Capitalism 2.0: Web 2.0 Manifestoes and the New Spirit of Capitalism

• In Event: 286 - Regular Session. Critical Theory

Abstract

This paper locates social media management literature, as exemplified in ‘Web 2.0 manifestoes,’ in relation to broader shifts in capitalist management discourse. While studies of recent management discourse have highlighted its emphasis on the participation and autonomy of labor, they have failed to address how similar discourses have developed with respect to the informal ‘digital labor’ of social media users. I argue that what Boltanski and Chiapello term ‘the new spirit of capitalism’ has spread from the formal workplace to the Internet. More specifically, I carry out a discourse analysis of Web 2.0 manifestoes that finds them to be animated by three central ‘frames’: user participation; the pooling together of the contributions arising from that participation via the network; and the resulting transformation of business and society (‘Capitalism 2.0’). I conclude by arguing that Web 2.0 management discourse constitutes an ideological fantasy of social media as spaces of pure horizontality and utopian possibility.

Author

• Gary Yeritsian, UCLA