Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Communication and Media

Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Communication and Media

Digital Capitalism and the Reproduction of the Subject (Analysis of Google’s Performance in the Attention Economy Paradigm)

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors
Seyed ali Hoseini 1
Akbar Nasrollahi 2
Seyed mohamad Mahdizadeh 3
1 Ph.D student in Culture and Communication, Department of Culture and Communication, Faculty of Communication and Media, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
2 Akbar Nasrollahi Kasmani, Associate Professor, Department of Culture and Communication, Faculty of Communication and Media, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran(Corresponding Author)
3 Associate Professor, Department of Communication, Faculty of Communication, Allameh Tabatabaei University, Tehran, Iran
10.22085/jiscm.2025.533664.1879
Abstract
This article examines Google’s role in the process of reproducing digital subjects from humans using the attention economy, Michel Foucault’s theoretical framework of biopower, and Louis Althusser’s interpellation, it shows how Google’s algorithms create obedient and predictable digital subjects by absorbing, analyzing, and commodifying users’ data and capturing their attention. In this article, Clark’s thematic analysis was used as a research method, and the results obtained were analyzed, which ultimately led to the themes on which Google captures users’ attention, through which it commodifies users’ data and reproduces subjects. The article continues by stating that Google plays a key role in reproducing surveillance capitalism by combining biopower (managing users’ digital lives) and algorithmic interrogation (invoking users as consumer subjects). This process not only threatens privacy but also limits the diversity of perspectives and shapes the digital identity of users according to commercial interests, by creating a filter bubble. The social consequences of this reproduction of the subject can be to reinforce inequality in access to reliable information, reduce human agency against algorithms, destroy identity diversity, and reproduce the subject based on capitalist structures, control of information and knowledge, etc. Finally, the article shows that power in the digital age is exercised not through force, but by producing self-willed consent and making control mechanisms invisible
Keywords
Attention Economy, Subjectification, Biopower, Althusser's Interpellation Process
 
1-  Davenport, T. H., & Beck, J. C. (2001). The attention economy: Understanding the new currency of business. Harvard Business Review Press.
2- Simon, H. A. (1971). Designing organizations for an information-rich world. In M. Greenberger (Ed.), Computers, communication, and the public interest (pp. 37–52). Johns Hopkins Press.