Consumed Consumer Within the Framework of New Communication Technologies

Introduction

New media, in general, mainly come to agenda in 1980’s in the context of computer and technological advances in computer extension, point out the new textual formats, entertainment culture, consumption patterns, new self and identity representations, ways to create communities and representative world understandings. New media, which have become the main tool of the relations between media producers and content consumers, eliminate the distinction between interpersonal and mass communication (Chandler and Munday, 2018, p. 447). Thus, forcing time and space as well as speed and capacity in data transfer, digitalization, involves thinking with numerical codes and taking on mechanical action. Interaction and flexibility that the new media unleashes every moment of social practices through networks makes multimedia data (audio, text, moving and/or still image, numerical data, etc.) available in the environment possible to easily view, trace, convert and store. In fact, such a data transfer also transforms the way information is read. With the widespread Internet environment, hypertext, used to mean text created by developing links between data/information stored on the internet has been revealed. “Hypertext, expresses establishing the correct connection between texts in all directions, referring to the versatility of digital media and unlimited data collection, sharing and updating features” (Yengin, 2012, p. 126). With the expansion of communication networks referred to as social media and meet the communication and socialization needs of people through these networks, virtual lives holding the power to determine/manage real life and the culture of these lives have developed. In fact, communication media mediated by new media, called offline, reproduces and shapes the real world, within the framework of cultural, political, economic or political processes.

“This leads to a fundamental feature of advertising which many people find difficult to grasp. Advertising is not a homogeneous entity. (That is why it is so hard to define with precision.) It covers a multitude of diverse types of communication, with equally diverse objectives. Most advertisements, it is true, aim to sell goods and services. But not all do. And even those that do, aim to achieve sales in a host of varying ways. Advertisements are like the bits and pieces in a kaleidoscope. Together they appear to make a unified pattern -but in reality each one of them is likely to be quite different from the others” (Fletcher, 2010, p. 5).

Today, the use of social media, which has become a habit by users of virtual media, covering a wide range of communities, meets the social demands of the broad masses from all cultures and all segments. Development of new communication media on social media, being continuously updateable, suitable to multi-use and allow virtual sharing each day, in addition to increasing interest in communication technologies in many respects increases the power of social media and it also gives a new dimension to the phenomenon of “socialization”. In this context, the internet goes beyond being just a tool that people use, has become a subject with which it establishes a relationship. This complex network structure is constantly fed by its users and by nature, it indicates a continuous action. Cyber/virtual environments that have continuous distribution by users, artificially updated or fully converted and almost a new add-on of man, beyond being a technological opportunity and application area is a cognitive and social space which has its own rules, developed different languages, and its user gets into the flow within the road map drawn by its founder. Information consumed via Internet (words and images) while transforming human relations being involved in consumption culture and disposable logic of consumption culture and being the leader of cut/paste and disposable/throw culture in the relationships established in daily life. Thanks to the virtual environments offered by the new communication technologies, the leisure time of individuals can be easily captured and hierarchies in social structure are measured by the individual’s consumption-based performance in real life. In the consumer society, individuals never enjoy lasting pleasure from the objects of consumption, constantly changing desires rather than permanent and stable preferences occur on the consuming individual. In this context, consuming individual identity dominates the virtual environment relations and instead of intense emotional relationships, superficial and short-term connections with many people come to the fore.