1. Critical Theory and Social
Media
#SMCriticalTheory @NewhouseSM6
By Christopher Fers
Syracuse University
S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications

2. Plato
I’m a Philosopher and a pretty cool guy.
RTTheuthtoThamus“Here is as an
accomplishment, my lord the King, which
will improve both the wisdom and the
memory of the Egyptians.”

3. #CriticalTheory
- Reaction to positivism
- Stresses the difference between essence and
appearance (Fuchs, 2011, 11)
- Views society in terms of power dynamics.
- Roots in Marxist writing
Fuchs, C. (2011). Foundations of critical media and information studies. New
York, NY: Routledge.

4. Karl Marx
philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, beard.
“The class which has the means of material
production at its disposal has control at the
same time over the means of mental
production.”

5. KarlMarx
philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, epic beard.
“The hand-loom gives you society with the
feudal lord; the steam-mill, society with the
industrial capitalist. #PovertyOfPhilosophy”

6. What society, then, does mass
media give us?
 An elite class with means of production?
 An elite class with a vested interest in
maintaining the status quo?
 A class able to apply a filter to encoded and
decoded messages, thus controlling the “mental
production” of a society?

7. Web 2.0
 Wikis, Blogs, Social networking, open
source, open content
 Favors user participation
 Ideology rather than technology.

8. Web 2.0 and the Advent of
Social Media: A Wrench in the
Gears of the Critical Theory
Apparatus
 The Amateur Class have the technologies to
create media messages
 …have the platforms to disseminate messages

9. Theory of Audience Labor
(Dallas Smythe)
 People are a commodity
 Sold by producers to advertisers
 Audience performs a labor for advertiser
 Audience pays advertiser through purchase

10. Audience Labor of New Media
Environment
 Platform ownership
 User generated content creates revenue at
fewer costs
 Social media users provide advertisers dream:
FREE INFORMATION

11. Case Study: Facebook’s Beacon
 2007, Facebook introduces a feature called
Beacon.
 Zuck apologized and added opt-out feature.
 2009, Beacon removed. Facebook then
automatically used Target Advertising.

12. Is It All Exploitive?
 FearlessRevolution.com
 Kickstarter

13. Critical Theory and Social
Media
By Christopher Fers
Syracuse University
S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications