MANUFACTURING DESIRE: MEDIA COMMERCIALIZATION AND WOMEN’S CONSUMER PRACTICES IN THE CONTEMPORARY DIGITAL MARKETPLACE

Abstract

The commercialization of media has reorganized modern marketplaces and reshaped consumers’ motives, especially among women in emerging economies. This review synthesizes classical scholarship and new empirical work to examine how commercialization mediated through television, social media, influencer platforms (e.g., YouTube, Instagram), and algorithmic advertising transforms buying from necessity to identity-driven desire. Drawing on a detailed case study of women in Karachi (Ghous, 2020) and recent post-pandemic evidence from Pakistan and global contexts, the review maps four core dimensions: (1) the structural expansion of commercial media and e-commerce; (2) psychological mechanisms linking advertising to consumption; (3) digital personalization, privacy, and algorithmic persuasion; and (4) gendered media practices that construct and exploit ideals of beauty, empowerment, and modernity.

The analysis highlights the double-edged nature of digital consumerism: increased access, convenience, and agency on one hand; increased materialism, manipulation, privacy threats, and regulatory gaps on the other. Drawing from the Karachi study which found strong commercial influence on women’s buying behavior and concerns about consumer rights and privacy, this paper synthesizes policy recommendations: stronger consumer protection and advertising regulation, media literacy campaigns focused on women, transparency and limits on data-driven personalization, and gender-sensitive ethical advertising guidelines. The review concludes by identifying priority research areas longitudinal studies of digital consumer identity formation, experimental work on algorithmic persuasion, and policy evaluations of consumer protection interventions.