To the Cloud: Big Data in a Turbulent World September 25, 2013 02:00pm-04:00pm Room A7.03, Harrow Campus, University of Westminster, Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI), Northwick Park tube station (Metropolitan Line) Full information: http://www.westminster.ac.uk/research/a-z/camri/seminars/camri-seminar-calen... Opening talk of this autumn’s CAMRI Research Seminar Series (announcement of further dates/events will follow) Participation Participation is free and everyone is welcome. Please register at latest until 22 September by sending an email to Christian Fuchs: christian.fuchs@uti.at. Abstract This presentation offers an account of the political, economic, social and cultural issues emerging from the growth of cloud computing. It starts by situating cloud computing as a major force in the globalisation of informational capitalism and in the advance of a particular way of knowing, what I call digital positivism. It proceeds to examine the origins of cloud computing in the movements that arose in the pre-internet era to create an information utility. The presentation then defines cloud computing, describes its major characteristics, and identifies the leading corporate, and government cloud players. In doing so, it describes the battles for market power among a handful of companies such as Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Rackspace, the rapid and, for some, worrisome, expansion of the government cloud, the internationalisation of cloud computing, and the emergence of bottom-up community cloud projects. Next, it considers how the cloud is being marketed and mythologised through advertising, social media, corporate and government research, industry lobbying, and marketing events. Massive promotion is essential because dark clouds are gathering over the industry including the environmental problems created by data centres; concerns over privacy, security, and surveillance; and labour issues, particularly the impact on IT departments, and more generally on knowledge workers whose jobs are threatened by the cloud. The presentation concludes by offering a technical and a cultural critique of big data, digital positivism, and the cloud’s “way of knowing.” Biography Dr Vincent Mosco is Professor Emeritus, Queen's University, Canada. He is formerly Canada Research Chair in Communication and Society and Professor of Sociology. He is author of many works, including The Political Economy of Communication, second edition (Sage, 2009), The Laboring of Communication: Will Knowledge Workers of the World Unite (co-authored with Catherine McKercher, Lexington Books, 2008), and The Digital Sublime: Myth, Power, and Cyberspace (MIT Press, 2004). -- Christian Fuchs Professor of Social Media University of Westminster, Communication and Media Research Institute http://fuchs.uti.at, http://www.triple-c.at @fuchschristian +44 (0) 20 7911 5000 ext 67380