Creating iPhone Dreams: Annihilating E-waste Nightmares

Abstract

This article explores how the iPhone phenomenon was born, the reality of electronic waste, and the annihilation of news frames that link our use of electronics and electronic waste. Media sources and Google queries were searched for stories about the iPhone and electronic waste. Symbolic annihilation, push-and-pull media, and agenda-setting theory’s obtrusive issues are used to explore the implications. The results indicate that stories about the iPhone are plentiful and stories about electronic-waste very few and far between. The results also clearly show that stories that make connections between iPhones and electronic waste are annihilated. This article highlights that the iPhone is an iconic and readily outdated example of the horrible “waste makers” we have become. The conclusion offers suggestions for ways forward.Cet article explore les origines du phénomène iPhone, la réalité des déchets électroniques, et l’annihilation de cadres journalistiques faisant le lien entre l’utilisation d’appareils électroniques et les déchets qui découlent de celle-ci. Pour ce faire, nous avons eu recours aux concepts suivants : l’annihilation symbolique, les médias push et pull et les questions imposantes dans le cadre de l’agenda setting (« mise à l’ordre du jour »). D’autre part, nous avons cherché dans les médias et sur Google des articles sur l’iPhone et les déchets électroniques. Nos résultats indiquent que les articles sur l’iPhone sont nombreux mais que ceux sur les déchets électroniques sont rares. Par surcroît, les résultats montrent clairement l’annihilation d’articles établissant un lien entre l’iPhone et les déchets électroniques. Cet article-ci souligne que l’iPhone est un exemple iconique, voué à une obsolescence perpétuelle, des gaspilleurs horribles que nous sommes devenus. La conclusion propose des pistes à suivre pour sortir de cette situation.

Towards a Paradigmatic Shift in Sustainability Studies: A Systematic Review of Peer Reviewed Literature and Future Agenda Setting to Consider Environmental (Un)sustainability of Digital Communication

“…Such myopia, manifesting in the staggering prevalence of digital solutionism across the board, can be seen as a continuation of the legacy of "techno-fix" approaches within sustainability studies, persistent despite the existing scholarly critique, which we briefly outlined at the start of the article. That this legacy persists is supported by the overall belief seen throughout our corpus in the power of technology and technological progress, where every new invention carries a promise of "doing better," 6 remaining stubbornly blind to both the failures of older technologies (Good, 2016;Maffey, Homans, Banks, & Arts, 2015), and to the damages inflicted by new ones (Chen, 2016;Cubitt, 2016;Good, 2016).…”

“…As several scholars note, the digital economy rests on "planned obsolescence" (Chen, 2016;Gould, 2016) of digital devices, purposefully designed to have a short life span and be replaced frequently. In addition to its economic hold (where, for example, repair is always more costly than upgrade/disposal), planned obsolescence is supported by consumer trends, cultures of communication, and by what Good (2016) has poignantly called "symbolic annihilation." In her detailed analysis of media representations of iPhones, she noted the iconic formation of the iPhone as a seamless dream, co-constituted through a consistent erasure of the stories of e-waste and other environmental damages, which the technology generates.…”

Una nube de polvo y humo: el impacto mediambiental de la sociedad de la información

“…De acuerdo con estos datos, 2.800 millones de personas cambian de terminal cada 24 meses (Maxwell & Miller, 2020). La coalición Electronics TakeBack calcula que 416.000 teléfonos móviles son desechados cada año sólo en Estados Unidos (Good, 2016).…”

What the digitalisation of music tells us about capitalism, culture and the power of the information technology sector

“…These dynamics do not make music entirely subservient to capital, but they tie it to disturbing aspects of modernity such as forced obsolescence and waste, in ways that have not been sufficiently recognised in critical research on culture, media and music. In ecological terms, the IT sector is based, even more than other sectors such as CE, on the unceasing imperative to devote vast resources to the development of new devices, and the equally unceasing need to throw away old ones (see Good, 2016;Maxwell, Raundalen & Vestberg, 2015). Such an imperative in general terms is clearly having hugely damaging effects on the planet.…”