The Cloud Ate My Homework - To the Cloud: Big Data in a Turbulent World - page 4

Puttini, and Mahmood 2013). But my purpose is to promote the discus-
sion of cloud computing beyond what these texts have to say by taking up
its political, economic, social, and cultural signiicance. In order to do this,
the topic draws from the transdisciplinary contributions to be found in
technology studies, sociology, cultural studies, and political economy. My
aim is to unsettle traditional ways of thinking with a critical interrogation.
Sending data into the cloud is a decision to engage with one or another
data center, say Amazon's or Microsoft's. But it is also a choice that has
implications that are economic (who pays for it?), political (who controls
it?), social (how private is it?), environmental (what is its impact on the
land and on energy use?), and cultural (what values does it embody?).
A key goal of the topic is to advance a conversation between the profes-
sionals who work in the ield, those responsible for promoting it, and the
researchers, policy makers, and activists who study cloud computing and
think about its impact, implications, and challenges.
Why is it necessary to place cloud computing in the bigger picture
of political economy, society, and culture? Is it not suficient to simply
describe what cloud computing has to offer a business and weigh its costs
and beneits? I take up some of the practical problems involved in adopting
and implementing cloud systems in the next chapter. However, limiting
discussion to this point alone does not give suficient credit to the cloud
computing movement as a force in society. Notwithstanding the hyperbole
that accompanies new communication technologies and systems, from
the telegraph that would bring together nations in peaceful harmony to
the promise of mass education on television, cloud computing is having
an enormous impact across societies. This extends from companies that
are moving their data and business-process software to the cloud, to the
military that plans and executes battle strategies in the cloud, to schools
and universities that are using the cloud to transform education, and to
individuals who are storing the traces of their identities in the cloud.
It also encompasses what some consider bottom-up versions of cloud
computing, such as community grid projects that harness the combined
power of personal computers to carry out public-interest research. The
cloud is credited with catapulting companies like Apple into the corporate
stratosphere. Amazon's cloud was one of the most important instru-
ments behind Barack Obama's 2012 victory. While these are important
developments, they are benign compared to the claim that the cloud can