The Political Economy of Communication Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The Political Economy of Communication - Essay Example By adopting Mosco’s process of commodification, it is evident that Google’s value addition outcomes from its advertising ventures can be directly linked to its commodification of the users of Google on an extensive level. Due to Google’s online platform popularity and accessibility, a lot of firms use this venue as an advertising forum. The number of Google users are so many such that it makes the company an efficient advertising avenue for companies and in so doing, commodifies its users at a level above that of conventional advertising media. In addition, Google employs a valorization process that enhances its ability to reap more profits and revenue than conventional media platforms. Its commodification of the users is also identified via its ability to calculate the advertising costs accurately and personalizing strategies for advertisements, which are largely due to its unlimited access to consumer behavior data. Also, the company’s vague differentiation between serviced content and advertisements for goods and services on its platform, clearly results in the intense commodification of its users and their online activities. However, the most intense commodification identified with the activities of Google has to be those related with its sale of keywords to advertisement companies. The advertisers then link the advertisements to the output of search data and are valued with regards to their popularity on the Google online platform. This behavior of intense corporate capitalism at the expense of the rights of consumers (privacy) has been termed as commodification of user behavior at its worst, and highlights the importance and relevance of PEC/M in modern times. Besides advertisements, Google maps and its application constitutes part of the company’s main activities and revenue sources. In accordance with Mosco’s definition of spatialization, it is mainly concerned