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Do digital technologies of early 21st century capitalism promote or reduce consumer sovereignty? This chapter addresses this question by examining John Kenneth Galbraith’s critique of consumer sovereignty during the post-war period of industrial society and looks at the insights he provides to understand the impact of platform capitalism on consumer sovereignty today. This chapter has the following sections: (1) I review the main postulates of Galbraith’s theory; (2) I highlight the main differences between traditional advertising and online behavioral advertising; (3) I explain how online behavioral advertisement strengthens Galbraith’s dependence effect and revised sequence theories; (4) I then discuss normative challenges raised by digital platform corporations to individual sovereignty; and (5) finally, I argue that platform capitalism is a mature form of Galbraith’s “new industrial state.”

Social media networks make their services freely available to all users. Users pay for the service received with the time and attention taken by the advertisements. This chapter argues that social media platforms are a unique form of monopoly driven by “the more the merrier” effect (i.e., network effects) in users' consumption. These monopolies exercise market power, not by charging higher prices to users but by “tying” larger amounts of advertising to their content. Traditional antitrust instruments designed to address excessive pricing and reduced output by monopolies need to be reframed to tame the attention economy problems in the social media industry. This chapter discusses five antitrust instruments grouped in three categories: structural, behavioral, and market-based remedies. Market-based solutions are the least explored in the literature, despite being the most promising instruments to lower the attention costs imposed on users, while preserving the economies of scope in production and the network effects in consumption, and possibly maintaining free access to social media, as we know it today.

This chapter presents theoretical and empirical studies that investigate the influence of digital culture on the educational process of university students where mobile devices and the internet have become increasingly present as resources in everyday school life. The researchers investigate how such devices and the internet interact with university environments in ways that change the more traditional academic practices, such as reading, writing, and studying. Moreover, in the context of what has been widely labeled as humanities studies, interest has grown in understanding how “culture” may be studied via varied strands of interpretative lines of inquiry, each configured by different methods and ways of reflection. At master education levels, digital technology becomes even more present as a means of academic activity and, as a result, amplifies the impacts of digital culture on contemporary university culture. The purpose of this work is to study the concept of culture, digital culture, and scholarly culture, and, on a second approach, to review aspects of the development of communication methods and their impacts on university educational environments. As a methodological theoretical procedure, this research builds on authors who have raised practical and scholarly cultural questions, such as Pierre Bourdieu, Pierre Levy, Raymond Williams, Roger Chartier, Anne Marie Chartier, and Bernard Lahire, among others. This study engages in empirical research with students in an Advertising and Marketing course in a private higher educational institution in the city of Araraquara, which is located in the “interior” of the state of São Paulo in Brazil.

This study aims at investigating creative labor and its production process in late capitalism. With technological convergence and digitalization, there emerged an information society and information economy. In the processes and procedures of this era, conditions and climate of working areas and labor processes directly based on innovation and creativity have undergone radical transformations. Also, it has become indispensable to scrutinize the concepts such as immaterial labor, autonomy, and subjectivity. So, this study focuses on Turkish freelance illustrators to highlight their production, autonomy, and value in transformed time and space. It aims to establish a better understanding of the Turkish freelancer illustrators’ valorization of labor and economic insecurity in the digital era of creative industries by using the techniques of open-ended questions and online semi-structured interviews with 12 freelance illustrators. Therefore, this study traces the question of how the working processes and work ethos of digital career fields in the creative industry are evaluated from the perspective of illustrators. It cannot be overlooked that this new working ethos allows them to work as self-employed, offering through non-contractual relationships, and non-standard contracts with the clients which give them more flexibility and autonomy as an artist to plan their own creative production processes. It is also clear that illustrators who adapted themselves to produce in a transformed time–space are aware of the difficulty in measuring and valorizing the value of the creative and emotional labor they put to work. In such a case, it can be said that illustrators, who see themselves as both an employer and employee at the same time, position themselves beyond the distinctions of blue collar and gray collar and blur the boundaries in organizational hierarchies.

Despite a large volume of theoretical and empirical research, defining the ‘entrepreneur’ and ‘entrepreneurship’ within the cultural and creative sector, a sector with high heterogeneity in organisational and other aspects across its various segments remains challenging. In this regard, there should be a wide variety of differences in the characteristics and challenges of cultural entrepreneurs across industries, countries and regions. Nonetheless, the key role of the arts and cultural sector has increasingly piqued the interest of policymakers and the private sector, and it has been recognised for its importance within the South African economic landscape; as a result, the government has prioritised arts and culture as a pillar in their development strategies. Furthermore, while there has been some consensus over the past decade on what constitutes a creative industry, many questions about defining arts and cultural entrepreneurship still need to be answered, necessitating further definitional and policy coherence. As a result, some efforts at definitions are required to advance the sector and develop useful knowledge in policy formulation.

This chapter proposes an understanding of arts and cultural entrepreneurship as an exploration of a person, a community or a network's artistic resources (arts, creative and cultural) in value creation. It utilises meta-analysis, a non-empirical method, to review and analyse the existing literature. Further research is needed to investigate and evaluate the efficacy of established arts incubators, and the extent to which perceived entrepreneurial competencies affect organisational performance. Moreover, additional research is required to examine the entrepreneurial factors inhibiting or stimulating the influence on start-up financing (capital acquisition) in the South African arts and cultural industry.

In Chapter 4, the author will discuss the youth drinking epidemic regionwide, in order to demonstrate why the impacts of alcohol products on youths are concerning. The author will present the major youth drinking trends within SEA, to further study how the rampant alcohol trade regionally has adversely affected local youths to a troublesome degree. The author will point out the causes of the youth drinking epidemic, which are susceptibility and toxic culture. Next, the author will evaluate the national and regional costs of youth drinking, discussing how such a lifestyle results in consequences in relation to delinquency. The author will recommend policies for alcohol control that the SEA governments should take into account when amending or forming their policies to contain the epidemic of youth drinking. The outputs of Chapter 4 will draw a close association between youth smoking, youth drinking, and youth sexual misconduct. Therefore, the author indicates that these youth delinquency problems should be addressed simultaneously in order to eradicate the issues of holistic youth misbehaviours in the long term.

The tourism industry is seeing unprecedented growth due to the convergence of the internet and growing travel trends. E-tourism digitises the tourism business, including processes, value chains, infrastructure, services and auxiliary industries, to maximise efficiency and effectiveness. It is in response to the globalisation of the tourism sector, which has spurred the introduction of information and communications technologies (ICTs) during the past four decades. ICT can boost travellers' satisfaction by providing pre-trip information about tourism attractions and allowing them to contact vendors directly, obtain accurate information and get the lowest price.

ICT has made the global tourism sector more competitive by providing pre-trip information about tourism attractions, allowing tourists to contact vendors directly, obtain accurate information and get the lowest price. Search engines, transport capacity and network speeds have increased the number of international travellers who use technology to organise and document their trips. E-tourism reduces seasonality, improves consumer communication and boosts reservations and sales. ICT also affects customer behaviour management and future marketing models and supports tourism industry globalisation by providing practical tools to tourism agents to develop and disseminate their offers globally. Strategic behaviours significantly impact tourism, as eliminating intermediaries shortens the distance between client and provider. ICT is a new way to boost tourism demand, which attracts more tourists and generates more revenue while improving the sector.

Social media influencers increasingly determine what is fashionable. By creating and sharing visual contents, predominantly on Instagram, they shape what social media users see and aspire to. Their contents reflect Instagram esthetics and their own personal brands. This chapter argues that their visuals also represent emerging visual practices and styles that are typical of influencers and transcend fashion and tourism contexts. Using a netnographic approach, this chapter examines Instagram posts of 20 tourism and fashion mega-influencers. It finds common practices but also identifies differential ways in which fashion and tourism visuals are constructed. This chapter highlights how the subjects have intertwined, especially when it comes to influencers.

Innovative modern technologies are utilised in the hospitality and tourist industry to attract prospective consumers. Travel vlogs have emerged as a type of visual travel blog which includes information regarding tourist destinations, accommodation, cuisine, touristic activities, mode of accessibility, etc. The current study aims to investigate the influence of vlogger credibility on triggering the tourist intention to visit an eco-tourism destination.

The present study is a quantitative study, and it was conducted by surveying 218 respondents. A structured, close-ended and self-administrated questionnaire was used to collect data from the respondents.

The findings indicated that vlogger trustworthiness, expertise and attractiveness significantly impact Bangladeshi tourists' intention towards visiting an eco-tourist destination.

The present study has several theoretical and practical contributions. Theoretically, the research framework illustrated how the vloggers' trustworthiness, expertise and attractiveness on Bangladeshi tourists' visit intention to eco-tourist destinations. Practically, tourism industry practitioners, particularly destination marketers, will get benefit from the present study.