Event date/time: 6-7pm, 30th November 2021
Event location: The White Bear
Reading: “When data is capital: Datafication, accumulation, and extraction” by Jathan Sadowski
This article covers the issue of how data has become central to modern capitalism, and how it can be viewed as a form of capital (much like money) that is extracted from users by large corporations and institutions. We’ll be asking questions such as:
- How is your data used as capital?
- What are the economic consequences of collecting and using more data?
- To what extent is data a ‘natural resource’ or ‘manufactured’?
- Does datafication lead to greater inequality or not?
This article is 9 pages long; we’d recommend reading all of it, but if you’re very tight for time, make sure to cover the Introduction and Conclusion. There is more social science terminology in this paper than past readings - if anything is unclear, make a note of it and we’ll go through it on the day!
Further Reading
Andrejevic, Mark B. “Surveillance and alienation in the online economy.” Surveillance & Society 8, no. 3 (2011): 278-287. (link) Srnicek, Nick. Platform capitalism. John Wiley & Sons, 2017. (link)
Couldry, Nick, and Ulises A. Mejias. “Data Colonialism: Rethinking Big Data’s Relation to the Contemporary Subject.” Television & New Media 20, no. 4 (May 2019): 336–49. (link).
Campbell, John Edward, and Matt Carlson. “Panopticon. com: Online surveillance and the commodification of privacy.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 46, no. 4 (2002): 586-606. (link)