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This conceptual paper explores the role of communication around data practices of Big Tech companies. By critiquing communication practices, we argue that Big Tech platforms shape users into data subjects through framing, influencing behaviour, and the black-boxing of algorithms. We approach communication about data from three perspectives: (1) current data communication constructs reductive data identities for users and contributes to the colonization of daily routines; (2) by strategically deploying the black box metaphor, tech companies try to legitimize abuses of power in datafication processes; (3) the logic in which communication is mediated through the interfaces of Big Tech platforms is normalizing this subjectification. We argue that critical data literacy can foster individual resilience and allows users to resist exploitative practices, but this depends on transparent communication. The opposite seems standard among tech companies that obfuscate their data practices. Current commercial appropriations of data ethics need to be critically assessed against the background of increasing competition in the digital economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is about the Virtual Reality-Head Mounted Display (VR-HMD) as a model for contemporary ways of disciplining. The VR-HMD makes the observer discipline herself through the triggering of performance. Through specific strategies the VR-HMD addresses the body of the observer to perform in the mixed reality that is constructed in the interaction between the body and the VR-HMD. These strategies consist of approaches by the hardware developers and content creators to manage the subjectivity and visuality of the observer. Today's body is not disciplined through formatted technics of the VR-HMD, but through self-disciplining of the observer's active performance. This article will unravel the strategies within the game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR on the Playstation VR that are used to control the visuality and subjectivity. Through her interaction in the game the observer also becomes aware of her body and the ways that it is disciplined in. In the end, this article will argue that the VR-HMD should not only be understood as a strategic device that can discipline a neoliberal subject, but that the VR-HMD is a supercomplex intervention that could help us to become more corporeal literate of our bodies in the age of digital media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]