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Lectures Digital Media and Culture (Minor Media Psychology HU)
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Lectures Digital Media and CultureLecture week 1; Identity:
Big five tech companies Apple, Google, Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft
15/20 years ago the most powerful were newspapers.
A tv was made with a business model to make people buy stuff by catching their eyeballs with ads.
Social media is pulling your eyeballs because of algorithms.
Flat earthers are steered by these companies to a perception of reality that the earth is flat.
Facebook is free, how do they make money? Ads?
Identity 4 characteristics of identity:
1. Embedded within representations and meanings
2. Social and constructed so not born with but constructed with your environment
3. Relational and differential
4. Never fixed, final, or accomplished even after someone’s death you are still constructing
someone’s identity
Identity is different from the self.
The self is something only you can perceive. The self is closely associated with just your experiences,
perceptions, thoughts, emotions, all of those things someone else can not influence. Someone might
have sympathy and empathy to some extend t who you are and therefore recognize themselves in
some extend in you. But the other is not able to influence that. Unlike identity, what is always
embedded within our ecology, our environment we are a part of. The self is also fluid but more
stable than identity.
The self is solely based on one’s own experiences, perceptions, and emotions. Identity is always
constructed in relation to the environment, this is constantly molded by companies. They are
influencing you to mold into a certain identity to purchase a certain product.
Figure 1: Identity has changed in the century transition
Until the 21 century: mass national identity media appealed to you as a part of a nation and not as
an individual one. Because we did not had a social-economical production yet that was based on a
specific individual audience, there were just 2 different soaps and now there are 20 at the Albert
Heijn (mass products for a mass audience). BC of WW people wanted to be a part of national
identity. If we take a look at the 8 o clock news of today they say: “good evening” and not “Good
,evening ladies and gentlemen of the Netherlands”. So no nation and gender-neutral. National media
were producing the mass identity.
Most of the Disney movies come from the 20 th century. If you take a look at representations of that
time you only see straight characters, the man is always on top unless he is injured, and mainly white
people are seen. The bad guys have a lot of purple, pointy features, they are outcasts, egocentric. All
Disney films of the 20th century are gay because they are loners, are flamboyant in the way they
express their emotions, etc. In this century you couldn’t portray gay persons, but that did not mean
that they were not there. So they were portrayed as bad characters.
In this century, people are able to take on any identity they want. In games (Habbo hotel, Sims,
RuneScape, etc.), people are able to construct an identity of how they wanted. You could create a
character that you wanted to look like. People sometimes switch genders, skin tones, etc. You can
become everything that normally is limited by your physical limitations.
(Mark Zuckerberg is trying to do this with Meta, by saying that it is new. But in these games, there
was already a sort of a metaverse.)
Now there is also a change, e.g. the main character Elsa of Frozen is gay.
The long tail:
Let’s say that “multiple products” are all the books that are available at bol.com and Sales are the
sales of these books. The 20% is the mass market, so the top 10 books that we always have on
bol.com. They are 20% of the money they make, they make a lot of money but not only with that top
10 books. Most its money comes from the niche markets (80%). That is why these online shops
became big because all the “weird stuff” is available here. This is important because this is the niche
market where we find our own niche and we consume the things that fit our identity. We are
consuming only the products that fit us. Even though you believe you don’t belong to the niche
market, you probably do. the long bit of consumption that we have as costumers. This is where
we are buying, consuming and constructing our identity. It is a cultural production of identity that
we see happening here. This is also why Netflix buys so much movies and series, because they don’t
really care about the top 10 but they care about so many niche markets.
Algorithms are mathematical formulas that have been designed to predict our behavior (e.g. what do
we want to see next) and create demands (e.g. some shows are created based on the data Netflix
collected on its users and see where is a gap). All social media platform uses algorithms. They analyze
User-Generated Content (UGC, has been created consciously by us by e.g. posting a picture) and
User-Generated Data (UGD, data that is unconsciously created and gerated by us. E.g. getting
avocado ads because you bought avocados with your bonuscard).
We are doing work for these companies when we are having a device of them or using a service of
them Public labour.
, Watching Give attention to products, produces value
Being watched Production of content (UGC) and production of data (UGD)
Participation is a form of immaterial labour.
Summary week 1, identity:
There are four characteristics of identity:
-embedded within representations and meanings I understand and recognize myself within an
image in the world (e.g. James Bond)
-Social and constructed Always in relation to others that you are constructing a identity, you are
not born with your identity.
-Relational and differential Identity is based on the relationships you have with the people in your
social environment.
-Never fixed, final, or accomplished you are never done with the construction of your identity,
even after your death other people will keep talking about you what forms your identity
Identity is different from the self. The self is solely based on one’s own experiences, perceptions, and
emotions. Identity is always constructed in relation to the environment.
Algorithms are mathematical formulas that have been designed to predict our behavior and create
demands. All social media platform uses algorithms. They analyze User-Generated Content (UGC)
based on something that is consciously created by us such as pictures, posts, text messages and User-
Generated Data (UGD) gathered in an unconscious way (apps that are locating you via your ip
address). Both are used to analyze your identity to know in which niche market you are in.
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