(Re)Creating "Society in Silico": Surveillance Capitalism, Simulations and Subjectivity in the Cambridge Analytica Data Scandal

<span class='abs_content'>This article provides a different angle to understand the Cambridge Analytica (CA) data scandal. It focuses on the role of models and simulations in the big data campaigning tools CA allegedly used, and their epistemological and ontological potential to prod...

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Autor principal:	Vito Laterza
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Coordinamento SIBA 2021
Materias:	capitalism digital democracy digitalisation simulation spectacle subjectivity surveillance Political science (General) JA1-92
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/1a5ee701ab434e1a913ce4912ede9b3a
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:1a5ee701ab434e1a913ce4912ede9b3a2021-11-21T15:11:42Z(Re)Creating "Society in Silico": Surveillance Capitalism, Simulations and Subjectivity in the Cambridge Analytica Data Scandal1972-76232035-660910.1285/i20356609v14i2p954https://doaj.org/article/1a5ee701ab434e1a913ce4912ede9b3a2021-09-01T00:00:00Zhttp://siba-ese.unisalento.it/index.php/paco/article/view/24267https://doaj.org/toc/1972-7623https://doaj.org/toc/2035-6609<span class='abs_content'>This article provides a different angle to understand the Cambridge Analytica (CA) data scandal. It focuses on the role of models and simulations in the big data campaigning tools CA allegedly used, and their epistemological and ontological potential to produce and reproduce voters' digital doubles that would first colonise and eventually replace the analogue selves they were related to. By integrating and revising Zuboff's surveillance capitalism framework with Debord's classic theory of the Spectacle, the article argues that the dystopian simulations played as real life experiments by surveillance capitalist firms such as CA have the ultimate goal of replacing analogue humanity with digital humanity – the two kinds are ontologically different albeit dialectically related. The predictive models that these simulations produce are only as good as the capacity of the digital doubles in the simulations to shape the behaviour of analogue selves in line with the simulations' parameters and goals.</span><br/>Vito LaterzaCoordinamento SIBAarticlecapitalismdigital democracydigitalisationsimulationspectaclesubjectivitysurveillancePolitical science (General)JA1-92ENPartecipazione e Conflitto, Vol 14, Iss 2, Pp 954-974 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	capitalism digital democracy digitalisation simulation spectacle subjectivity surveillance Political science (General) JA1-92
spellingShingle	capitalism digital democracy digitalisation simulation spectacle subjectivity surveillance Political science (General) JA1-92 Vito Laterza (Re)Creating "Society in Silico": Surveillance Capitalism, Simulations and Subjectivity in the Cambridge Analytica Data Scandal
description	<span class='abs_content'>This article provides a different angle to understand the Cambridge Analytica (CA) data scandal. It focuses on the role of models and simulations in the big data campaigning tools CA allegedly used, and their epistemological and ontological potential to produce and reproduce voters' digital doubles that would first colonise and eventually replace the analogue selves they were related to. By integrating and revising Zuboff's surveillance capitalism framework with Debord's classic theory of the Spectacle, the article argues that the dystopian simulations played as real life experiments by surveillance capitalist firms such as CA have the ultimate goal of replacing analogue humanity with digital humanity – the two kinds are ontologically different albeit dialectically related. The predictive models that these simulations produce are only as good as the capacity of the digital doubles in the simulations to shape the behaviour of analogue selves in line with the simulations' parameters and goals.</span><br/>
format	article
author	Vito Laterza
author_facet	Vito Laterza
author_sort	Vito Laterza
title	(Re)Creating "Society in Silico": Surveillance Capitalism, Simulations and Subjectivity in the Cambridge Analytica Data Scandal
title_short	(Re)Creating "Society in Silico": Surveillance Capitalism, Simulations and Subjectivity in the Cambridge Analytica Data Scandal
title_full	(Re)Creating "Society in Silico": Surveillance Capitalism, Simulations and Subjectivity in the Cambridge Analytica Data Scandal
title_fullStr	(Re)Creating "Society in Silico": Surveillance Capitalism, Simulations and Subjectivity in the Cambridge Analytica Data Scandal
title_full_unstemmed	(Re)Creating "Society in Silico": Surveillance Capitalism, Simulations and Subjectivity in the Cambridge Analytica Data Scandal
title_sort	(re)creating "society in silico": surveillance capitalism, simulations and subjectivity in the cambridge analytica data scandal
publisher	Coordinamento SIBA
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/1a5ee701ab434e1a913ce4912ede9b3a
work_keys_str_mv	AT vitolaterza recreatingsocietyinsilicosurveillancecapitalismsimulationsandsubjectivityinthecambridgeanalyticadatascandal
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(Re)Creating "Society in Silico": Surveillance Capitalism, Simulations and Subjectivity in the Cambridge Analytica Data Scandal

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