Data and oil: Metaphor, materiality and metabolic rifts

Abstract

‘Data is the new oil’ is a phrase that is frequently employed to indicate that digital technologies and data extraction have supplanted fossil fuels and geological extractivism as the central driver of the global economy. While this metaphor has been subject to discursive and ideological critique within media, communication and cultural studies, this article conducts a materialist analysis of the connections between data and oil. While claims that data is the new oil typically assume digital technologies to be clean, renewable and sustainable, an infrastructural approach reveals the vast quantities of oil and other fossil fuels necessary for digital capitalism, therefore repudiating claims that data can grow exponentially with no material costs. Consequently, the article explores how metabolic rifts and degrowth offer productive frameworks for outlining the contours of a sustainable and equitable digital future.