Digital Society

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Digitalization has a profound impact on our society. We can observe changes in different areas. What digital technologies do, what they look like and how they relate to each other is not identical worldwide, but dependent on local practices as well. Usually new technologies are understood as innovation and progress: and indeed, digital technologies improve a broad range of domains, such as healthcare or education. New possibilities as e.g. participation in our digital cultures arise but also new inequalities, as the access and competences needed for participation are not evenly distributed and the platforms that allow for participation also harbour new mechanisms of control and surveillance. The pace and diversity of these developments ask for continuous investigation and reflection. It requires work to shape and use technologies in ways that contribute to the public good. Moreover, digital technologies have also led to highly problematic developments such as electoral manipulation, fake news and algorithmic discrimination. Technological developments are often conceived as predefined or given. Does a society’s technology drive the development of its social structure and cultural values? Scholars in science and technology studies have shown that technology and society are deeply intertwined. Technology is inherently social. Technologies are shaped by people; they emerge and are embedded in social practices. The aim of this course is to investigate the consequences of digitalization for our society/societies. These consequences have been differently valuated: participation vs. exploitation of users, innovation as enhancement vs. challenge, ethics and techno-moral change vs./and sustainability. We will discuss digitalization from - a social perspective when we read about digital participation and how technology and society are intertwined - a political perspective when we discuss activism, digital citizenship but also problems of manipulation and verification (as in the case of fake news and deep fakes) - a cultural perspective when we analyze imaginaries and discourses around innovation of technology and promises being made - a legal perspective when we discuss privacy and the attempts to adapt privacy laws - an ethical perspective when we discuss design decisions, privacy but also techno-moral change and questions of environment and sustainability. The course is structured in the following way: Transformations (digital participation, digital citizenship, data-activism) Imaginaries (innovation and techno-moral change) Disruptions (fake news and deep fakes, sustainability and e-trash)