Commodification and Alternative Economy: Heterotopia of Internet Celebrity Economy in Taiwan

• Main Authors: Wei-Lien Yeh, 葉惟廉
• Other Authors: Jinn-Yuh Hsu
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/9fq8e7

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 地理環境資源學研究所 === 106 === “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” Andy Warhol predicted that everyone has the opportunity to be exposed on the internet and causes sensation in a blink. The value of internet celebrity economy can be interpreted as the fulfillment of social capital by the process of a nobody becomes a celebrity. It is worth mentioning that self-media and social networking sites play important roles in the communication process. The algorithm makes the internet celebrity economy become a heterotopia on social media and also drives several social networking patterns, such as likes, comments, shares, for-free-and-sales, bounty hunters, real-time posts, lives, and cooperation. This paper examines the social networking experiences that displayed by internet celebrity on social media platforms, and demonstrates the way that cyberspace participate in the economic identity construction process in order to explain the phenomenon of internet celebrity economy. We adopt ethnography as main research approach, while using 3 kinds of examples. By means of participatory observation, interview, second-hand information, and empirical research, this paper aims to answer the following questions: (a) How does internet celebrity perform value in use through the practical process of interpersonal networking? Besides the value in use, how do commodification and the current social context influence the performance of symbolic value of commodity? (b) What are some characteristics of the internet celebrity economic space? In order to present the diversity, how should subjects that involved in the internet celebrity economy construct their social-class identification when they confront the hegemony of capitalism? The result shows that the process of commodification demonstrates both real and imaginary value, while the internet celebrity economy also demonstrates the articulation of capitalism and non-capitalism. This study analyzes the diverse experiences of internet celebrity economy from an alternative economic perspective in order to have a better understanding of Gibson-Graham''s post-structuralist economy epistemology. By means of challenging mainstream languages with self-media, social networking sites and cultural of self-media become the resisting strategy of the ‘broken’ generation. As a result, the internet celebrity economy has become a heterotopia for Taiwanese younger generation to construct their economic and subjective identity. Subjects involve in the cyberspace but confront the low-paid reality of labor. This phenomenon constructs a real and virtual heterotopia.