ESCAPING ATTENTION: DIGITAL MEDIA HARDWARE, MATERIALITY AND ECOLOGICAL COST
Sy Taffel · Culture machine · 2012
Discussions of the attention economy have largely centred on ways in which networked digital media technologies afford new forms of attention. While performing crucial work in demarcating the social effects of technology, and examining the commodification of these attentional forms, such approaches have largely ignored the ecological and social costs of the material infrastructure which underlies the attention economy. Rhetorics of virtuality and informationalisation from attention economy theorists such as Michael Goldhaber suggest that contemporary economies have shifted from material production into a postindustrial or cognitive mode of capitalism. The reality however, is that the microelectronics hardware which enables the construction of the attention economy, presents material social and environmental justice issues which have thus far received scant attention within media and communication studies. This paper draws attention to some of these issues, such as: the usage of Congolese conflict derived tantalum in microelectronics devices, the working conditions in manufacturing complexes where hardware is assembled, the rapidly rising energy costs required to manufacture and power digital infrastructure, and the global trade in highly toxic e-waste. This paper will mobilise an ecological conception of media and materiality stemming from the work of Gregory Bateson and Felix Guattari, arguing that if we are to take generational responsibilities regarding social and environmental justice seriously, we need to look beyond content in order to critically engage with the materiality of the technologies that digital media is predicated upon.