Corporations now command a ‘God view’ of the social world called social caching

Evidence

A new “social knowledge” emerges that lies entirely under corporate control. We call this “social caching.” This “God view” of the social world, though parceled out among many corporations, coalesces in a corporate social imaginary that justifies new ways of governing everyday life for the benefit and convenience of corporate power (think of insurers’ expanded power to demand self-tracking as a condition of service). — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 580

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘social caching’ and ‘God view’ — key coined terms for the data-colonial frame.
• XREF: Contrasts with attention/surveillance school’s focus on captured attention; this frame centers knowledge capture instead. — connects to: Social caching grants corporate power privileged legibility over human life — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 419; Corporations treat streamed social data as a management surface — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 419; Surveillance capitalism converts everyday shared spaces into objects of commercial inspection — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 445 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Social caching grants corporate power privileged legibility over human life #expands (0.95) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 419
• Platform data extraction operates as a continuous cache-gathering of social life. #expands (0.92) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 411
• Corporations treat streamed social data as a management surface #expands (0.90) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 419
• Surveillance capitalism converts everyday shared spaces into objects of commercial inspection #corroborates (0.85) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 445
• Corporate-controlled social knowledge reorders society in favor of corporations over citizens. #expands (0.85) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 368
• Human life as organized through data is the new direct input of capitalism #corroborates (0.82) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 160
• Facebook’s vision subordinates whole societies, not just users, to its predictive embrace #exemplifies (0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1279