JOURNAL OF LIFE ECONOMICS

Analysis of Instagram adverts in the context of user experiences within the framework of surveillance capitalism

Salih Apaydın — Wed, 21 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0300

The name of this phenomenon, which sees users as products and turns their spending time on social networks or websites without doing anything into financial income, is: Surveillance capitalism. Every step users take, everything they do to spend time, whether necessary or unnecessary, turns into data, and this data is monetised by selling it to companies or advertisers. The best performers of the function of monetising user data are global companies such as Meta, Microsoft and Google, whose applications, websites and social networking sites are used by many people in their daily lives. Every step users take, everything they do to spend time, whether necessary or unnecessary, turns into data, and this data is monetised by selling it to companies or advertisers. Global companies such as Meta, Microsoft and Google, whose applications, websites and social networking sites are used by many people in their daily lives, are the best at monetising user data. These companies, which are at the forefront of surveillance capitalism, sell the data they obtain from users to all companies that want to sell something on the internet. Surveillance capitalism deploys many technologies, but it cannot be equated with any technology. Its activities may involve platforms, but these activities are not the same as platforms. It engages machine intelligence, but cannot be reduced to machines. It produces and relies on algorithms, but it is not the same as algorithms. In the context of these definitions, the study aims to reveal the effort to understand the laws of surveillance capitalism, which affects the lives of individuals in many ways, through the experiences of individuals.

The findings indicate that surveillance capitalism influences user experiences through social media platforms such as Instagram as a post-panoptic tool, and also reveals more effective advertising strategies by monitoring and analysing consumer behaviour.

The importance of logistics villages and centers in achieving sustainable development goals

Metin Kaya, Sude Dışkaya — Wed, 21 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0300

Factors such as global warming and climate change profoundly impact natural ecosystems and human communities, increasing the quest for sustainable and innovative solutions. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), established by the United Nations in 2015, aim to achieve environmental, social, and economic balance. Logistics villages and centers enhance the efficiency of supply chains by optimizing the transportation, storage, and distribution of goods and services. These structures contribute to economic development, supporting SDGs 1, 9, and 17; reduce food waste, supporting SDG 2; improve healthcare services, supporting SDG 3; and promote gender equality, supporting SDGs 5, 10, and 16. Additionally, they encourage responsible consumption and production, supporting SDGs 12 and 13, and assist in the preservation of ecosystems, supporting SDGs 14 and 15. Thus, logistics villages and centers play a crucial role in achieving sustainable development goals, providing significant contributions in economic, environmental, and social dimensions, and enabling the construction of a more sustainable and prosperous world.

Ecological foundations for corporate sustainability from a planetary boundaries and modern corporate capitalism perspective

Orhan Elmacı — Wed, 21 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0300

The world’s natural resources and ecosystems have been and continue to be degraded at an alarming level. This is why resource scarcity is the most important obstacle to corporate sustainability and the most important agenda item for companies. Sustainability for companies requires stopping biodiversity loss and ecosystem decline, reducing climate change and improving environmental conditions more generally. However, the business plans and incentives to do this are currently very weak. The spiral in this regard is that although environmental problems are still seen as “externalities” in the current economic paradigm, nature continues to be degraded and undervalued instead of being seen as a basic natural capital that requires management and investment for the future survival of humanity. There are many resources and initiatives that provide advice and guidance to companies on specific actions, targets or metrics for more sustainable business decisions, but a significant number of them equate “less impact” with sustainability, rather than sustainability in the context of limited resources and natural capital. On the other hand, since they do not consider the Earth System as a holistic structure, they often focus on ecosystems and the environment at the local or regional level. It is an undeniable fact that a new and more sophisticated awareness is needed to understand which business actions are truly sustainable. In this way, it is inevitable to prioritize approaches that can offer very useful solutions that address various challenges, especially those related to the destabilization of the Earth System as a whole. We need to prepare strategies and action plans within the framework of Planetary Boundaries (PB) to guide actions, not only to improve ecosystems and biodiversity (our natural capital) at local and regional scales, but also to improve the planetary systems that govern the stability of the Earth System. Using the PB framework to inform corporate sustainability decisions, particularly in supply chains, will enable businesses to understand the macro-level implications of their impacts and help them focus on specific actions to address them.

The main objective of this study in this context is to review the ecological and systemic foundations for corporate sustainability with a new paradigm that is more holistic, integrative, ecological and empowering. and to ensure integration with environmental, social and governance (ESG). In this way, the value of the PB framework, along with its challenges and limitations is introduced. It can be demonstrated how the PB framework can be applied in a corporate context. Innovative approaches based on the PB framework is proposed and the next milestones for integrating companies into the PB framework development is identified.