Commodification and Resistance

Capitalism presents culture, like everything else, in the form of a commodity. Based on this, this study, which deals with the process of commodification of culture, contains more than one rich discussion. However, the clarity that the study brings to the sterilizing element in these debates, which have been going on for a long time and have reached a level that can almost be called 'cultural polarization', especially in the field of communication, about what is a cultural product and what is not, reveals itself in every aspect.

Instead of establishing the distinction between cultural and non-cultural through the distinction between commodity and non-commodity, the author proposes to focus on the process that gives it this quality, that is, the process of commodification. Thus, it draws our attention to a simple but striking fact that when we shift our gaze from the object to the process, we can see that the distinction is actually social, that is, it is established with reference to those who have the power and will to organize the process as a whole and those who do not. Since no one will live long enough to complete the task of creating a list of the distinction between cultural and non-cultural, the author suggests solving the task in this world rather than leaving it to the afterlife. In short, according to him, what we should look at should be 'what and who is distracting us' rather than 'whether we are being distracted'.

If we could easily put an end to it when we say that culture is abstract and the cultural product that comes out of it is concrete, this debate would not continue. Culture, which we can call abstract within its historical-social context, first begins to become concrete by being consumed in the mind of its producer, that is, to transform from a state of imagination into a cultural product. This is what is meant by the holistic structure of the dual production model put forward in the study, which dialectically connects the pre- and post-commodification of cultural production. Although the dual production model seems like a two-headed relationship, in fact, in this process where the singular cultural product turns into a plural commodity (without having to be cultural), the dominance belongs to the party that puts the cultural product into circulation in the form of a commodity and thus concretizes the use value as exchange value.

Within this structure, a power relationship in which all of us, as social producers of culture, are involved, but some are also involved, by using the material codes of the ongoing transitions from abstract to concrete and from concrete to abstract, just like our social life, is a power relationship that defines the socio-cultural. It is produced again and again through social consumption in commodity form.

However, as the author points out, the aspect of cultural commodities that exceeds their monotony when compared to classical capitalist commodities lies in the mass production of the original, not the standard one. What makes the product/commodity distinction difficult, turns the discussions into a vicious circle, but makes the cultural always current and original, is actually the duality consisting of commodity production and cultural production, which it binds to itself by commodifying the labor of the 'producer' in a form or forms that vary according to time and place, with mass production and global distribution opportunities. is the production structure.
(From the Promotional Bulletin)



Number of Pages: 320

Year of Print: 2016


Language: Turkish
Publisher: Nota Bene Publications

Number of Pages: 320

First Print Year: 2016

Language: Turkish