What a Buzzword Does: The Rhetoric of Community in Elder Care and Social Media Marketing

• In Event: 21083 - Cultural Ideas and Ideals

Abstract

What do we talk about when we talk of “community”? The term is used in a variety of contexts;
it is also profoundly fuzzy. In this article, we examine what the rhetoric of community enables
and what it obscures. We draw on two ethnographic studies of economic sites with distinct
characteristics—elder care and social media marketing. In both cases, the rhetoric of community
is ubiquitous. We find that it serves three functions. First, the rhetoric of community praises
decentralized organizing as superior to “big institutions” such as public administrations and large
corporations. Second, it enables economic projects that monetize decentralized organizing,
including private home care services and “organic” forms of sponsored content. Third, it draws
on an infrastructure of gendered and racialized labor. We conclude by discussing the role of
fuzzy discourses and buzzwords in dynamics of value construction in contemporary economies.

Authors

• Guillermina Altomonte, New York University

• Angèle Christin, Stanford University