The Costs of Connection

How Data Is Colonizing Human Life and Appropriating It for Capitalism

Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias

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.

Ulises A. Mejias is Professor of Communication Studies and Director of the Institute for Global Engagement at the State University of New York, College at Oswego.

Reviews

"A provocative tour-de-force. A powerful interrogation of the power of data in our networked age. Through an enchanting critique of different aspects of our data soaked society, Nick Couldry and Ulises A. Mejias invite the reader to reconsider their assumptions about the moral, political, and economic order that makes data-driven technologies possible."

—danah boyd, Microsoft Research and founder of Data & Society

"There's a land grab occurring right now, and it's for your data and your freedom: companies are not only surveilling you, they're increasingly influencing and controlling your behavior. This paradigm-shifting book explains the new colonialism at the heart of modern computing, and serves as a needed wake-up call to everyone who cares about our future relationship with technology."

—Bruce Schneier, author of Click Here to Kill Everybody: Security and Survival in a Hyper-Connected World

"Couldry and Mejias have written a profoundly important book, demonstrating the lasting value of social theory to the interpretation (and improvement) of our new digital reality. They deeply understand the nature of platform capitalism. They draw striking and rigorously reasoned parallels between modern tech giants and the firms and governments that exploited colonies in centuries past. And they advance an agenda for decolonizing data that promotes a healthier ecology of online interaction. This book is an essential guide to understanding the depths of the crises in data protection, privacy, and automation that we now face."

—Frank Pasquale, Professor of Law, University of Maryland Carey School of Law

"Couldry and Mejias show that data colonialism is not a metaphor. It is a process that expands 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 scattered throughout."

—Joseph Turow, University of Pennsylvania

"This book is a must-read for those grappling with how the global data economy reproduces long-standing social injustice, and what must be done to counter this phenomenon. With a feast of insights embedded in visceral historical and contemporary illustrations, the authors brilliantly push the reader to rethink the relations between technology, power, and inequality."

—Payal Arora, author of The Next Billion Users: Digital Life beyond the West

"This is a deeply critical engagement with the systems that enable 'data colonialism' to extend its reach into the past, present and future of human life itself. Couldry and Mejias provide a comprehensive and well-considered challenge to the seeming inevitability of this transformative development in capitalism. Theirs is a giant step forward along the path toward rediscovering the meaning and possibility of self-determination. It is not too late to join in!"

—Oscar H. Gandy, Jr., Emeritus Professor, Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania

"This book is among the most insightful and important contributions to our understanding of the political economy of data and the 'internet of things.' It brings together historical analysis, critical theory, and a trenchant sense of urgency to reveal what's really at stake as we choose to send information through everything and connect our bodies and minds to streams of data."

—Siva Vaidhyanathan, author of Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy

"Nick Couldry and Ulises A. Mejias go digging deeply into the digital: its spaces, its layers, its deployments. One of their guiding efforts concerns what it actually takes to have this digital capacity in play. It is not an innocent event: it is in some ways closer to an extractive sector, and this means there is a price we pay for its existence."

—Saskia Sassen, author of Expulsions

mEdia videos

mEdia podcasts

Nick Couldry discusses the article "Data Colonialism: Rethinking Big Data’s Relation to the Contemporary Subject" with the editor of “Television & News Media” Jonathan Corpus Ong.

Originally posted on 17 December 2018.

In this episode of the “Digital Sociology” podcast, Nick Couldry talks about his recent work on digital data, colonialism and mediatization.

Originally posted on 19 February 2019.

Nick Couldry discusses the article "Data Colonialism: Rethinking Big Data’s Relation to the Contemporary Subject" with the editor of “Television & News Media” Jonathan Corpus Ong.

Originally posted on 17 December 2018.

mEdia interviews & other media

“Getting Cash for Our Data Could Actually Make Things Worse”

Drawing on concepts developed in their book, The Costs of Connection, Nick Couldry and Ulises A. Mejías criticise the suggestion of paying users for their personal data.

Originally published 25 October 2019.

“Colonialismo de Dados Ameaça Liberdade e Dá Gás à 'Guerra Fria' EUA x China” (in Portuguese)

In an interview with Kaluan Bernardo for UOL, a leading Brazilian journalistic website, Nick Couldry explores the meaning and consequences of data colonialism.

Originally published 25 May 2019.

“Novo Colonialismo Não Explora Apenas Riquezas Naturais, Explora Nossos Dados” (in Portuguese)

Nick Couldry’s work on data colonialism is discussed in this piece published by Jornal da USP, a website of the University of São Paulo. He was interviewed by Denis Pacheco.

Originally published 20 May 2019.