Book Reviews
Book Reviews
Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power.
London: Profile Books, 2019, 691 pp.: ISBN: 978-1-78-125685-5, £10.99 (pbk).
Reviewed by: Danie¨lle Flonk , Hertie School, Germany
DOI: 10.1177/1354856520918721
In Internet governance, there is an overarching question that speaks to us all. If we thought the
Internet was open and emancipating, then how and why can private companies and governments
control and influence the Internet? This broader puzzle runs like a thread through Zuboff’s The Age
of Surveillance Capitalism. The author nicely ties together these seemingly dispersed instances of
closure under the unified and comprehensive framework of surveillance capitalism. Surveillance
capitalism is a logic in action that ‘unilaterally claims human experience as free raw material for
translation into behavioral data’ (p. 8). Zuboff sets out the argument in three parts: the foundations,
the advances, and the outlook.
In the first part (Chapters 2–6), the author sets the stage for surveillance capitalism. Zuboff
starts by arguing that behavioral data by private companies are used beyond service improvement,
to constitute a behavioral surplus (p. 75). Via the analysis of vast amounts of data that companies
like Google own, private companies can produce predictions of future behavior. Due to this
behavioral surplus, private companies can trade prediction products to customers on new markets
in future behavior (p. 96). This is the extraction imperative: economies of scale in the extraction of
behavioral surplus (p. 87).
This chain of components between behavioral surveillance, prediction products and markets in
future behavior converges into surveillance capitalism: ‘a new economic order that claims human
experience as free raw material for hidden commercial practices of extraction, prediction and
sales’ (‘the definition’). Although this provides a helpful theoretical lens through which one can
observe Internet markets, it frequently remains uncertain what (and where) surveillance capitalism
actually is. Zuboff mainly conceptualizes surveillance capitalism as a new economic order or a
logic in action. However, the author also argues that it is a new actor in history,1
invented,2
a new
market form,3
and a logic of capital accumulation.4
Although not all of these conceptualizations
might be mutually exclusive, quite ironically, identifying surveillance capitalism is – in real life
and in The Age of Surveillance Capitalism – like nailing jelly to the wall.
In the second part (Chapters 7–11), Zuboff takes the argument further by stating that surveillance
capitalism is not only a matter of new behavioral future markets but the certainty of those
futures. Hence, the author moves from an extraction imperative to the prediction imperative, which
engages in the question: ‘what forms of surplus enable the fabrication of prediction products that
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most reliably foretell the future?’ (p. 198). For this imperative, not only economies of scale are
important, but in order to produce more powerful prediction products, surveillance capitalists
required economies of scope (pp. 199–200): extending (across a range of activities) and deepening
(personalization increases the predictive detail within activities) behavioral surplus flows
(pp. 252–255).
After economies of scope, surveillance capitalists needed economies of action. Instead of
predicting behavior, they shape and modify human behavior to provide guaranteed outcomes
(p. 292): ‘(t)he aim of this undertaking is not to impose behavioral norms, ( . . . ), but rather to
produce behavior that ( . . . ) leads to desired commercial results’ (p. 201). Hence, surveillance
capitalism is ‘using its unilateral knowledge (scale and scope) to shape your behavior now (action)
in order to more accurately predict your behavior later’ (p. 316). I want to push the argument
further of seeing behavioral modification only as a commercial endeavor. Since political actors
such as political parties can be customers of surveillance capitalists, I would argue that commercial
results and the imposing of behavioral norms often overlap. Although the tool might be based on an
economic logic, the application and the output might certainly be political. Furthermore, when
surveillance capitalist actors are not private companies but public companies, this distinction
between economic and political imperatives is increasingly blurring.
In the third part (Chapters 12–17), Zuboff looks forward by painting a dystopian picture of
surveillance capitalist futures based on extracting, predicting, and modifying behavioral surplus.
This type of society is not based in totalitarianism as we might expect, but embedded in what the
author calls instrumentarianism. Whereas totalitarianism is operated through the means of violence,
instrumentarianism operates through the means of behavioral modification: ‘a market
project that converges with the digital to achieve its own unique brand of social domination’
(p. 360). However, Zuboff also recognizes that this process is not irreversible and that ‘only
authority stands in the way: democratic institutions; laws; regulations; rights and obligations ( . . . )’
(p. 404). The author argues that we need synthetic declarations (p. 480) – alternative frameworks
that would change the game (p. 344) – that challenge the asymmetrical power relationships
embedded in surveillance capitalism (p. 485).
Although Zuboff emphasizes the importance of democratic institutions, in these last chapters it
remains unclear how we can actually fight surveillance capitalism. Although logics of collective
action and regulation might be a solution for market capitalism, it is questionable how this could
constrain surveillance capitalism when capitalist relationships have changed (i.e. humans are no
longer workers or consumers). As the author argues, ‘regulatory interventions designed to constrain
Google’s monopoly practices are likely to have little effect on the fundamental operations of
this market form’ (p. 132). Instead, would it not be better to tackle the accumulation of behavioral
surplus and the trading of such surplus on markets in future behavior? Why only address those
private companies that produce and sell behavioral surplus (i.e. supply) and not also look at those
economic and political actors buying behavioral futures (i.e. demand)?
To conclude, I come back to the puzzle presented in the introduction: How do an open and
emancipating Internet, and control and influence of the Internet by private companies and governments
converge? The paradox of personalization would answer that although private companies
offer personalization, surveillance capitalism is based on imposed social relations that remain
radically indifferent to our behavior (p. 513). The paradox of privatized publicness would answer
that although we can make ourselves visible in networked public spaces, these spaces are privatized
and designed to maximize surveillance revenues (pp. 455–456). At the basis of these answers
lies the asymmetry of power and knowledge between netizens and surveillance capitalists (p. 191).
Book Reviews 285
Hence, Zuboff’s The Age of Surveillance Capitalism is an important contribution to the Internet
governance literature. It is thought-provoking and will provide food for thought for generations to
come, whether they are scholars, policy-makers, or users.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/
or publication of this article: This research was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
(DFG, German Research Foundation), FOR 2409, JA 772/8 -1.
ORCID iD
Danie¨lle Flonk https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2126-8340
Notes
1. ‘( . . . ) surveillance capitalism is a new actor in history, both original and sui generis’ (p. 14).
2. ‘Key to our conversation is this fact: surveillance capitalism was invented by a specific group of human
beings in a specific times and place’ (p. 85).
3. ‘( . . . ) a sweeping new logic that enshrined surveillance and the unilateral expropriation of behavioral data
as the basis for a new market form’ (p. 87).
4. ‘The entire logic of this capital accumulation is most accurately understood as surveillance capitalism,
which is the foundational framework for a surveillance-based economic order: a surveillance economy’
(p. 94, emphasis in original).
Reference
Zuboff S (2019) The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier Of
Power. London: Profile Books.
Author biography
Danie¨lle Flonk is a PhD candidate at the Berlin Graduate School for Global and Transregional Studies and a
research associate in the DFG-funded research project ’Evolving Internet Interfaces: Content Control and
Privacy Protection’ at the Hertie School. She has recently published her research in Global Constitutionalism.
Her research interests include international relations with a focus on content control, internet governance, and
norm development.
Patricia Ticineto Clough, The User Unconscious: On Affect, Media, and Measure. Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 2018. 209 pp.: ISBN 978-1-5179-0422-7, $25.00 (pbk)
Reviewed by: Gary Kafer, University of Chicago, USA
DOI: 10.1177/1354856520941802
In The User Unconscious, Patricia Ticineto Clough presents a collection of essays that examine
21st-century computational technologies through the fields of media studies, continental philosophy,
and critical theory. Originally published between 2007 and 2016, these texts register how
286 Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 27(1)