THEATRICALITY OF DIGITAL MARKETING: SOCIO-PHILOSOPHICAL DIMENSION

Abstract

The article emphasizes the role of social philosophy in identifying and critically understanding the theatricality of marketing communications in the Internet space against the background of the rapid virtualization within social existence in the Society 5.0 era. It is outlined within L. Prokopovich’s theatricality concept regarding socio-communicative cultural manifestations, marketing communications undergo an essential transformation: they cease to be tools of commodity exchange and turn into a complex dramaturgical system of symbolic exchange, where the line between the individual’s authentic existence and his digital representation becomes more and more transparent. Through the prism of simulacrum theory this study investigates the identity transformation consequences for digital culture individuals, who is forced to adapt to the conditions of total mediatization. The article explains that the modern digital marketing mainly creates immersive environments and “information corridors”, which function as rigidly defined scenarios, directing consumption and leveling an individual’s critical thinking. Analyzing augmented reality integration (IKEA Place) and network rituals (TikTok challenges) reveals the transformation of private space into a stage area and daily life into an advertising performance. Special attention is paid to the phenomenon of digital anonymity, where nicknames and avatars act as theatrical masks that allow the subject to free himself from social responsibility, turning network interaction into a kind of destructive carnival. The study concludes by viewing marketing theatricalization as a contradictory life-experience staging process. On the one hand, it allows to overcome alienation between the producer and the consumer through emotional involvement and “culture of participation”, on the other hand, – creates new forms of digital dependence on the spectacle, where sincerity becomes only another stage technique. The article proves that in the conditions of an authenticity crisis and the visual simulacra dominance, philosophical reflection should serve to protect the authenticity of the human factor. After all, it is the intentional involvement of a person, his value orientations and ability to make informed choices that remains the real socio-cultural innovations that oppose the manipulative influence of technological determinism and the total commercialization of virtual space.