The driving force behind The Costs of Connection is the idea that something big is happening with data, a new phase of colonial extraction that is annexing human life to capitalism and in the process building a new social economic order - one that must be resisted if human autonomy is to be protected.

Nick Couldry is Professor of Media, Communications and Social Theory at the London School of Economics and Political Science.Ulises A. Mejias is Associate Professor of Communication Studies and Director of the Institute for Global Engagement at the State University of New York, College at Oswego.