Reflective Blog

Reflective Blog

After going back and reading the blog posts from my first assignment in this course, one in particular stuck out to me. The block post based question #2 (How have commercial interests influenced your media use and experience?) is the one I chose for my reflection because after finishing all the readings and doing the rest of the assignments in the course, I think a have a new or a deeper understanding of the issue surrounding advertisements and commercials online. 

In my blog post from May, I wrote that social network sites track your activity as a way to see what things or products you are interested. Since then, I have learned that the actual social media sites don’t care about your online activity as much as they care about selling the information about your online activity. In Kenneth C. Werbin’s article entitled “Social Media, Commodification, and Sureveillance”, the author writes about how our actions online are monitored and the data collected from the habits of our actions is sold from social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram to companies who need help in the advertising field. When companies purchase data from social media sites surrounding our habits as users, they are learning what people like what items so that they can advertise to the people who are more likely to purchase the items that are being advertised. In the words of Kenneth Werbin, our data is being made a “commodity”. 

Reading my words from 2 months ago makes me realize that I was putting all responsibility on the social network sites themselves. I know now that they do not collect our information for their own knowledge so much as they are providing companies with the knowledge to make their advertising campaigns more effective. The whole process of commodification and the true business of social media was  mystery to me back then and now I do feel like I have a deeper understanding of what’s going on when I log into my Facebook account or when I post a photo on Instagram. 

In the blog post post I also voiced my frustration for the plethora of advertisements that plague my social media feeds on a daily basis. I thought, or I assumed, that the actual social media platforms were the source for those ads and I realize that they are not the real source at all; the companies are. I am seeing those ads because the companies thought I would want to see them. The advertisements are a result of commodification of our data. 

In conclusion, I can honestly say that looking back at my blog posts have put in perspective how much I have learned and my newfound understanding of the world of online activity, specifically, social media activity. I do stand by some of the things I wrote such as the statement that social media platforms track activity. That is true, but I did not know or understand the full process and reasoning as to why they do that. I also agree with the notes of frustration about the amount of advertisements and now that I know that my data is being sold, I think I am a tad bit more annoyed now than I was then. My understanding has grown immensely.  

Hannah M.

CMNS 201

Athabasca University 

References

Werbin, Kenneth C. "Social media, commodification, and surveillance." Mediscapes: New patterns in Canadian communication. 4^th ed., edited by Leslie Regan Shade, Nelson Education, 2014, pp. 258-277.