Open Access“From the classroom to the cloud”: Zoom and the platformization of higher education
Author(s) -
Justin Grandinetti
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
first monday
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.533
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1396-0466
pISSN - 1396-0458
DOI - 10.5210/fm.v27i2.11655
Subject(s) - zoom , cloud computing , videoconferencing , criticism , covid-19 , internet privacy , higher education , pandemic , computer security , computer science , multimedia , business , public relations , political science , engineering , law , medicine , disease , pathology , petroleum engineering , infectious disease (medical specialty) , lens (geology)
Videoconferencing platforms like Zoom have been essential to U.S. colleges and universities in migrating from in-person and hybrid classrooms to fully online learning in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The synchronous connection of cloud-based streaming allows some daily activities of higher-ed to continue; yet, Zoom has faced criticism for surveillance and data extraction, privacy and security issues, platform control of content, and as contributing to infrastructural divides. Drawing from critical media studies and surveillance studies approaches, I examine the issues of videoconferencing platforms like Zoom as compositions of platform, infrastructural, and capitalist surveillance. Despite the oft-promoted benefits of these platforms, critical attention must be paid to the highly problematic inherent surveillant dimensions of partnerships between higher-ed and big tech to ensure the protection of students, employees, and faculty. Specifically, the rapid adoption of Zoom exemplifies the dangers of surveillant platform infrastructure, as well as how technological “solutions” gain traction in moments of crisis.