TY  - BOOK
AU  - Couldry,Nick
AU  - Mejias,Ulises Ali
TI  - The costs of connection: how data is colonizing human life and appropriating it for capitalism 
T2  - Culture and economic life
SN  - 9781503603660
AV  - HM851 .C685 2019
PY  - 2019///
CY  - Stanford, California
PB  - Stanford University Press
KW  - Information technology
KW  - Social aspects
KW  - Internet
KW  - Electronic data processing
KW  - Capitalism
N1  - Includes bibliographical references (pages 265-305) and index; The capitalization of life without limit -- Cloud empire -- Interlude : on colonialism and the decolonial turn -- The coloniality of data relations -- The hollowing out of the social -- Data and the threat to human autonomy -- Decolonizing data -- Postscript : another path is possible
N2  - Just about any social need is now met with an opportunity to "connect" through digital means. But this convenience is not free--it is purchased with vast amounts of personal data transferred through shadowy backchannels to corporations using it to generate profit. The Costs of Connection uncovers this process, this "data colonialism," and its designs for controlling our lives--our ways of knowing; our means of production; our political participation. Colonialism might seem like a thing of the past, but this book shows that the historic appropriation of land, bodies, and natural resources is mirrored today in this new era of pervasive datafication. Apps, platforms, and smart objects capture and translate our lives into data, and then extract information that is fed into capitalist enterprises and sold back to us. The authors argue that this development foreshadows the creation of a new social order emerging globally--and it must be challenged. Confronting the alarming degree of surveillance already tolerated, they offer a stirring call to decolonize the internet and emancipate our desire for connection
ER  -