125Codex case fileSources on file

Surveillance capitalism

Q: Surveillance capitalism

Surveillance capitalism commonly refers to corporations collecting and commodifying personal or behavioral data for profit, especially through targeted advertising and prediction. The concept is associated particularly with Shoshana Zuboff’s work. The critical account argues that data extraction has expanded into systems of behavioral prediction and modification, threatening privacy, autonomy, democratic accountability, and equality. Dissenting analyses argue that the framework is conceptually imprecise or too sweeping, and that problems attributed to surveillance capitalism may instead result from weak governance, inequality, or particular business practices. The main disagreement is whether surveillance capitalism is a distinct and especially dangerous economic order, or an overextended label for problems in digital political economy that require more specific explanations and policy responses.

Filed under: Techno-Oligarchy
Type: Background entry
Sources: 11

If a handful of attention-driven platforms can anticipate and shape our choices at scale, who are we still free to become as a society?

Summary

The critical account treats surveillance capitalism as a distinctive profit logic built around appropriating personal experience, converting it into data, and using it to predict or influence behavior. It argues that this model concentrates knowledge and power, weakens privacy and autonomy, and can undermine democratic accountability. Some related scholarship accepts serious harms but attributes them less to capitalism itself than to unregulated corporate surveillance and inequality.

Surveillance capitalism is presented as a new logic of accumulation in which private experience is translated into commodities, including behavioral predictions traded in markets.
The model is argued to have spread beyond a few technology firms into a broader surveillance-based economic order.
Critics warn that behavioral monitoring, targeting, and modification can threaten autonomy, privacy, democratic oversight, and the conditions of free societies.

Source mix

6 of 11 institutional

6 Journals & institutions
1 Early research (not yet peer-reviewed)
1 Reference & archives
3 Other / unclassified

Deeper Insight

Revisionist and defensive scholarship argues that “surveillance capitalism” can function as a broad master frame that bundles together distinct technologies, markets, and political problems. It questions whether Zuboff’s propositions are sufficiently grounded or causally precise, and argues that critics overstate harms involving targeted advertising, politics, mental health, government surveillance, social trust, and privacy. This view does not deny data collection, but disputes the framework’s scope and explanatory force.

A critique of the thesis argues that its popularity has outpaced critical scrutiny and challenges six of its central propositions within digital political economy.
Some reviewers argue that Zuboff’s account is too sweeping, insufficiently connected to relevant scholarship, and vulnerable to tautological reasoning about why firms engage in surveillance.
A defensive account argues that common claims about surveillance capitalism’s harms are unfounded or exaggerated across areas including advertising, politics, mental health, government surveillance, trust, and privacy.

Sources · 11

6 Journals & institutions
1 Early research (not yet peer-reviewed)
1 Reference & archives
3 Other / unclassified

What do these mean?

Journals & institutions. Published in a peer-reviewed journal, or from a university, government body, court or other institution.
Early research (not yet peer-reviewed). A research paper posted publicly before independent experts have reviewed it (a preprint). Real researchers, but not yet checked.
Reference & archives. Encyclopedias and web archives: a place to look something up or a stored copy, not an original source.
Other / unclassified. A site we have not classified yet. This says nothing good or bad about it.

Featured · Analysis · papers.ssrn.com
A Critique of the 'Surveillance Capitalism' Thesis: Toward a Digital Political Economy
Early research · not yet reviewed
A Critique of the 'Surveillance Capitalism' Thesis: Toward a Digital Political Economy by Milton Mueller :: SSRN Skip to main content ** ** PDF iconDownload This Paper Open PDF in Browser **Add Paper to My Library Share: * ** * ** * ** * ** Permalink Using these links will ensure access to this page
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Analysis · budrich-journals.de
budrich-journals.de
Other
## Book Review Surveil and Control: A critical review of “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism” Jan J. Zygmuntowski The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it. Weiser, 1991 When the whole of s
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Analysis · link.springer.com
The Real Cost of Surveillance Capitalism: Digital Humanism in the United States and Europe | Springer Nature Link
Journal · peer-reviewed
The Real Cost of Surveillance Capitalism: Digital Humanism in the United States and Europe | Springer Nature Link # The Real Cost of Surveillance Capitalism: Digital Humanism in the United States and Europe - Allison Stanger 5 ## Abstract Shoshana Zuboff’s international best seller, The Age of Surve
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