Title
“All the world’s a shopping cart”: Theorizing the political economy of ubiquitous media and markets
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2014
Publication Title
New Media & Society
Keywords
Digital Marketing, E-commerce, Harold Innis, Marketing Theory, Media Theory, Political Economy, U-commerce
Abstract
Ubiquitous connectivity to networked information-communication technologies increasingly mediates social experiences of markets and retail environments. These conditions lead some marketing scholars to conclude that digital media are reaching their inevitable culmination: an omnipresent marketplace. They call this “ubiquitous commerce” (u-commerce). U-commerce annihilates constraints over markets; borders, cultural differences, and geography cease to impose friction on exchange. As part of a broader understanding of new media and marketing, u-commerce deserves attention from critical communication studies. In foregrounding concerns of space, time, and consciousness, u-commerce exemplifies a commercial theory of media and invites critique at the nexus of medium theory and political economy. The work of Harold Innis is uniquely suited to this task. This article contextualizes and identifies biases in the conceptual systems and infrastructures of u-commerce.
DOI
10.1177/1461444814535191
Recommended Citation
McGuigan, Lee and Manzerolle, Vincent. (2014). “All the world’s a shopping cart”: Theorizing the political economy of ubiquitous media and markets. New Media & Society.
https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/communicationspub/10
Comments
Sage Journals