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, Yale 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

"In this essential work of media scholarship, Gerald Sim identifies the critical role that older technologies play in ushering the new. Through exquisite close readings, summoning extensive research into each film’s cultural and technical production, a handful of companies and individuals are shown to command an outsized influence on our visions of the future. Sim successfully litigates the case for algorithmic literacy to overcome our current indenture to machinic ways of seeing and valuing. Screening Big Data is an exemplary demonstration of how relevant film and screen studies can be for our shared emancipation" - Melissa Gregg, Sustainability Consultant, Reality Labs