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The Hidden Human and Environmental Costs of the Digital Growth Machine / Lauren Bridges.
- Format:
- Book
- Thesis/Dissertation
- Author/Creator:
- Bridges, Lauren, author.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Communication.
- Sociology.
- Information technology.
- Communication--Penn dissertations.
- Penn dissertations--Communication.
- Local Subjects:
- Communication.
- Sociology.
- Information technology.
- Communication--Penn dissertations.
- Penn dissertations--Communication.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource (283 pages)
- Contained In:
- Dissertations Abstracts International 85-03B.
- Place of Publication:
- [Philadelphia, Pennsylvania] : University of Pennsylvania, 2022.
- Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 2023
- Language Note:
- English
- Summary:
- This dissertation explores the ideology and operative logics of The Digital Growth Machine - a vision of frictionless digital growth, which obscures the industrial nature of digital expansion and its related human and environmental costs. Through a multisited and comparative ethnography, this dissertation offers a situated and geographically specific study of the social and environmental impacts of digital infrastructure expansion in two regions in the United States - Northern Virginia and Southern California - where digital retailers and cloud companies have been aggressively expanding to support their data-intensive operations. Using Amazon as a primary case study, this dissertation draws from 24 months of fieldwork and desk research including targeted interviews, participant observation, and discourse analysis of policy documents to argue that proponents of the digital growth machine exploit local political conditions to promote digital expansion; control and command workers through digital infrastructures to meet the demands of digital growth; and obscure the widespread environmental impacts of digital infrastructures through regulation gaps and narrow industry reporting standards. Counter to its frictionless imaginary, I find that the digital growth machine emerges in and through social friction, which pits global economic and local political interests against community welfare. By attending to moments of tension and rupture in local politics around land use decisions, data-driven workplace practices, and the transregional and global environmental impacts of digital infrastructures, this dissertation examines how our misguided commitment to digital growth disproportionately harms marginalized communities and threatens rural and agricultural landscapes. Finally, this study draws attention to stories of grassroots organizing and resistance in local enclaves, which reveal alternate visions of our digital futures based on a regenerative approach to growth. As more of our digital tools, platforms, and devices are being built upon these core digital infrastructures, this study shows how the politics of digital growth increasingly collide with the politics of land, labor, and waste.
- Notes:
- Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 85-03, Section: B.
- Advisors: Pickard, Victor; Committee members: Hall Jamieson, Kathleen; Kraidy, Marwan; Ticona, Julia; Punathambekar, Aswin.
- Department: Communication.
- Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania 2023.
- Local Notes:
- School code: 0175
- ISBN:
- 9798380389167
- Access Restriction:
- Restricted for use by site license.
- This item is not available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses.
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