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Cited by 779Cultural Studies and PostmodernismPolitical Economy and MarxismEthics and Social Impacts of AI

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 29 of the 29 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Digital colonialism: US empire and the new imperialism in the Global South

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Kwet, Michael·2019·Race & Class
DOI 10.1177/0306396818823172
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Abstract

This article proposes a conceptual framework of how the United States is reinventing colonialism in the Global South through the domination of digital technology. Using South Africa as a case study, it argues that US multinationals exercise imperial control at the architecture level of the digital ecosystem: software, hardware and network connectivity, which then gives rise to related forms of domination. The monopoly power of multinational corporations is used for resource extraction through rent and surveillance – economic domination. By controlling the digital ecosystem, Big Tech corporations control computer-mediated experiences, giving them direct power over political, economic and cultural domains of life – imperial control. The centrepiece of surveillance capitalism, Big Data, violates the sanctity of privacy and concentrates economic power in the hands of US corporations – a system of global surveillance capitalism. As a feature of surveillance capitalism, Global North intelligence agencies partner with their own corporations to conduct mass and targeted surveillance in the Global South – which intensifies imperial state surveillance. US elites have persuaded people that society must proceed according to its ruling class conceptions of the digital world, setting the foundation for tech hegemony. The author argues for a different ecosystem that decentralises technology by placing control directly into the hands of the people to counter the rapidly advancing frontier of digital empire.

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Crossref · 10.1177/0306396818823172

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Show all 29 references

Research works printed but not linked: 8

  1. African National Congress , ‘54th National Conference: report and resolutions’, December 2017, p. 26, http://www.anc.org.za/sites/default/files/54th_National_Conference_Report.pdf.
  2. Horan Hubert, 2017, Transportation Law Journal, 44, 38
  3. Reidenberg Joel, 1998, Texas Law Review, 76
  4. Wu Tim, 2003, Journal of Telecommunications and High Technology Law, 2
  5. See Mazzucato Mariana, The Entrepreneurial State: debunking public vs. private sector myths (New York: Public Affairs, 2015), pp. 93–116.
  6. McCoy Alfred, Policing America’s Empire: the United States, the Philippines, and the rise of the surveillance state (Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2009), p. 21.
  7. Kwet Michael, Counterpunch
  8. Breckenridge, Biometric State

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Metadata

Authors
Kwet, M.
Corresponding author
Kwet, Michael
ORCID
Kwet, Michael
Venue
Race & Class
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Published
2019-01-14
Volume
60
Issue
4
Pages
3-26
ISSN
  • 0306-3968 (ISSN-L)
  • 1741-3125
DOI
10.1177/0306396818823172
OpenAlex
W2895649879
Cited by
779
References
29
Citations by year
2026: 187 · 2025: 175 · 2024: 142 · 2023: 98 · 2022: 86 · 2021: 53 · 2020: 29 · 2019: 9
FWCI
49.73
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license (tdm)
Locations
  • Race & Class (publishedVersion)
  • SSRN Electronic Journal (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Communication › Cultural Studies and Postmodernism
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Political Economy and Marxism
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Ethics and Social Impacts of AI
Keywords
digital colonialism, American imperialism, Global South, multinational corporations, Big Tech, surveillance capitalism, data capitalism, privacy, government surveillance, intelligence services, digital ecosystems, South Africa, economic domination, resource extraction

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