The cloud metaphor actively shapes rather than merely describes social reality
Evidence
Today’s data empires are not necessarily interested in land, but they are interested—at least allegorically—in air. If there is one metaphor that captures the structure of this nascent empire, it is that of “the cloud.” Essentially, cloud computing enables on-demand access to a shared pool of computing resources. Because information is stored on third-party servers, not on the owner’s computer, the data is said to live “in the cloud.” More than just a convenient and evocative metaphor, the concept of the cloud operates at different levels to help shape our social realities. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 171
Categorization
- DEFINE: Defines cloud computing plainly and flags that ‘the cloud’ is a performative metaphor, not just description.
- XREF: Connects to the reader’s ADDENDUM corpus about trees/infrastructure — ‘cloud’ versus ‘root’ as metaphors of where our lives are kept; and echoes John Durham Peters on infrastructural metaphors. — connects to: Image and text circulation materially drives the climate crisis through its physical substrates — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 558; The cloud operates as an episteme that pre-organizes social life for datafication — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 173; The body-as-metaphor legitimated social hierarchy as naturally given (+4 more)
Broader Connections
- The cloud operates as an episteme that pre-organizes social life for datafication
#expands(0.88) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 173 - New social knowledge alters the social world rather than merely describing it
#corroborates(0.85) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 363 - The body-as-metaphor legitimated social hierarchy as naturally given
#exemplifies(0.80) - Cloud capital functions as a produced means of behaviour modification.
#expands(0.78) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 655 - Even abstract thought is built from physical and sensory metaphors
#complicates(0.75) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 728