{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,18]],"date-time":"2026-02-18T23:02:22Z","timestamp":1771455742724,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":12,"publisher":"SAGE Publications","issue":"2","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,7,1]],"date-time":"2022-07-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1656633600000},"content-version":"unspecified","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["journals.sagepub.com"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Big Data &amp; Society"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2022,7]]},"abstract":"<jats:p> This research commentary proposes a conceptual framework for studying big tech companies as \u201ctechnical systems\u201d that organize much of their operation around the mastery and operationalization of key technologies that facilitate and drive their continuous expansion. Drawing on the study of Large Technical Systems (LTS), on the work of historian Bertrand Gille, and on the economics of General Purpose Technologies (GPTs), it outlines a way to study the \u201ctech\u201d in \u201cbig tech\u201d more attentively, looking for compatibilities, synergies, and dependencies between the technologies created and deployed by these companies. Using Google as example, the paper shows how to interrogate software and hardware through the lens of transversal applicability, discusses software and hardware integration, and proposes the notion of \u201cdata amalgams\u201d to contextualize and complicate the notion of data. The goal is to complement existing vectors of \u201cbig tech\u201d critique with a perspective sensitive to the specific materialities of specific technologies and their possible consequences. <\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1177\/20539517221135162","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,10,31]],"date-time":"2022-10-31T12:17:47Z","timestamp":1667218667000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/sage-journals-update-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":13,"title":["Towards a political economy of technical systems: The case of Google"],"prefix":"10.1177","volume":"9","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-2404-9277","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Bernhard","family":"Rieder","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Mediastudies, Amsterdam University, Turfdraagsterpad 9, Amsterdam, 1012TX, Netherlands"}]}],"member":"179","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,10,31]]},"reference":[{"key":"bibr1-20539517221135162","volume-title":"The Second Machine Age","author":"Brynjolfsson E","year":"2016"},{"key":"bibr12-20539517221135162","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Dourish P (2017) The Stuff of Bits: An Essay on the Materialities of Information. 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