This talk takes the key terms of this series—environment, capture, and surveillance—and applies them to an emergent phenomenon in the world of big tech: the expansion of ambition and reach in these companies’ climate policies and initiatives. In the face of a “techlash” that is due to concerns about monopoly conditions as well as the environmental impacts of tech products, especially with the development of energy-intensive generative AI technologies, many if not all of the major digital platform companies have rolled out ambitious climate corporate social responsibility initiatives. A number of these seek to connect good corporate climate citizenship with their brand, and extend beyond the company’s own carbon footprint to improving, monitoring, and even regulating the emissions of other companies and organizations. “New practices of data processing and surveillance” via smart technologies are being extended as we speak to ever more human and non-human sites and activities in the name of monitoring carbon emissions and sequestration. From farm soil to oceans, from geo-thermal vents to buried biomass, big tech is expanding surveillance to the molecular level, either directly or via partnerships and investments in climate tech firms. This talk considers two main questions: 1) How does the move of tech platforms into climate surveillance and mitigation both depend upon and perhaps contribute to public trust in their brands (from users and governments), and 2) how will the expansion into climate-focused surveillance, platformization, and governance impact the power of digital platforms?

About the lecturer

Dr. Emily West is Professor of Communication at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is author of Buy Now: How Amazon Branded Convenience and Normalized Monopoly (The MIT Press, 2022) and co-editor, with Matthew P. McAllister, of The Routledge Companion to Advertising and Promotional Culture, 2nd edition (2023). Her recent writing on digital platforms and promotional culture has appeared in a variety of journals and edited volumes, including Surveillance & Society and Media and Communication. Current research includes projects on promotional livestreaming and the climate initiatives of digital platform companies.

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About the lecture series