co-edited by Crystal Chokshi and Robin Mansell
This book is about words that fool us into thinking that the digital technologies we use every day are beautiful, benign, and consequence-free. The collection shows how metaphors used by Big Tech to promote digital technologies are reductive or misleading.
With a commitment to social justice, the contributors rename digital technologies in order to subvert Big Tech’s branding. Each chapter discusses a specific technology, rechristening it in a way that points explicitly to the social and political harms it is associated with.
The alternative vocabularies that are proposed draw attention to what these technologies bring about, providing a means of resisting Silicon Valley’s claims about what people and organisations should buy and experience.
Crystal Chokshi is Assistant Professor in the School of Communication Studies at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Canada.
Robin Mansell is Professor Emerita, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK, and former president of IAMCR.
The above text is from the publisher’s description of the book:
Title: The Need to Rename Tech
Editors: Crystal Chokshi and Robin Mansell
Published: 2026
Pages: 307
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
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