Manufacturing Influence, with Emily Hund

Capitalisn't

University of Chicago Podcast Network

Stigler Center, Chicago Booth, Socialism, Antitrust, University Of Chicago Podcast Network, Growth, 087667, Policy, Monopoly, Professors, Distortion, Research, Competition, Capitalisnt, Inequality, Promarket, Politics, Policymaking, Special Interest, Economics, Efficiency, Regulations, Chicago, Business, Markets, University Of Chicago, Kate Waldock, Capitalism, Friction, Bethany Mclean, Government, Macroeconomics, News, Education, Waldock, Georgetown, Microeconomics, Luigi Zingales, Zingales, Finance, Ucpn

4.5 • 584 Ratings

🗓️ 1 February 2024

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

According to the latest industry statistics, the global influencer economy grew from $1.7 billion in 2016 to $21.1 billion in 2023 — and it's only expected to grow exponentially from here with advances in artificial intelligence. In 1988, Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman investigated how mass media sways audiences to conform to social norms without coercion, or what they called “manufacturing consent.” In her new book, “The Influencer Industry: The Quest for Authenticity on Social Media,” Dr. Emily Hund investigates how social media influencers have manufactured a new media economy to which we’ve unwittingly consented. Hund, a research affiliate at the Center on Digital Culture and Society at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication, joins Bethany and Luigi to unpack this new digital landscape where influence has become a powerful currency, shaping not only news consumption and consumer behavior but the very fabric of modern capitalism. Together, they discuss whether influencers are empowered entrepreneurs rewriting market rules or victims of a system that commodifies identity. What are the hidden incentives driving influencer messaging and, thus, the news and content we receive? Read an excerpt from Hund's book (Princeton University Press, 2023) on ProMarket.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I mean, if we have to constantly look at ourselves through the lens of what is shareable and framed by the tools that are dominant at the time, you know, will this make a good video?
0:11.9	Or like, what is shareable through this, you know, framework is a potentially very damaging way to have to look at yourself and to know yourself.
0:22.7	I'm Bethany McLean.
0:24.3	Did you ever have a moment of doubt about capitalism and whether greed's a good idea?
0:29.5	And I'm Luigi Zengalis.
0:30.9	We have socialism for the very rich, rugged individualism for the poor.
0:36.4	And this is Capital Isn't, a podcast about what is working in capitalism.
0:40.4	First of all, tell me, is there some society you know that doesn't run on greed?
0:44.8	And most importantly, what isn't?
0:46.8	We ought to do better by the people that get left behind.
0:49.7	I don't think we shouldn't kill the capital system in the process.
0:53.5	Luigi, what did you have for breakfast this morning? Just a cup of coffee. Haven't you? Didn't your mother teach you that breakfast is the most important meal of the day and that you must eat some protein in the morning? No. Remember, I grew up in Italy, where the only protein we have for breakfast is the occasional milk we put in the cappuccino.
1:11.5	Aha. So I'm just teasing you. I actually hate breakfast. Rather, I like breakfast food, but I like
1:16.5	breakfast at like the middle of the day. And oddly enough, the myth that breakfast is the most
1:22.0	important being of the day, and it is a myth. It's just propaganda. It's just an invention
1:26.6	of a guy named Edward Bernays,
1:28.9	who's the nephew of Freud and the inventor of propaganda. And it was an invention aimed at
1:34.6	selling more bacon. In today's episode of Capitalism, we want to discuss the role of influencers,
1:40.8	and we want to do it in the broader context of the propaganda industry.
1:45.3	The propaganda industry. Do you mean the publicity industry?
1:48.8	Since you got me started with Edward Berners, I want to stick to him. As you know, in
1:53.6	98, he wrote a book called propaganda. What he meant was mostly advertising. But the term became radioactive because the Nazis use it.
	...

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