Data-driven market power in the production of addiction

Introduction

The DATA-ADDICT project studies data-driven market power in the production of addiction. It focuses on online gambling as a key empirical example of a highly addictive, digital, and data-driven industry.

Data Production and Circulation

Commercial operation in online environments produces unprecedented amounts of data. Data are circulated within networks and used to increase profit via extractive commercial practices and political influence.

Harmful Practices

Data-driven practices can be particularly harmful when employed by industries that produce and sell addictive commodities, such as gambling. Yet, largely due to existing asymmetries in accessing data generated and held by industry actors, there has been a notable gap in our understanding of how data translate to power for addictive industries in online environments.

Research Questions

Key questions addressed by the project include:

1. What kind of data do addictive industries collect and circulate within their networks?
2. How do these industries mobilise data to influence consumers and regulation?

Research Streams

The project builds a theoretical understanding of data-driven market power in the production of addiction via four interrelated research streams:

1. It charts how data are collected, used, and circulated by the online gambling industry and related actors.
2. It looks at how data are mobilised by these industries to leverage power over consumers.
3. It analyses how these industries mobilise data to influence regulation.
4. Running alongside the three empirical streams, it forms a theoretical conceptualisation of data-driven market power by using empirically informed middle range theory building and by drawing on social theories of digital capitalism and power.

Outcomes

The project produces a novel theoretical understanding of power in digital addictive commodity industries and beyond. It also formulates and systemises new empirical methods to access and analyse industry data.

Societal Impact

At a societal level, the project generates crucial information on how to prevent harmful practices employed by addictive commodity industries.