Property & Meaning

On November 15th in class, Dr. Strangelove discussed the notion of property and meanings in relation to capitalism.  Since the rise of the 20th century, an industrial society has emerged, with the increased production of things.  Along with the production of things is the production of meaning.  Capitalism must control the meaning of things to stay in power, it is dependent on it.  For capitalism to be successful, identity and meaning must be stable.

What do I mean by the association of meanings to things? It happens wherever we look, just take a trip to the shopping mall and you'll see it around every corner.  Bank institutions like RBC tell us to "borrow with confidence" and The Hudson's Bay Company tells us that "shopping is good". What does it mean to own a Birkin bag as opposed to a $20 alternative? What it means to own it of course!

What does the new era of the internet do to this structure of control? It de-stabilizes it.   Identity of the internet becomes unstable when the digital object becomes more malleable.  The main social function of the internet is the public interpretation of privately owned meanings.  This can be seen through culture jamming and obscenity.  It is through culture jamming that we de-legitimatize things and create our own meanings out of the ones provided to us by capitalism.  This is capitalism's greatest weakness.  


While the internet allows us to create our own meanings and values, corporations are making a quick attempt to catch up with this new media system through smart advertising.  Advertisements are now tailored to our interests, by viewing our digital cash and television viewing habits to select advertisements that will most appeal to us. This is making it harder and harder for us to create our own meanings.  This Coca-Cola advertisement heavily embeds the meaning of happiness into the product, and its style moves away from a typical commercial.  Very sneaky, Coca-Cola, very sneaky.