PhD Defense: Rianne Riemens (Radboud University)

Platform Earth: Ecomodernism in Tech-on-Climate Discourse

 16 April 2025 | 10:30hrs | Aula, Radboud University Nijmegen

Supervisor: prof. dr Anneke Smelik
Co-supervisor dr Niels Niessen

— For English, see below —

CV

Rianne Riemens is een onderzoeker met een speciale interesse in Silicon Valley, digitale platforms en duurzaamheid. Ze heeft een achtergrond in media- en cultuurwetenschappen. Van 2020 tot 2024 verrichte ze haar promotieonderzoek binnen het ERC project Platform Discourses, onder begeleiding van prof. Anneke Smelik en dr. Niels Niessen. Momenteel is zij postdoctoraal onderzoeker technologie en klimaat aan de Universiteit Utrecht binnen het Governing the Digital Society team onder leiding van prof. José van Dijck.

Samenvatting (NL)

Te midden van groeiende zorgen over klimaatverandering en in reactie op kritiek op hun klimaatimpact zoeken techbedrijven zoals Apple en Microsoft en individuen zoals Jeff Bezos naar manieren om hun activiteiten te legitimeren. Dat doen ze middels de productie van duurzaamheidsrapporten, websites, reclames, tools en initiatieven. Via deze promotionele activiteiten dragen deze partijen de mythe van “Platform Aarde” uit: de fantasie dat Silicon Valley, als ecosysteem van digitale platforms, goed voor het milieu en essentieel voor het “oplossen” van de klimaatcrisis is.

Dit proefschrift brengt in kaart hoe vertegenwoordigers van Silicon Valley zich verhouden tot de klimaatcrisis en hoe hierdoor hun economische, politieke en culturele positie verandert. Het proefschrift behandelt de framingstrategieën die bedrijven gebruiken om hun groene oplossingen te promoten en plaatst de opkomst van groen platformkapitalisme in historisch perspectief. Ook biedt het een analyse van projecten zoals ruimteverkenningen en filantropische activiteiten van figuren zoals Bill Gates als uitingen van deze duurzame koers. Het proefschrift bekritiseert de ecomodernistische ideologie die hieraan ten grondslag ligt: een toekomstvisie gericht op groene groei, waarin menselijke vooruitgang is “ontkoppeld” van de achteruitgang van het milieu. Kortom, Platform Earth bekritiseert de manier waarop techbedrijven en -ondernemers platformkapitalisme naturaliseren en de klimaatcrisis platformiseren.

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CV

Rianne Riemens (Middelburg, 1994) is a media researcher with a special interest in media culture, digital platforms and sustainability. She completed a BA in Language and Culture Studies at Utrecht University and an RMA in Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam. After her graduation, she worked as a freelance writer and communicator for organizations including Waag Futurelab and SETUP. She was a junior researcher within the Algoritmisch Atelier project at Utrecht University, studying public values in relation to urban mobility platforms. In 2020, Rianne became a PhD candidate within the Platform Discourses project, supervised by prof. Anneke Smelik and dr. Niels Niessen. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at Utrecht University in the research group “Greening the Digital Society”, within the Governing the Digital Society team led by prof. José van Dijck.

English summary

Platform Earth explores how since the 2010s “Silicon Valley” has been reinventing itself as a green economy. The term “Silicon Valley” refers to the geographical region in California where the US tech culture is concentrated, but is also a metaphor for the North American tech sector as cultural phenomenon. Amidst growing concerns about climate change and in response to critiques on their environmental impact, tech actors such as Apple and Microsoft have developed elaborate ways to legitimize their operations. I refer to these legitimizing activities as “tech-on-climate discourse”: the ongoing production of sustain­ability reports, websites, commercials, tools, and initiatives. Through their promotional activities, tech actors construct new narratives about the relation between technology and “nature”. Together, they forward the myth of “Platform Earth”: the fantasy that Silicon Valley’s platform ecosystem is good for the planet and will prove essential for “solving” the climate crisis.

The dissertation maps how representatives of Silicon Valley propagate this myth and how it affects their position in public debates. I approach platform companies (Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft) and prominent tech figures (e.g. Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, Elon Musk) as cultural producers and political actors. To understand how these actors engage in practic­es of mythmaking, I use methods of discursive and historical analysis to examine the narra­tives, green rhetoric, visual identity and underlying ideology of tech-on-climate discourse.

Across four chapters, I study the use of visual and textual framing strategies by Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft and the paradoxes of their pragmatic approach (Ch. 1); the development of “whole-systems thinking” and ecomodernism in American tech and environmental movements between the 1940s and 1990s (Ch. 2); proposals for political and spatial exit projects such as homesteading, seasteading and spacefaring as climate response (Ch. 3); and the positioning of the CEO as a caring figure through the philan­thropical endeavors of Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates (Ch. 4). Altogether, the research offers a cultural-analytical lens on how Silicon Valley is “reinventing” itself as an advocate of green capitalism, reconfiguring its powerful political, economic, and cultural position amidst the unfolding climate crisis.

The dissertation argues that the ecological reconfiguration of Silicon Valley is un­derpinned by an ecomodernist ideology: a vision of the future focused on green growth, in which human progress is “decoupled” from environmental decline. Silicon Valley’s eco­modernism propagates that the Earth and its ecosystems are best governed by platform infrastructures. This conviction leads to an instrumental valuation of nature, a unilateral, masculine understanding of the human subject, and an imperialistic vision of progress deeply rooted in the history of the United States. I critique the ecomodernist, transhuman narrative that “we” as a humanity can “upgrade” humans and nature and achieve a greener future without making uncomfortable decisions and sociopolitical changes. This is the myth of “Platform Earth”: a strategic narrative that favors only certain lives, solutions and forms of knowledge and legitimizes the continuation of extractivism.

In sum, Platform Earth critiques the modus operandi of Silicon Valley as it nat­uralizes platform capitalism and platformizes the climate crisis. Through this logic, digital platforms are positioned as a mediating layer between humanity and planet Earth. I argue that we need to be critical of how these ideas become embedded in public debates about the green and digital transition. The research ends with a plea to explore other climate futures, not focused on techno-fixes and green growth.