| Abstract |
As popular awareness of global environmental crises rises, so too does the notion of a circular 'zero-waste' economy. In this context, and with electronic waste a rapidly growing waste stream, the electronics industry is the subject of increasing pressure to address its environmental impact. Growing piles of digital junk cast a shadow on economies centred on seemingly immaterial attention and information. Resultantly, key players in these economies are adopting circular economy influenced business practises and ideas. Superficially, such moves suggest a maturation of discourses that construct the digital commodity as 'green' and 'weightless' by way of acknowledging their physical presence. More broadly, circular economies may even represent a nascent tampering of the material excesses of capitalism. The article considers this relationship between the attention and circular economies. Apple, a digital goods and services company, is used as a case study. Taking a media ecologies perspective, I explore Apple's environmental goals and progress, and what this means for the attention economy more broadly. Ultimately, I argue that within economies where attention and information are of growing importance, circular economy discourses act to legitimize particular actors and drive consumption while simultaneously obscuring human and non-human forms of waste. |
