The Commodification of “Stay at Home” in the COVID-19 Pandemic Era in Indonesia

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic disease spreading around the world, including Indonesia, makes changes in lifestyle. Stay at home is a jargon to break the chain of virus transmission by working from home, learning at home, and praying at home. All activities are mostly done online and virtually. It certainly becomes the competitive market for the industry of media providing the services for, at least, those three activities when staying at home. In the critical paradigm area, this study discusses how ‘stay at home’ experiences the commodification and it changes into a market for the industry of media related to technology, service provider, application, and advertisement. The findings related to the level of share capitalism and high supply and demand were presented in a descriptive qualitative method. The commodification of stay at home changes the behavior pattern of people who are staying at home related to both relations and interaction, consumption patterns, and the changing needs. The nature of stay at home in people’s lives as the center of life realization, the center of cultural activity, a place for interacting with each other, in the scope of family or community, has changed into a market. Stay at home as a place to communicate people’s necessities starting from the cultural aspect, social, economy, and psychology has changed in a digital home with a virtual theme.