Tech power: a critical approach to digital corporations

Abstract

This article explores different bodies of literature looking at the rising power of digital corporations. With this work I aim to provide a critical up-to-date approach to the topic. The first part of the paper introduces the phenomenon of digital capitalism, navigating different sociological approaches. Then, it proceeds by addressing the difficulties of naming the phenomenon and the attention that is gathering among politicians, academics and the general public. The second part of the work explores three different but complementary bodies of literature looking at tech power In the first place the paper explores critical management studies’ contributions describing the characteristics of digital corporations. Secondly, the text reflects critical legal scholars’ works analysing what has been identified as one of the essential features of digital capitalism: the infrastructural power enjoyed by corporations such as Facebook or Amazon. Finally the paper exposes two different Marxist perspectives looking at digital capitalism and its latest developments. The labour-focused Marxist contribution mainly represented by Christian Fuchs and Trebor Scholz and the postfordist approach of Maurizio Lazzarato or Matteo Pasquinelli, among others.