Mark Andrejevic – – "The Kinder, Gentler Gaze of Big Brother: Reality TV in the Era of Digital Capitalism" – summary – part 1 - 2 - 3 - 4
For Mark Andrejevic, reality TV shows like the Big Brother promote an almost exhibitionist lifestyle in which work is living and living is work, without us even noticing it. Consumers turned producers actively participate in the process of production without having any control on the means of production, much like in the reality TV.
Furthermore, Andrejevic argues that in which, like in Simmel's "The Metropolis and Mental life", the individual becomes one of a thousand in goes unnoticed, submitting to surveillance becomes a means of individuation and provides the promise of authenticity which receives institutional ratification. Big brother's gaze no longer threatens to homogenize everything, for this is a new type of mass individualization which represents a new phase in consumerism. The paradox of surveillance based economy, Andrejevic holds, is that it gives off the illusion the individuals count, while in reality wishing to count them into data and marketing algorithms.
Towards the end of "The Kinder, Gentler Gaze of Big Brother: Reality TV in the Era of Digital Capitalism" Mark Andrejevic argues that the promise of democratization in the era of internet capitalism in not for a democracy in which anyone can participate in the vital public sphere (such as Facebook), but rather one that offers the participation in politics as a celebrity. With politics reduced to public relations, the meaning of the on-line revolution is not the democratization of the public sphere but rather the equating of the notion of celebrity with personal promotion.
Mark Andrejevic – – "The Kinder, Gentler Gaze of Big Brother: Reality TV in the Era of Digital Capitalism" – summary – part 1 - 2 - 3 - 4