Connectivity and conversion: capitalist domination and the Facebook ideological dimensions
This research aims to understand the capitalist domination of individuals in a digital economy, which is consolidated through the usage of social media platforms. The goal is to analyze how ideological dimensions are constituted by the Facebook social network, where the users' sociability relations are reduced to instrumental usage, following a lucrative business model. To do so, the adopted methodology analyses two platform products and services (Facebook Login and Audience Network), looking to comprehend how the user dominance relation in the usage of social networks is formed. Bibliographical references in the fields of social sciences, computer science, social philosophy, and media and communication were used to create a notion of appropriate ideology to the contemporary period of time that was analyzed, producing alienation and exploitation of individuals by having contact with the social media products and services. That being the case, 3 operational categories to process this relation of users with the platform's products and services. The conceptual drive that substantiates this piece brings the discussion that surrounds the economical political process of centralization of the internet, the post-ideological notions that constitute the capitalist ideals in the big tech companies, the connectivity culture concept, the ideological notion of social media, and the consolidation of internet critical studies which points to the need of the critique of ideology in the understanding of contemporary capitalism.