Research On Data Monitoring From The Perspective Of Communication Political Economy

We can observe that the big data explosion and the spread of data are triggering huge economic and social changes,with various applications and digital platforms capturing information about people's lives and turning it into data,which,through algorithmic analysis and deep mining,turns raw data into commodities with exchange value and becomes a key part of the business model of precision marketing.Personal data "feeds" companies,which in turn are "sold" back to consumers as types of online services(e.g.,personalization),and the personal life domain is integrated into the digital record on all fronts,with members of society gradually losing the flexibility to live freely.This situation foreshadows the formation of a new social order that is harmful to human life-surveillance capitalism-on a global scale.In this context,this paper draws on and incorporates the concept of "surveillance capitalism" proposed by the American scholar Zuboff as a conceptual tool for phenomenological analysis,while at the same time placing the phenomenon of data surveillance in a broader economic and social context,i.e.,spreading the care perspective of political economy theory.By combining the conceptual tools of phenomenological analysis with the framework of theoretical analysis,this paper aims to explore how media and communication systems intensively challenge and influence existing class and other social power relations;to take a closer look at how new communication technologies affect monopolistic economic production and everyday consumption;and to reflect on the economic alienation and digital labor obscured by electronic commerce created by the combination of data surveillance technologies and the digital economy.The focus of this paper is on the role of data in capital operations: a medium that links "monitored organization-monitored individual","individual-enterprise","digital labor-data capital".This is a medium that links "monitoring organization-monitored individual","individual-enterprise" and "digital labor-data capital".Data not only reflects this dichotomy,but also plays a central role in surveillance activities.This paper examines how surveillance capitalism as an emerging economic order accomplishes capital accumulation and value exploitation by exposing and critiquing the business model based on data surveillance,delving into the political and economic dimensions of data surveillance,and grasping the temporal and spatial institutions inherent in data surveillance.This study points out that the backbone logic of surveillance capitalism is that capitalists use data to monitor human life in order to achieve capital accumulation.Data is the means,surveillance is the process,and capital accumulation is the ultimate goal.The three are inextricably intertwined: data extends and reinforces surveillance capabilities,capital's intrinsic drive for infinite proliferation motivates its infinite demand for data,and demand further allows surveillance to be built on a range of mobile devices and Internet platforms that enable data collection in different ways.Data maps our lives and is invading our lives.Almost all large companies are building large databases and partnering with data mining companies.Surveillance and information control has expanded from being a means of risk control to being a measure of everything that can be digitized.This is why "surveillance" has come to be known as an era that defines an institution.This paper finds that surveillance capitalism is a surveillance system that transforms personal data into profitable and capable of earning profits for the capital that exploits and invests in this data resource.Personal data as a resource and people as resource extracts are transformed into labor and labor products in a digital surveillance system,which becomes the main source of surplus value accumulated by Internet companies.By comparing the historical dimensions,this paper argues that the new business model transforms surveillance systems into flexible,invisible,and yet expansive,and that the synergy of capital and technological means not only transforms social productivity but also restructures social relations.The realities of control,exploitation,and inequality have become deeper in every respect than they were in the era of information capitalism.The research in this paper also finds that data surveillance is not always mediated by advertising.The business model of data surveillance that Zuboff focuses on is a chain of commodification mediated by advertising: by monitoring users' online traces,their trace labor is first transformed into an economy of attention and then indirectly into the monetary value embodied in advertising,and ultimately into economic exploitation.In contrast,a fintech platform does not need advertising as an intermediary;it earns profits by having direct financial relationships(lending or financial management)with users,and thus this paper characterizes it as a direct economic exploitation.In summary,this paper argues that surveillance technology is powerful not in itself,and that there is no technology called "surveillance" that exerts Orwellian control over us,but rather that surveillance is integrated into other technologies and operational systems,drawing on a range of social-cultural and technological politics,to effectively increase economic efficiency and expand social control.Without mobile smart phones,surveillance terminals would not have penetrated so deeply into our daily lives;without cloud computing systems,computers would not have been able to support the storage and analysis of massive amounts of data;without big data,the complex data on the Internet would not have been efficiently summarized,retrieved and integrated;without the rise of App platforms,there would not have been a large number of Internet companies,and data-driven would not have become a common business model;without Without the establishment of an ideology that greatly emphasizes the role of "digital economy",data would not have been established as a new factor of production by the state and developed rapidly under a liberal policy environment,or at least not with such a large social effect.Thus,data surveillance is not only a technical term,but also a social construct.