Data relations are the social form that makes data extraction seem natural and normal

Evidence

By “data relations” we do not mean relations between data but the new types of human relations that data as a potential commodity enables. In time, data relations are likely to become as naturalized as labor relations. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 132

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the authors’ central neologism “data relations” — the load-bearing concept of their data colonialism framework.
• XREF: Connects to labor-relations analogies in critical platform studies; the naturalization of labor relations echoes Marx’s commodity fetishism and Polanyi’s embeddedness. — connects to: Data acquires extractability only through socially constructed relations, not as a natural given — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 133; Data colonial extraction persists by converting data relations into durable social relations — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 84; Micro-level data relations are rendered commonsensical by extractive rationalities — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 297 (+5 more)
• QUESTION: Is the labor-relations analogy analytically sound, or does it smuggle in false symmetry between markets for labor and data relations?

Broader Connections

• Data extraction needs to feel natural and normal, not like theft, to stabilize #corroborates (0.95) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 134
• Data acquires extractability only through socially constructed relations, not as a natural given #corroborates (0.92) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 133
• Micro-level data relations are rendered commonsensical by extractive rationalities #corroborates (0.88) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 297
• Data colonial extraction persists by converting data relations into durable social relations #expands (0.82) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 84