To understand the internet, one must understand advertising. But what is advertising, exactly? Is it simply a way to inform consumers about products and services? Is it large companies gathering consumer data? Hidden technologies for tracking and profiling? Public policies regulating data markets or leaving them unfettered?

Advertising is all these things and more. In this talk, I will outline a political economic approach to advertising, foregrounding the concepts of social relations and structural power. At the root of advertising’s sprawling complexity is a basic social relation between those who use media and communication technologies and those who own and control them. Historical research reveals the contested processes through which this social relation, long present in pre-digital commercial media systems, was harnessed to the internet in the United States context. After a brief period of uncertainty, advertising emerged as a powerful structural element of the internet’s political economy.

Studying this history reveals that advertising’s dominance was not preordained, but rather the result of concerted efforts by marketers, financiers, and others, often in response to perceived threats to their control over communication systems. While the social relations of advertising have been made concrete on the modern internet, we may have some sledgehammers just yet.

About the lecturer

Matthew Crain is an Associate Professor of Media and Communication at Miami University. His research focuses on the political economy of media, advertising, and consumer surveillance. He is the author of Profit Over Privacy: How Surveillance Advertising Conquered the Internet (2021) and has published articles in academic journals including New Media & Society and the International Journal of Communication. At Miami, Crain teaches courses such as Media Industries, Communication Technology, and Advertising and the Attention Economy. Crain received his PhD from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Previously he taught at Queens College, City University of New York.

All events take place in hybrid form (on site and via Webex). If you would like to attend on site, no registration is required. To attend the lecture online via Webex, please register here.

About the lecture series