The Costs of Connection: How Data Are Colonizing Human Life and Appropriating It for Capitalism

Couldry, Nick; Mejías, Ulises Ali

doi:10.1093/sf/soz172

Cited by 262 publications

(396 citation statements)

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“…Elias anticipates here by four decades not just the moral gap faced by today's attempts to renew critique in the face of a dehumanizing infrastructure of datafication (Zuboff, 2019;Couldry and Mejias, 2019), 11 but today's tendencies within social science towards mere descriptivism that I have already noted.…”

Section: The Idea Of Social Ordermentioning

confidence: 84%

Recovering critique in an age of datafication

Couldry

2020

New Media & Society

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This article starts out from the need for critical work on processes of datafication and their consequences for the constitution of social knowledge and the social world. Current social science work on datafication has been greatly shaped by the theoretical approach of Bruno Latour, as reflected in the work of Actor Network Theory and Science and Technology Studies (ANT/STS). The article asks whether this approach, given its philosophical underpinnings, provides sufficient resources for the critical work that is required in relation to datafication. Drawing on Latour’s own reflections about the flatness of the social, it concludes that it does not, since key questions, in particular about the nature of social order cannot be asked or answered within ANT. In the article’s final section, three approaches from earlier social theory are considered as possible supplements to ANT/STS for a social science serious about addressing the challenges that datafication poses for society.

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Section: The Idea Of Social Ordermentioning

confidence: 84%

Recovering critique in an age of datafication

Couldry

2020

New Media & Society

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“…Perhaps unsurprisingly, the growing theorization and body of empirical evidence that engages with "platforms, " particularly in media studies and geography, tends to focus on (often, rigid) accounts of power that seem to downplay or exclude users (or, citizens) and the significance of the surroundings in everyday life (Kitchin et al, 2018;Parker and Van Alstyne, 2018). Furthermore, the role of data, associated with particularly the term "datafication" 1 , has taken center stage in these debates, thereby highlighting the intertwined streams of thought about participation and innovation (Couldry and Mejias, 2019;Livingstone, 2019).…”

Section: Participation and Innovation In Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

Multi-Stakeholder Innovation in Smart City Discourse: Quadruple Helix Thinking in the Age of “Platforms”

Borghys

Graaf

Walravens

et al. 2020

Front. Sustain. Cities

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The predominant rhetoric in smart city debates puts the emphasis on collaboration. Conceptualizing, designing, implementing, validating, and evaluating solutions to urban challenges with all relevant stakeholders around the table are perceived as the optimal modus operandi in these perspectives. But how does this vision relate to current practices in cities? This paper deals with the observed trend toward more multi-stakeholder collaboration and the resulting complex value networks these stakeholders need to navigate. This is exemplified in what has been called the "platformization" of the urban space by "urban service platforms" (e.g., Uber, AirBnB) as well as in so-called "quadruple helix" approaches to urban innovation. Particularly for (local) government, finding a role in these complex networks has proven challenging. This paper explores the main challenges concerning multi-stakeholder innovation and opportunities related to this topic.

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“…is centered on "data colonialism." 22 Yet it is still debatable to what extent the South Korean government's data policy during the pandemic prioritized public health over individual privacy and to what degree South Korean citizens accepted the loss of privacy as a necessary trade-off. 23 As shown earlier, while critically questioning Korea's deployment of surveillance technologies, individual privacy and public health are starkly contrasted as incompatible and an either/or scenario.…”

Section: Between Individual Freedom and Public Health In A State Of Ementioning

confidence: 99%

The Media Spectacle of a Techno-City: COVID-19 and the South Korean Experience of the State of Emergency

Kang

2020

J of Asian Stud

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This essay provides a critical observation of the South Korean government's distinctive management of COVID-19 with particular reference to the state of emergency. It reveals that the success of South Korea's handling of the pandemic is largely attributed by a majority of Western media to the efficient deployment of both information and communication technologies and Confucian collectivism, two components that seem contradictory yet not incompatible under the rubric of techno-Orientalism. Analyzing the intensification of surveillance and the rapid datafication of society, this essay argues that the current state of emergency is not a breakdown of normality but a continuation of the state of crisis and disaster that rules a developing country like South Korea. In doing so, the essay seeks to facilitate a critical discussion about a new mode of democracy in the era of pandemic that increasingly grapples with tensions between individual freedom and public health.

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The Costs of Connection: How Data Are Colonizing Human Life and Appropriating It for Capitalism

Cited by 262 publications

References 0 publications

Recovering critique in an age of datafication

Recovering critique in an age of datafication

Multi-Stakeholder Innovation in Smart City Discourse: Quadruple Helix Thinking in the Age of “Platforms”

The Media Spectacle of a Techno-City: COVID-19 and the South Korean Experience of the State of Emergency

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