[TechSovereignty] Fwd: Sovereignty as a service, New Article

[Julia Pohle]

-------- Weitergeleitete Nachricht --------
Betreff: 	Sovereignty as a service, New Article
Datum: 	Thu, 13 Nov 2025 07:23:08 +0000
Von: 	Rafael Do Nascimento Grohmann <rafael.grohmann at utoronto.ca>
An: 	Rafael Do Nascimento Grohmann <rafael.grohmann at utoronto.ca>



Dear colleagues,

I would like to share with you this article just published in Media, 
Culture & Society, co-authored by me and Alexandre Costa Barbosa.

Sovereignty-as-a-service: How big tech companies co-opt and redefine 
digital sovereignty
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/01634437251395003


Abstract
This article introduces the concept of sovereignty-as-a-service to 
describe how Big Tech companies, specifically Microsoft, Amazon, and 
Google/Alphabet, are strategically redefining digital sovereignty 
through their programs of cloud infrastructure. Drawing on critical 
discourse analysis of official materials released between 2022 and 2023, 
we show how these companies respond to regulatory pressures, 
particularly in Europe, by offering modular and branded solutions that 
frame sovereignty as a technical, legal, and infrastructural matter. 
Rather than sovereignty being exercised over platforms, it is now 
provisioned by them, on their terms. We argue that 
sovereignty-as-a-service constitutes a form of discursive capture that 
empties the concept, aligning it with the ideological legacy of the 
Californian Ideology. In this reframing, digital sovereignty becomes a 
service to be purchased, configured, and optimized through proprietary 
platforms. By conceptualizing sovereignty as a site of contested 
meanings open to appropriation, this article contributes to critical 
debates on digital sovereignty and technology governance.


Thanks!

Best

Rafael


--

dr. Rafael Grohmann

Assistant Professor of Media Studies

Department of Arts, Culture and Media 
<https://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/acm/rafael-grohmann>

Faculty of Information 
<https://ischool.utoronto.ca/profile/rafael-grohmann/>

University of Toronto

Leader, DigiLabour <https://digilabour.com.br/>
Research Associate, University of Oxford 
<https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/people/profiles/rafael-grohmann/>

Founding Editor, Platforms & Society <https://journals.sagepub.com/home/PNS>

Principal Investigator, Worker-Owned Intersectional Platforms (WOIP) 
<https://digilabour.com.br/worker-owned-intersectional-platforms-woip/>

Co-Lead, Creative Labour and Critical Futures (CLCF) 
<https://criticaldigitalmethods.ca/creative-labour-critical-futures/>


2024-2025 Faculty Fellow, Queer and Trans Research Lab, Bonham Centre 
for Sexual Diversity Studies, University of Toronto 
<https://sds.utoronto.ca/qtrl-cohort-2024-25/>
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