2020 Beaverbrook Annual Lectures: Responding to Surveillance Capitalism
The Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy is thrilled to present a two-part 2020 Beaverbrook Public Lecture on responding to surveillance capitalism.
Technological surveillance is an undeniable reality of the modern digital landscape, one that is largely characterized by the tracking, collection, and manipulation of users’ data and interactions - both online and off. The data collected and leveraged through this surveillance infrastructure is the central economic driver of the digital economy, with immense stakes for our social, political and democratic lives.
Which is why the Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy is bringing two of the most thoughtful thinkers on the concept, Shoshana Zuboff and Cory Doctorow to McGill for a two-part Annual Beaverbrook Public Lecture: “Responding to Surveillance Capitalism.”
Image credit: https://shoshanazuboff.com
For acclaimed author and Charles Edward Wilson Professor Emerita at Harvard Business School, Shoshana Zuboff, technological surveillance marks the definitive watershed of our contemporary moment: a “world in which technology users are neither customers, employees, nor products. Instead they are the raw material for new procedures of manufacturing and sales that define an entirely new economic order: a surveillance economy.” Popularized by her widely influential 2019 book, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power the concept of surveillance capitalism has pervaded public, academic, and policy debates around the world.
Our first Beaverbrook Annual Lecture features Shoshana Zuboff, acclaimed author and Charles Edward Wilson Professor Emerita at Harvard Business School on November 23 at 12:00 EST. Dr. Zuboff is the author of three books, each of which signaled the start of a new epoch in technological society, including In the Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power which foresaw how computers would revolutionize the modern workplace. Her influential The Support Economy: Why Corporations Are Failing Individuals and the Next Episode of Capitalism (with James Maxmin) outlined the rise of digitally-mediated products and services tailored to the individual and warned of the risks if companies failed to alter their approach to capitalism.
Dr. Zuboff’s lecture, “The Future of Surveillance Capitalism” will build from her acclaimed work to shine a critical light on the realities of the western world’s contemporary digital landscape. Her book opens up important questions about the future of our digital economy, but also revives longstanding tensions between technological control versus collective agency. The talk will conclude with an open Q&A from our participants, moderated by Jonathan Sterne, James McGill Chair in Culture and Technology at McGill University.
Image credit: jonathanworth.com.
Our second Beaverbrook Annual Lecture will be given by acclaimed novelist, activist, and journalist, Cory Doctorow on November 30 at 12:00 EST. As a science fiction author, technology activist and journalist, Cory Doctorow is the author of several books including his latest, Attack Surface, a standalone adult sequel to Little Brother and Homeland. He is also the author How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism, a nonfiction about conspiracies and monopolies published in full on One Zero, and of Radicalized and Walkaway, science fiction for adults, a YA graphic novel called In Real Life; and young adult novels like Homeland, Pirate Cinema and Little Brother. His first picture book was Poesy the Monster Slayer (Aug 2020).
Cory maintains a daily blog where he regularly comments on technology, its use and the corporate narratives that fuel them. He is also a MIT Media Lab Research Affiliate, a Visiting Professor of Computer Science at Open University, and a Visiting Professor of Practice at the University of North Carolina’s School of Library and Information Science. He currently works for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a leading digital rights organization, and previously co-founded the UK Open Rights Group.
His lecture, “How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism” will build from his recently published book of the same name, and will present a critical analysis of technology monopolies as the broader structural problem behind surveillance capitalism. Crucially, Cory Doctorow will discuss what we as a society can do about it.
The Q&A following his lecture will be moderated by Gabriella Coleman, Wolfe Chair in Scientific and Technological Literacy at McGill University. Dr. Coleman is an expert on how technology is used by different groups and is in turn reshaped by that use. This discussion will hopefully lead us to ask important questions about what a reimagined model of our digital infrastructure could look like.
Students can submit questions for the live Q&A with Shoshana Zuboff or for a live Q&A with Cory Doctorow here. The first 100 submissions will be sent a copy of Shoshana Zuboff's book, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power or a copy of Cory Doctorow's new book, Attack Surface. Students can also choose to donate their copy to a school, prison, or community organization.
Both events are free and open to the public. They will take place live on Zoom. Participants can register here for Shoshana Zuboff on November 23 at 12:00 EST and here for Cory Doctorow, on November 30 at 12:00 EST.
These public lectures are generously supported by the Beaverbrook Foundation. The Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy thanks the Beaverbrook Foundation for their support.
