Members: Free, Online or Victoria Hall
Non-Members: £10, Online or Victoria Hall
Please book, for online link only, by 1pm on the day of the event
John Hines Memorial Lecture
Do you use social media? Shop online? Use a fitness tracker? Have a smart meter in your house? Chat with friends on messaging apps?
So many of our daily activities now take place online, it’s hard to imagine our lives without these services at our fingertips. But how often do you check the terms and conditions when downloading an app or signing up to an online account? How much do you know about the data that you’re giving away and how it’s being used?
Nick Couldry will explore how big tech companies use our data and how it can be repackaged to manipulate our views, track our movements and discriminate against us. He argues that through this ‘data grab’, colonialism – which was historically a land grab of natural resources, exploitative labour, and private property – has taken on a new form where big tech companies control and exploit our data for profit.
Nick is Professor of Media, Communications and Social Theory in the Department of Media and Communications at LSE. A sociologist of media and culture, he is interested in how media and communications institutions and infrastructures contribute to various types of order (social, political, cultural, economic and ethical).