Periodic Reporting for period 4 - PLATFORM DISCOURSES (Platform Discourses: A Critical Humanities Approach to the Texts, Images, and Moving Images Produced by Tech Companies)
Reporting period: 2023-04-01 to 2024-11-30
This project analyzes the image of human life generated by tech companies including Google, Apple, and Facebook. The project does so by studying those texts, images, and films produce by these companies including corporate blogs, manifestos, product presentations, and advertising. This research is important because major tech companies increasingly present their platforms as services for the public or common good. This project is critical of this development given these tech companies' market-driven interests. The project's objective is to develop a critical and cohesive framework to understand how tech companies present themselves and also position themselves in relation to for example the climate crisis.
The project has resulted into the following three main publications and their conclusions:
- The monograph "Resisting Big Tech: The Personalized Is Political" (Niels Niessen), forthcoming 2025 at Bloomsbury Academic. Inspired by the feminist rallying cry that “the personal is political,” this book calls for a collective consciousness of how Big Tech's increasingly personalized streams colonize our associations (how we wander in our bodyminds, and we cohere as groups). Articulating a degrowth perspective on Big Tech, the book argues the need to be much more vigilant for how the transhumanist ideology that drives corporations like Google, Meta, and OpenAI accelerates life, burning out people and the planet.
- The PhD dissertation "Digital Voice Assistants as Theatre: Apostrophic Interaction in Platform Discourses" (2025, Nuno Atalaia). This thesis frames digital voice assistants including Apple's Siri and Google's Assistant as as discursive
interventions which have aided the expansion of platform infrastructures onto the everyday lives of individuals. The vocally performed fiction of benevolent assistance was aimed at naturalizing the infiltration
of our lives and their spaces by digital infrastructures such as cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI). At the same time, this expansion imposes on individuals a precarious condition, in which they are less and less equipped to understand the technologies they depend on. DVAs and apostrophic interaction are key in the historical shift in perception of platforms and digital technologies from located silent objects to ubiquitous interpellating agents. The thesis claims that a critique of technological novelty, informed by the methods and practices of the arts and humanities, is vital in critiquing the current practices of Big Tech corporations.
- The PhD dissertation "Platform Earth: Ecomodernism in Tech-on-Climate Discourse" (2025, Rianne Riemens). This thesis argues that the ecological reconfiguration of Silicon Valley is underpinned by an ecomodernist ideology: a vision of the future focused on green growth, in which human progress is “decoupled” from environmental decline. The dissertation shows how Silicon Valley’s eco-modernism propagates that the Earth and its ecosystems are best governed by platform infrastructures. This conviction leads to an instrumental valuation of nature, a unilateral, masculine understanding of the human subject, and an imperialistic vision of progress deeply rooted in the history of the United States. The dissertation critiques the ecomodernist, transhuman narrative that “we” as a humanity can “upgrade” humans and nature and achieve a greener future without making uncomfortable decisions and sociopolitical changes. This is the myth of “Platform Earth”: a strategic narrative that favors only certain lives, solutions and forms of knowledge and legitimizes the continuation of extractivism.
The project has resulted into the following three main publications and their conclusions:
- The monograph "Resisting Big Tech: The Personalized Is Political" (Niels Niessen), forthcoming 2025 at Bloomsbury Academic. Inspired by the feminist rallying cry that “the personal is political,” this book calls for a collective consciousness of how Big Tech's increasingly personalized streams colonize our associations (how we wander in our bodyminds, and we cohere as groups). Articulating a degrowth perspective on Big Tech, the book argues the need to be much more vigilant for how the transhumanist ideology that drives corporations like Google, Meta, and OpenAI accelerates life, burning out people and the planet.
- The PhD dissertation "Digital Voice Assistants as Theatre: Apostrophic Interaction in Platform Discourses" (2025, Nuno Atalaia). This thesis frames digital voice assistants including Apple's Siri and Google's Assistant as as discursive
interventions which have aided the expansion of platform infrastructures onto the everyday lives of individuals. The vocally performed fiction of benevolent assistance was aimed at naturalizing the infiltration
of our lives and their spaces by digital infrastructures such as cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI). At the same time, this expansion imposes on individuals a precarious condition, in which they are less and less equipped to understand the technologies they depend on. DVAs and apostrophic interaction are key in the historical shift in perception of platforms and digital technologies from located silent objects to ubiquitous interpellating agents. The thesis claims that a critique of technological novelty, informed by the methods and practices of the arts and humanities, is vital in critiquing the current practices of Big Tech corporations.
- The PhD dissertation "Platform Earth: Ecomodernism in Tech-on-Climate Discourse" (2025, Rianne Riemens). This thesis argues that the ecological reconfiguration of Silicon Valley is underpinned by an ecomodernist ideology: a vision of the future focused on green growth, in which human progress is “decoupled” from environmental decline. The dissertation shows how Silicon Valley’s eco-modernism propagates that the Earth and its ecosystems are best governed by platform infrastructures. This conviction leads to an instrumental valuation of nature, a unilateral, masculine understanding of the human subject, and an imperialistic vision of progress deeply rooted in the history of the United States. The dissertation critiques the ecomodernist, transhuman narrative that “we” as a humanity can “upgrade” humans and nature and achieve a greener future without making uncomfortable decisions and sociopolitical changes. This is the myth of “Platform Earth”: a strategic narrative that favors only certain lives, solutions and forms of knowledge and legitimizes the continuation of extractivism.
The project's main results have been the following:
- Book "Resisting Big Tech: The Personalized Is Political" (Summer 2025, Bloomsbury Academic) (Niels Niessen)
- PhD dissertation "Digital Voice Assistants as Theatre: Apostrophic Interaction in Platform Discourses" (Nuno Atalaia)
- PhD dissertation "Platform Earth: Ecomodernism in Tech-on-Climate Discourse" (Rianne Riemens)
- Article “Machinic Visibility in Platform Discourses: Ubiquitous Interfaces for Precarious Users,” in: "Open Library of Humanities" (2023) (Nuno Atalaia and Rianne Riemens)
- Article "Shot on iPhone: Apple's World Picture," in: "Advertizing and Society Quarterly" (2021) (Niels Niessen)
- Article "Black Panther Transmedia: The Revolution Will Not Be Streamed," in: "Journal for Cinema and Media Studies" (2021) (Niels Niessen)
- Article "Tracing the Voice's Digital Materiality" in: "Materials of Culture" (Transcript, 2024) (Nuno Atalaia)
- Article "Lithium for the Metaverse" in: "Materials of Culture" (Transcript, 2024) (Niels Niessen)
- Article "Harnessing the Sun in Tech-on-Climate Discourse” (Transcript, 2024) (Rianne Riemens)
- Article "Fixing the earth: whole-systems thinking in Silicon Valley’s environmental ideology." in "Internet Histories" (2024) (Rianne Riemens)
- Organization of Winter School on "Platform Discourses," January 2021, Nijmegen, Netherlands, in collaboration with the Dutch Research School for Media Studies (Niels NIessen)
- Initiation and co-faciliation of the research group "Critical Humanities" at Radboud University, Netherlands, 2020-2023 (Niels NIessen)
- Co-organization of the research seminar "MInor Movements," Spring 2023, Utrecht, Netherlands, in collaboration with the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Analysis and the Dutch Research School for Gender Studies (Niels Niessen)
- Co-organization of the research seminar "The Personalized Is Political" Spring 2023, Utrecht, Netherlands, in collaboration with the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Analysis and the Dutch Research School for Gender Studies (Niels Niessen)
- Conference "Critiquing Big Tech: A Humanities Perspective" in Tilburg, Netherlands (June 6-7, 2024) which gathered around 50 scholars from around the world (Niels NIessen, Rianne Riemens, Nuno Atalaia)
- Book "Resisting Big Tech: The Personalized Is Political" (Summer 2025, Bloomsbury Academic) (Niels Niessen)
- PhD dissertation "Digital Voice Assistants as Theatre: Apostrophic Interaction in Platform Discourses" (Nuno Atalaia)
- PhD dissertation "Platform Earth: Ecomodernism in Tech-on-Climate Discourse" (Rianne Riemens)
- Article “Machinic Visibility in Platform Discourses: Ubiquitous Interfaces for Precarious Users,” in: "Open Library of Humanities" (2023) (Nuno Atalaia and Rianne Riemens)
- Article "Shot on iPhone: Apple's World Picture," in: "Advertizing and Society Quarterly" (2021) (Niels Niessen)
- Article "Black Panther Transmedia: The Revolution Will Not Be Streamed," in: "Journal for Cinema and Media Studies" (2021) (Niels Niessen)
- Article "Tracing the Voice's Digital Materiality" in: "Materials of Culture" (Transcript, 2024) (Nuno Atalaia)
- Article "Lithium for the Metaverse" in: "Materials of Culture" (Transcript, 2024) (Niels Niessen)
- Article "Harnessing the Sun in Tech-on-Climate Discourse” (Transcript, 2024) (Rianne Riemens)
- Article "Fixing the earth: whole-systems thinking in Silicon Valley’s environmental ideology." in "Internet Histories" (2024) (Rianne Riemens)
- Organization of Winter School on "Platform Discourses," January 2021, Nijmegen, Netherlands, in collaboration with the Dutch Research School for Media Studies (Niels NIessen)
- Initiation and co-faciliation of the research group "Critical Humanities" at Radboud University, Netherlands, 2020-2023 (Niels NIessen)
- Co-organization of the research seminar "MInor Movements," Spring 2023, Utrecht, Netherlands, in collaboration with the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Analysis and the Dutch Research School for Gender Studies (Niels Niessen)
- Co-organization of the research seminar "The Personalized Is Political" Spring 2023, Utrecht, Netherlands, in collaboration with the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Analysis and the Dutch Research School for Gender Studies (Niels Niessen)
- Conference "Critiquing Big Tech: A Humanities Perspective" in Tilburg, Netherlands (June 6-7, 2024) which gathered around 50 scholars from around the world (Niels NIessen, Rianne Riemens, Nuno Atalaia)
Over the last few decades Big Tech companies including Apple, Google, and Meta have manifested themselves as powerful corporate voices, shaping how people view their relations with technology and nature. Analyzing this intervention, this project has been the first systematic analysis of the visions of human life, nature, and technology as are generated by tech companies. These materials include product presentations, advertising, public statements by these companies' CEOs, as well as branding materials found on these platforms themselves. The project has identified an overall transhumanist according to which technology accelerates "humanity" (however defined) to more freedoms and connectivity. "Platform Discourses" has been critical of this transhumanist position, as it tends to normalize these companies data-extractivist practices that harm both people and the planet. The project shows how in a world in which big tech has become the most powerful and wealthy industry such a critical perspective is needed. Companies like Facebook and Google promise a connected world, but in the meanwhile they transform people's experience into the source for "raw" data. Similarly, Apple presents itself as a company concerned with the planet and humanity, but the terrible working conditions in its supply chain are central to their core business. This research has aimed to contribute to a general public consciousness about the material realities of our digital age.