BIBFRAME Work

Title

Deconstructing digital capitalism and the smart society

Type

  • Monograph
  • Text

Contribution

Subject

Language

Classification

Content

Supplementary content

Summary

"Today's critics of big online platforms tend to consider privacy breaches, monopolistic practices, and the deployment of surveillance technologies as the main problems. Internet reformers suggest the answers to these issues reside in more-and better-regulations. While the questions of privacy, data, and size are indeed important, they are secondary however to a deeper set of concerns about platform ownership and control, and who benefits from the current status quo. This book examines these issues and offers an historical overview and in-depth analysis of digital capitalism and its prevailing practices as it has become increasingly intertwined with various forms of online surveillance, behavior modification, and the delegation of managerial functions to algorithmic and automated systems in platform economies. That approach extends to the wider array of data-driven, internet-connected and automated systems that involve digital devices and technologies centered on three "smart" spaces: the smart self, the smart home, and the smart city. Antitrust and other regulatory measures by the European Union and the United States that are aimed at restraining platform capitalism are also discussed. The focus in particular is on recent developments regarding artificial intelligence and their potentially harmful implications. This is followed by a critical look at proposals for more far-reaching institutional reforms revolving around the creation of forms of "platform socialism" that build partly on existing practices of platform cooperativism. The book concludes with a diagnosis of the global situation among the competing "digital empires" (the United States, the European Union, and China), and considers whether or not, under the present conditions, any form of democratic platform socialism could materialize on a wider scale in the near future."-- Provided by publisher.

Table of Contents

Contemporary capitalism and the rise of data colonialism -- The Internet : from a government-owned network to a privatized one -- Moving towards surveillance advertising led by Google -- Identifying the distinctive features of various types of online platforms -- The wider array of smart tech devices and systems -- The smart self and algorithmic management expanded and intensified -- Smart homes and smart cities : hype about benefits versus drawbacks for users -- Smart technologies, city surveillance and predictive policing -- Moves to rein in capitalism interlocked with data colonialism -- Taking up the challenges of regulating artificial intelligence -- Proposals to deprivatize the Internet and foster platform socialism -- Competing digital empires and the future of platform capitalism globally.

Authorized Access Point

Elteren, Mel van. Deconstructing digital capitalism and the smart society

Admin Metadata

  • Date: 2026-09-11T20:14:45.518851+00:00
  • Agent: cbc
  • Status: c
  • Derived from: 23940398

Admin Metadata

  • Date: 2026-09-11
  • Cataloger id: Unknown
  • Description level: http://id.loc.gov/ontologies/bibframe-2-6-0/
  • Description language: eng
  • Description authentication: pcc

Alternative Formats

Blue Core Actions

  • Load to Marva Marva loads Instances, not Works. Open one of this Work's Instances and load that into Marva instead.
  • Load to Sinopia
  • Export to Catalog Only Instances can be exported. Open one of this Work's Instances and export that instead.