Proceedings of The World Conference on Media and Communication
Year: 2021
DOI:
Algorithms, Everyday Life, And Mediatization: Minimalism Between Consumerism and Anti-Consumerism On Instagram
Renata Tarrio
ABSTRACT:
Minimalism is an anti-consumerism movement that is increasingly gaining ground on social media. However, based on algorithmized everyday life and within a mediatized reality, Instagram seems to subvert the movement’s logic and promote the opposite: to generate more consumption for highly segmented niches. Thus, the market seems to act creatively and perversely in order to generate products and services to meet the needs and desires of this group. In this research, the purpose is to assess how these points are articulated in everyday life in order to generate consumption. The hypothesis is that the algorithm prioritizes consumption content invisibilizing minimalism as a social movement. The bibliographical research contemplates Heller (2014) and Kosík (1976) for everyday life panorama, Hjarvard (2014) and Thompson (2018) to analyze the context of media and mediatization, in addition to Zuboff (2018) and her contribution on the algorithmic scenarios in capitalist society. The empirical research is carried out based on the analysis of 20 posts published under the hashtag #minimalismo (Portuguese for #minimalism) on Instagram. As a result, it was observed that the algorithm acts to empty the movement and promote consumption within the concept of minimalism.
keywords: algorithmization; capitalism; consumption; social media; social movement.