Screening Big Data

“Screening Big Data understands that developments in digital culture reach far beyond the technology — they are cultural phenomena with their own legends, heroes, and villains. The result is an invaluable and wide-ranging guide to the myths of big data and how these play out across our screens, large and small, shaping our understanding of the technology that is transforming our world. Gerald Sim's wide-ranging account provides invaluable insight into 'big data': that it is not enough to understand the technology, we need to understand the culture that has grown up around it.” - Mark Andrejevic, Professor, Monash University, Australia “Drawing on an impressive plethora of sources, Screening Big Data unpacks the paradoxes within the data mythologies and cultural imaginaries that have come to shape our current techno-media-industrial complex. Rigorous yet highly engaging, this book is a must-read for media scholars, critical data researchers and anyone seeking to distill the capabilities and limitations of AI from the cinematic narratives that both capture our imagination and distort our understanding of techno-political systems.” - Neta Alexander, Assistant Professor, Colgate University, USA “The social power of data doesn’t come from data alone. In Screening Big Data, Gerald Sim takes us on a compelling tour through the cinematic landscape of technoscientific imagination, exploring how algorithms, artificial intelligence, and data science have been represented on screen. Sim shows how these representations shape our understanding of what these tools can do, making a persuasive argument for including popular media in our analyses of new technologies.” - Nick Seaver, Assistant Professor, Tufts University, USA