Book Description | They said about the book:
A thought-provoking tour and a compelling examination of the power of data in our networked age, through a fascinating critique of various aspects of our data-saturated society, Nick Coldrey and Policy Mahy invite the reader to reconsider their assumptions about the moral, political, and economic order that makes data-driven technologies possible. - Danah Boyd, researcher at Microsoft Research and founder of Data & Society
THE COSTS
OF CONNECTION
How Data Is
Colonizing Human Life and Appropriating It for Capitalism NICK COULDRY AND ULISES A. MEJIAS
Just as there were land grabs in the past, it's happening now, but this time it's a grab of your data and your freedom. Companies are no longer just monitoring you, they are influencing and controlling your behavior. This revolutionary book explains how neocolonialism lies at the heart of modern computing, and is a wake-up call for anyone concerned about our future relationship with technology.” -Bruce Schneier, author of Click Here to Kill Everybody: Security and Survival in a Hyper
Connected World
“This book should be read by those who cannot accept that the global data economy has reproduced archaic social injustices to know what to do to confront this phenomenon. By providing a range of historical and contemporary illustrations, the authors deftly push the reader towards rethinking the relationships between technology and power.” and inequality.” Payal Arora is the author of The Next Billion Users: Digital Life beyond the West
This book offers an important and profound engagement with the subject of the systems that enable data colonialism to expand its reach into the past, present, and future of human life itself. Coldrey and Mahes pose a comprehensive and thoughtful challenge to the inevitability of this transformative development in capitalism. The two authors take a giant step forward in The path to rediscovering the meaning and possibility of self-determination. It is not too late to join the challenge!
- Oscar H. Gandhi Jr. Oscar Handy r Professor Emeritus, Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania.
Nick Coldrey and Ulysses Mahes delve deep into the digital realm, its spaces, layers, and diffusion. Part of their efforts relate to what it takes to put this digital capacity into practice. This is not an external event. It is in some ways closer to the extractive industries sector, and that means there is a price to pay for its existence.
-Sakia Sassen, author of Expulsions
Coldry and Ulysses show that data colonization is not just a linguistic metaphor. It's a process that extends many dark chapters of the past into our shiny new world of smartphones, smart TVs and smart stores. "This book rewards the reader with important historical context, fascinating examples, clear writing, and unexpected insights sprinkled throughout." -Joseph Turow, University of Pennsylvania |