Community as commodity

Despite utopian claims that the internet generally and Social Networking Sites (SNS) (including multi-user virtual environments, or MUVE) in particular herald a challenge to the dominance of capitalist ideologies in technological societies, there is growing evidence that SNS and MUVE are actually part of a hegemonic transnational agenda of conservative venture capital which reinforces hierarchies of consumption. By appropriating these various virtual social networks (either as part of the development of the infrastructure or âafter the factâ), these SNS in fact demonstrate the continued and thriving hegemony of capitalism in the wired world. Using the works of Gramsci and Gill to provide a critical grounding, this paper will examine some of the flagship SNS of Web 2.0 particularly Facebook and explore how, rather than challenging existing top-down hierarchies and structures, these social networks have in fact been appropriated by them.Despite utopian claims that the internet generally and Social Networking Sites (SNS) (including multi-user virtual environments, or MUVE) in particular herald a challenge to the dominance of capitalist ideologies in technological societies, there is growing evidence that SNS and MUVE are actually part of a hegemonic transnational agenda of conservative venture capital which reinforces hierarchies of consumption. By appropriating these various virtual social networks (either as part of the development of the infrastructure or âafter the factâ), these SNS in fact demonstrate the continued and thriving hegemony of capitalism in the wired world. Using the works of Gramsci and Gill to provide a critical grounding, this paper will examine some of the flagship SNS of Web 2.0 particularly Facebook and explore how, rather than challenging existing top-down hierarchies and structures, these social networks have in fact been appropriated by them.