Valuation on social media rewards homogeneous streams over genuine difference

Evidence

What is truly valued is not difference as such but difference’s inclusion in a generally homogeneous stream of information, a stream of constantly differentiated yet substantively identical commodities. What is valued is the mere fact that there’s always more. Chamberlain must negotiate the specificity of personal content, of intimacy, with the demands of exchangeable, impersonal excess. It is this negotiation—of the personal with the impersonal, of the indexical with the exchangeable, of the meaningful with the meaningless—that defines the “market” we see on social media. — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 224

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the ‘market’ infrastructure directly — difference must be bundled into a homogeneous stream, the core of the market mechanism in the four-infrastructure model.
• XREF: Speaks directly to the reader’s need to define the ‘market’ infrastructure precisely to teach the Corpocene model. — connects to: Platforms replace asymmetry with reciprocity but lose editorial filtering — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 33; Social media’s technical features encode and reinforce contradictory status values — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 644; Social media design decisions prioritize profit over user benefit or democratic ideals — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 718