This is just one question Kane X. Faucher addresses in his new book Social Capital Online released today.  The book is the 7th title in the Critical Digital and Social Media Studies series. following the recent appearance of The Big Data Agenda.

A work of critical media studies it examines the idea within the new ‘network spectacle’ of digital capitalism drawing on the ideas of Marx, Veblen, Debord  (see also Spectacle 2.0)  Baudrillard, Deleuze and others. His book concludes with consideration of what could be done to address the pathologies of online obsession with accumulation and status and the alienation that follows.

Titles in the series (all open access) now consists of (in reverse order of publication) the following titles:

Series Editor: Christian Fuchs

2018
Social Capital Online: Alienation and Accumulation
Kane X. Faucher

The Big Data Agenda: Data Ethics and Critical Data Studies
Annika Richterich

2017
Spectacle 2.0: Reading Debord in the Context of Digital Capitalism
edited by Marco Briziarelli and Emiliana Armano

Capital, State, Empire: The New American Way of Digital Warfare
Scott Timcke

Politicizing the Digital Sphere: Theory the Internet and Renewing Democracy
Trevor Garrison Smith

Knowledge in the Age of Digital Capitalism: An Introduction to Cognitive Materialism
Mariano Zukerfeld

2016
Critical Theory of Communication: New Readings of Lukács, Adorno, Marcuse and Habermas in the Age of the Internet
Christian Fuchs