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MDIA 301 – Research Essay

The mass production or the commodification of culture plays a prominent role in shaping contemporary culture. Commodification of a cultural product involves taking an aspect of culture and reproducing it in a form that can be used for monetary gain. Mass culture is the widespread dissemination of these cultural products to society via the media. This has differing consequences for society as a whole and impacts on how we experience culture. An analysis of the theory of mass culture shows the ways in which society is affected and how, in turn, contemporary culture is formed. In ‘The culture industry: Enlightenment as mass deception’, Adorno and Horkheimer look at the concept of pseudo-individualisation and reveal how mass media follows the same formula but is delivered to the audience in different ways. The pinnacle of present day mass media is the social media site Facebook. The customisable user interface is a modern representation of Adorno and Horkheimers’ theory of standardisation and pseudo-individualisation.

First of all we must look at what standardisation and pseudo-individualisation is within a media context. Adorno and Horkheimer first published the concepts in their book ‘Dialectic of enlightenment’, in which the central theme of their work was the culture industry. They point out that high art as it has been historically known is beginning to be commoditised and produced for the sole purpose of generating a profit for big business. This in turn is becoming what is now known as popular culture. It can be seen across all aspects of mass media and is generally used as a form of entertainment for the viewer. Adorno and Horkheimer noticed a trend in the music and film the mass were being exposed to, which was becoming increasingly similar and taking away from the individuality that can be seen in traditional high art.

The culture industry is then concerned with producing standardised products, which come in the form of film, music, magazines, television and now websites. According to Darbyshire (2011), this standardisation meant that parts of popular songs such as the chorus, verse and the bridge could be swapped in and out at will, without doing particularly devastating damage to the final product. This is often seen today when the top 20 songs on the radio are looked at. Providing that a popular song is the same genre of music as another many elements can be changed without much noticeable difference.

The standardisation of cultural products then leads into the next part of Adorno and Horkheimers’ theory, which is pseudo-individualisation. This is the way in which cultural products are designed to make them seem as though they are unique and new, which in turn makes the audience feel as though they are receiving something of this nature. However, the theory of standardisation suggests that this is not the case. If we were to look at this in terms of marketing it would be called product diversification. The way that Apple release new iPhone’s in various different colours gives the consumer the idea that they are purchasing something different and tailored to themselves, where as in reality they are receiving a phone that serves the same functions as any other smart phone. The same can be applied to cultural products such as film and music.

For example, if you are to listen to the work of Justin Bieber over the course of his career you are able to see that his songs are essentially the same but have been packaged in different ways to make sure his fan base keep coming back for more. This is not to say that Justin Bieber’s music is inherently ‘bad’, it just lacks the completeness of timeless masterpieces where if you are to change one aspect of the piece the song as a whole would no longer work.

Pseudo-individuation then works to give the audience of popular culture the illusion that they have a choice of what material they take in and what they discard. This theory also applies to modern forms of media, which are popular today. In terms of social media, Facebook is widely regarded as the most popular website, in which the user is part of an online community of ‘friends’ who are free to interact at their own will. Upon registering, the website provides you with your own profile page which you are able to customise in a variety of different ways. Everyone is given the same template in which they are able to put in their details and create a page that is theirs.

According to Smith (2013), there are currently 1.15 billion Facebook users, all of which use the same basic template to showcase their personal information. This alone is an example of pseudo-individuation as people are given a certain amount of room to personalise their media but the final outcome is much the same. The user interface consists of a cover photo of which acts as a header of the profile, a profile picture which is at the top of the profile and also acts as an interactive thumbnail on your activity, an information section and finally each user has a wall where comments, videos and pictures can be shared. These features come together to create your own user interface where you can communicate with others.

Mainstream media has changed drastically as technology advances but Adorno and Horkheimer’s theory is still valid. Although their theory was initially applied to popular music significant similarities can be seen in new media forms like Facebook. The aspect of standardisation is clearly seen in the user interface. Everyone who joins is given the same template to work with and there is little room to show true individuality. The main difference that can be seen in Facebook though is that rather than trying to sell records or singles, the website sells to advertisers. All of your personal information is recorded and takes the form of your profile. This provides advertisers with a strong sense of what demographic you are sitting in and they can then tailor their advertisements accordingly.

While advertisers are not given specific personal information, they are given data, which gives them a good idea of the demographic their ad will be reaching. When the user first signs up they first enter in their age, gender and interests, which is a good start for advertisers to reach their target market. Although both industries are in a sense selling different cultural products they are similar in that they both reach a mass audience and have a significant impact on shaping popular culture. Just as music producers use the same formula to sell their records, Facebook uses the same formula to sell to advertisers by offering a pseudo-individualised product.

The Facebook interface allows the user to interact with their media and they effectively help to create it. According to Gunelius (2010), social media has led to the rise of the ‘prosumer’, which replace the audience’s former position as a consumer. Consumers simply take in what they are offered by the media. For instance, before social media a television ad or billboard is simply shown to the audience and generally did not require any direct interaction with the consumer. You either bought the product or you didn’t. Now, technology and social media allow the consumer to become a part of the advertisement by enabling them to go online and ‘like’ their Facebook page, or visit their website and offer feedback. The mass now has a voice but in turn give the culture industry a louder voice in terms of standardisation and pseudo-individualisation. With the consumers’ active involvement in the cultural product of Facebook, the corporation as a whole are able to get an in depth idea of what people want to see and keep them coming back for more.

Another important aspect of Adorno and Horkheimer’s theory is that capitalism is the main driver of this standardisation and the impact that this has on the lives of the people exposed to these mass media forms. According to Gendron (1986), Adorno attempted to expose the destructive ways in which capitalist production could affect cultural products and in turn the people that consume them. The culture industry turns art into a form of escapism where people can indulge in the mass produced entertainment as a form of relaxation, which will help them recharge in preparation of the next day. The standardisation of these products makes it easy for the viewer to engage, as they may not necessarily be familiar with the material but they are able to relate to it as they have experienced much of the same previously. Adorno and Horkheimer state, “Entertainment is the prolongation of work under late capitalism. It is sought by those who want to escape the mechanized labour process so that they can cope with it again.” (2006) Facebook is no exception when it is used as a form of entertainment and distraction. It is now not only common for the average person to have a Facebook profile but they are able to access this profile in numerous different ways.

From what started off as a form of media that was confined to use on a desktop computer has now been spread across various mediums. People can access their profile through their mobile phone, tablet, laptop and even on some new televisions. This usage will get more widespread as technology advances and the features of Facebook begin to change. This constant availability for people to use the website leaves open the potential for abuse. According to Smith (2013), the average person spends twenty minutes each time they log onto their Facebook account with many users going on multiple times each day, while mobile phone users are constantly connected. This shows just how much exposure people are subject to if they have a Facebook profile.

Facebook allows people to take part in their own form of pseudo-individuation when they are creating their profile. The information that people put on their profile is open for all of their ‘friends’ to see and allows them to put across their best possible self. For example, the user is able to; pick and choose which photo’s they would like to show on their profile, make posts on their thoughts and feelings of just about any issue, choose which pages you ‘like’ and ‘share’, all of this enabling the user to create an online self. This representation of the self is often not an accurate real life reflection as people feel pressure to fit into social norms and fit into what is seen as ‘cool’ within society. Even the feature of showing how many friends a person is connected with is an example of pseudo-individuation. It is not uncommon for users to have friends pning into the thousands. It would nearly be impossible to keep up with these extraordinary numbers of friends in real life and it is often a façade in which people connect with other’s they do not actually know to come across as popular.

All of this seems to work surprisingly well in a capitalist sense. As history has shown new forms of technology in which people pay attention to and share information, quickly turn into a prime space for companies attempting to market their products. Facebook is no exception to this with the majority of major corporations extending their marketing to include a strong social media presence. Corporations are able to make their own profile page using the Facebook interface where they can let followers know about new products, promotions and general news about their business. They also have the less direct opportunity to market their products simply by other’s using their products and talking about it online.

As well as creating a pseudo-individualised community, Facebook acts as a vehicle for corporations to turn art into a cultural commodity. The ability to share videos and photos mean that businesses are able to be diverse in the way they approach the Facebook user. This links into the next point that Adorno and Horkheimer raise which is commoditised cultures ability to create false needs. Facebook sends the user notifications of a large variety of activity that happens all over the site, for example, a comment on a photo or a ‘like’ on a picture, which gives the user incentive to use Facebook. The constant checking of the users profile can become overwhelming as they are notified of new people interacting with their media. This provides the ultimate motivation to get the user coming back and keeping them up to date with their profile.

People are more likely to post what they believe others are going to enjoy, rather than their actual feelings or thoughts, leading to a simplified and possibly ‘dumbed down’ version of what actually happens in society. Facebook is not generally regarded as a place for intelligent conversation even though it does have the potential to be an effective learning tool. This also has similarities with what Adorno and Horkheimer discuss in the sense that real human needs are not being met. Freedom and creativity are restricted as people are constantly inclined to please the mass audience.

Facebook provides a present day example of a medium that drives the culture industry. While Adorno and Horkheimer’s paper initially targeted the sphere of popular music the same principles can be applied to social media and the affect that it has on the consumer. Both show that the same process that is used to manufacture physical goods can be used to turn culture into something that is purely produced for monetary gain. The idea of standardisation can be seen in the Facebook interface, as effectively every user is the same with minor aesthetic differences leading to pseudo-individuation. Capitalism is the main driver of this commodification of culture which contributes to the state of mass media today.

If you visit Facebook today, the chances are that you’ll come across someone trying to sell something. It could be a friend looking to make some money from an old smartphone or a thousand-strong parenting group looking to trade items for their little ones. Facebook has slowly  to list their items, but today the company has launched Marketplace, a new way for users to “discover, buy and sell items” with other people in their area.

In the coming days, users in the U.S., UK, Australia and New Zealand who are over 18-years-old will see a new shop icon in the bottom menu of the Facebook app. This will load a selection of photos of items that people in your general location are looking to sell. It also includes a search function, if you’re looking for something, specific and results can be filtered by location, category or price. If something catches your eye, Facebook will list the name and details of that product, a profile photo of the person selling it and a loose overview of where they live.

Although Facebook already , the company categorically states that it is not performing the role of a retailer or auction site: “You and the seller can work out the details in any way you choose. Facebook does not facilitate the payment or delivery of items in Marketplace.” That also means it won’t charge users for listings, and other app-based buy and sell apps.

With Facebook , sites like eBay and Craigslist will be watching Marketplace with keen interest. Sure, it’s currently only available in four countries, but with little to no oversight over sales and payments, the company is free to take it to new markets at will. Facebook says it will “continue expanding [Marketplace] to additional countries” via its iOS and Android apps, and will make the service available on the desktop “in the coming months.”

Facebook Inc. shares tumbled 7 percent in after-hours trading on Wednesday as the world’s largest online social media network warned that revenue growth would slow this quarter, offsetting strong earnings that handily beat Wall Street estimates.

The slip reflected doubts among investors that the company can continue its runaway success, even as it reported strong mobile ad numbers and steady growth in its enormous network, which ticked up to nearly 1.8 billion monthly users in the latest quarter. Facebook reported a greater-than-expected 56 percent rise in quarterly revenue, to $7.01 billion, showing the company is claiming an ever-growing share of the online advertising pie.

Google’s parent Alphabet Inc. last week also announced strong revenue and profit growth, while traditional media companies like the New York Times Co. are struggling to stem ad revenue declines. However, in a call with analysts, Facebook Chief Financial Officer David Wehner said ad growth would likely slow “meaningfully” due to limits on “ad load,” or the number of ads that Facebook can put in front of customers without alienating them.

He also said 2017 would be a year of aggressive investment with a substantial increase in expenses. “They have reached the limit of the ad frequency on news feed, so they are going to have to find revenue growth from other areas like pricing, user engagement, user base growth,” said Josh Olson, an analyst at Edward Jones.

However, he said investment in the business should benefit Facebook in the longer term. “We have been down this road before with Facebook, they have invested something like this in mobile and we have seen it pay off. So we are looking at it as an opportunity,” said Olson. Facebook shares were down 7 percent in after-hours trading, at $118.21.

Mobile Booming

Even as ad loads topped out, Wehner said Facebook had opportunities to grow revenue by boosting time spent on the site, further growing its user base and tapping still-rising advertiser demand. While the warning about the fourth quarter sent some investors running, by most metrics the company beat analysts’ expectations on torrid mobile ad growth. Mobile ads accounted for 84 percent of Facebook’s total advertising revenue of $6.82 billion in the third quarter that ended Sept. 30, compared with 78 percent a year earlier. The company said it surpassed one billion mobile-only monthly users last quarter.

The company is also reaping the benefits of a big push into video, both on Facebook itself and on the Instagram photo app. Founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg told analysts that the company was pursuing a video-first strategy across its entire family of apps, touting rapid expansion in Facebook’s live video feature. The company’s quarterly earnings announced on Wednesday marked the sixth straight time it posted revenue numbers that beat expectations.

Facebook reported quarterly revenue of $7.01 billion, beating analysts’ average estimate of $6.92 billion, according to Thomson Reuters. Excluding items, the company earned $1.09 per share. On that basis, analysts had expected 97 cents per share. Facebook said about 1.79 billion people were using the service monthly as of Sept. 30, up 16 percent, or 243 million, from a year earlier. By comparison, the 10-year-old Twitter Inc. last week reported it had 317 million monthly users in total.

New Revenue Streams

The strong numbers come as Facebook has struggled in recent months to combat allegations that it unfairly removes certain content on its service, and news in September that the company had for years overestimated how it calculates the average time users spend watching video.

But Facebook still has numerous avenues for developing new revenue streams. Its WhatsApp messaging app, with more than a billion users, currently generates little revenue, as do newer products such as the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset.

Facebook also aims to continue to grow its massive user base, especially in developing nations where the service currently has smaller penetration rates. Wehner pointed to the Asia-Pacific region as an area that continued to be promising for future user growth, echoing comments he made to Reuters in July. Zuckerberg said that 40 million people now used Internet.org, the company’s free mobile internet service, to get online, up from 15 million last year. The company said it hired 1,200 employees in the last quarter, boosting its total workforce to 15,700.

has been adapting Snapchat features for a while now, however, Facebook’s new camera feature is pretty much identical to Snapchat.

Complete with similar features such as photos and video clips that disappear after 24 hours, fancy filter overlays that add special effects or turn you and your friends into different characters, one-to-one messages rather than a public news feed, among others, Facebook is currently testing its new -inspired camera features with limited users. The new update for Facebook’s app will update the camera, and is said to make sharing “fast, fun, and flexible” according to camera product manager Sachin Monga.

Initially tested during the 2016 Olympics in Rio, the app now seems to be a lot more flexible and almost ready for the masses, and there are some arty Prisma-esque effects built into the camera as well. Once you make a photo or video, you can then post it to the News Feed or send it directly to friends, who will have 24 hours to watch it. You can also save the messages before it disappears.

There is a chance the big guns at Facebook decided to choose this route due to the struggle to keep the network interesting to younger crowds. There is no news, as of now, on when these features would reach everyone, but rumors suggest that it might be quite soon.

This article was originally published on  and has been reposted on Entrepreneur Middle East based on a mutual agreement between the websites.

Related: 

Facebook Inc said it would launch a satellite in partnership with France’s Eutelsat Communications to bring Internet access to large parts of sub-Saharan Africa.

The satellite, part of Facebook’s Internet.org platform to expand internet access mainly via mobile phones, is under construction and will be launched in 2016, the companies said on Monday. ()

The satellite, called AMOS-6, will cover large parts of West, East and Southern Africa, Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post.

“To connect people living in remote regions, traditional connectivity infrastructure is often difficult and inefficient, so we need to invent new technologies,” Zuckerberg said.

The Internet.org platform offers free access to pared-down web services, focused on job listings, agricultural information, healthcare and education, as well as Facebook’s own social network and messaging services.

Growth in the number of people with access to the Internet is slowing, and more than half the world’s population is still offline, the  Broadband Commission said last month.

Facebook has nearly 20 million users in major African markets Nigeria and Kenya, statistics released by it showed last month, with a majority using mobile devices to access their profiles.

The company opened its first African office in Johannesburg in June.

Tech news website The Information reported in June that Facebook had abandoned plans to build a satellite to provide Internet service to continents such as Africa. ()

(Reporting by Sai Sachin R in Bengaluru; Editing by Don Sebastian)

Facebook has been overestimating average video ad viewing times for two years,, a revelation not likely to sit well with advertisers or those who have shifted resources to video to take advantage of the trend.

In a  last month on the Advertiser Help Center site, Facebook disclosed an error in the way it was tallying video views. It had told advertisers that views were calculated by taking the total time spent watching a video divided by the total number of people who had played that video. In reality, it was taking the total time spent watching a video and dividing it by the number of people who had viewed it for three seconds or more.

According to the Journal, advertisers asked for more information and came to find out that average time spent watching videos was overestimated by as much as 60 to 80 percent.

“This error has been fixed, it did not impact billing, and we have notified our partners both through our product dashboards and via sales and publisher outreach,” a Facebook spokeswoman told PCMag. “We also renamed the metric to make it clearer what we measure. This metric is one of many our partners use to assess their video campaigns.”

YouTube star Hank Green  more than a year ago, when he called out Facebook for being dishonest about how it runs its video business.

“YouTube … counts views in a logical way,” he wrote in an August 2015 blog post. “The view is counted at the point at which people seem to actually be engaging with the video and not just immediately clicking away.” This is important, he pointed out, because Facebook can inflate its video view numbers to sell ads.

On Twitter last night,  “this news about Facebook over-estimating average advertisement watch time is totally separate from them over-estimating viewership.” But it’s still a ‘huge’ issue as “those ad dollars went to Facebook fraudulently,” he writes.

“We apologize for the inconvenience and we hope that these new metrics, in addition to other video metrics in reporting will help you better evaluate your ad performance,” the Advertiser Help Center said.

Facebook has produced yet another computer network innovation that will once again floor the  industry.

And Facebook will again share it with the world for free, putting commercial network tech vendors on notice. (We’re looking at you, Cisco).

The new innovation, revealed on Tuesday, is something and it’s a second-generation computer switch, the successor to the one it released last year called the 6-Pack that directly challenged tech made by market leader Cisco (and others, like Juniper).

The difference is, the Backpack is way, way faster.

The 6-Pack was a 40G switch, which means it could stream 40G worth a data around a data center network. The Backpack is an 100G optical switch, which means it’s 2.5 times faster, and using fiber optics (aka light) to move data around instead of the traditional and more limited copper wires.

The Backpack is also a companion to the new switch Facebook announced . The Wedge 100 is what’s known as a “top of rack” switch, that connects a computer rack of servers to the network. The Backpack then connects all the Wedge 100 switches together. In network jargon this is known as a “network fabric.”

Facebook is attempting to build itself a fully 100G data center and these two pieces get it much of the way there, along with the network equipment it announced

Going on sale in 2017

There are two key thing about this new switch. First, Facebook is turning it over to its game-changing Open Compute Project, which has  in the few years since Facebook launched it.

OCP creates open source hardware, where engineers can freely take hardware designs and work on them together.

OCP offers designs on racks, servers, storage drives and other hardware. Contract manufactures stand by to build them. OCP has even inspired other internet players to build their own hardware completely from scratch,

In the case of Facebook’s switches, Facebook went the extra step of arranging for its contract manufacturer, Accton, to mass produce the devices so anyone can buy them.

And Facebook also open sources the software to run the switch, and worked with other network startups to get their .

Facebook plans to do all of this for the Backpack, too, Omar Baldonado, a member of Facebook’s network engineering team tells us.

“We anticipate it will follow same path. Later in 2017, people will be able to get a Backpack. We are working with the software eco-system, too. That’s why we are contributing ot OCP,” he said.

Mind-blowing technology

In order to create Backpack, Facebook had to work with chip makers and optical materials vendors to do what’s never been done before, create special chips and special optical fiber that brings the cost of such switches down.

The optical switches on the market today are not typically used in the data center to connect servers together. They are typically used in the “Backplane,” the part of a network that stretches between data centers or across cities.

And because they’ve been targeted for metro-scale networks and beyond, such switches tend to use a lot of power, throw off a lot of heat, and are very expensive.

Facebook helped design a switch that uses less power and generates less heat, can operate at around 55-degree Celsius, Baldonado says, which has never been done before. Folks in the network industry have told us Facebook’s 100G work is “mind blowing.”

To bring costs down, this switch, like the other OCP switches, is modular, meaning you can pull it apart and swap out parts, using different chips, different network cards and different software.

At one point, a former Facebook OCP engineer named Yuval Bachar  declared the a goal that networks should cost as little as $1 per gigabyte. This goal has not been achieved, and Baldonado is the first to admit it. But with this switch and all the other hardware, Facebook is bringing costs down, he says. In this case, even if the switch is still pricey to buy, it will cost less to operate, he says.

Facebook is leading this charge into faster, cheaper, mind-blowing networks and data centers because one day we will all be using the social network to hang out in virtual reality, in addition to live-streaming more video.

“We are now creating more immersive, social, interactive 360 video sorts of experiences and that demands a much more scalable and efficient and quick network,” he says.