The Digitalisation of Social Capital: “Conspicuous Consumption on Instagram”

Abstract

Jean Baudrillard states, the theoretical equivalence of body and objects as signs is actually, ‘buy; you will be at peace with your- self’(Baudrillard, 2014). Baudrillard’s phrase ‘buy, and you will be at ease in your body’ has given way to ‘buy and share, you will be at ease in your body’. This research aims to investigate whether displaying purchased luxury goods on Instagram is a type of conspicuous consumption (Ve- blen, 1899) that may structure a new form of social capital and reputation capital as suggested by Pierre Bourdieu. We argue that this new form of social capital is a digital capital that serves to shape a contemporary reputation capital. The study involves 354 social media users and the data were gathered through an online survey. Our findings reveal that there is insufficient evidence of a relationship between high reputation capital and high social status; however, the aforemen- tioned consumption type depicts reputation capital as a contemporary method of social capital.