it is
suggested that television and TV-type technologies take away the responsibility
of arranging one’s own pleasures, replacing it with a new dependency on a
machine which presents, in the main, diverting entertainment at which one
gawks.
Fourth, new technologies allow greater surveillance of the wider public by
corporations which are then in a better position to address messages of persuasion
towards them. Years ago Dallas Smythe (1981) coined the term ‘audience
commodity’ to draw attention to the way in which an important function of television
was to deliver audiences to advertisers. The acid test for success was to
be found not in the content of the programming, but in the numbers watching
who could be sold to the advertiser. This continues today – and with a vengeance.
For instance, free ‘newspapers’, delivered to every house in a given area, are not
really intended to be a vehicle for informing householders of local news and
events (sceptics might examine the free ‘newspapers’ in their own town to test
this assertion); their central concern is to be in a position to claim to deliver to
the advertiser every house in a given neighbourhood. This is, of course, a pretty
crude form of surveillance (though a good deal more precise than broadcast television
or radio). Nonetheless, much more sophisticated forms come from the
selling of databases such as are held electronically by professional associations,
clubs and sales records. Again, new technologies enable the ready development
of profiles of customers and potential customers to be created by crossreferencing
of such sources, to be followed by targeted persuasion. Here
subscription television has great possibilities since it will be able to segment
viewers by channel, programme preferences and even by volume and regularity
of watching. Kevin Wilson (1988) coined the term ‘cybernetic marketing’ (p. 43)
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