Data colonialism: Rethinking Big Data’s relation to the contemporary subject
- By Nick Couldry
- and Ulises A. Mejias
Pages 205 to 221
Cite this article
- COULDRY, Nick
- and MEJIAS, Ulises A.,
- Couldry, Nick.
- et al.
- Couldry, N.
- and Mejias, U.-A.
https://doi.org/10.4000/questionsdecommunication.29845
Cite this article
- Couldry, N.
- and Mejias, U.-A.
- Couldry, Nick.
- et al.
- COULDRY, Nick
- and MEJIAS, Ulises A.,
https://doi.org/10.4000/questionsdecommunication.29845
It is often said that digital data is the new oil. But unlike oil, data is not a substance found in nature. It must be appropriated. Social data is collected and processed through a process we call data relations, which ensures the “natural” conversion of everyday life into a data stream. The result is nothing less than a new social order, based on continuous surveillance and offering unprecedented new possibilities for social discrimination and influencing behavior. We suggest that this process can be best understood through the history of colonialism. Thus, data relationships constitute a new form of digital colonialism, normalizing the exploitation of human beings through data, just as historical colonialism appropriated territories and resources and governed subjects for profit. Data colonialism paves the way for a new stage of capitalism, the contours of which we are only just beginning to see: the capitalization of life without limits.
- data
- capitalism
- colonialism
- media infrastructure
- political economy
- postcolonialism
Publisher keywords: capitalism, colonialism, data, media infrastructure, political economy, postcolonialism