Digital transformation, digitalisation, internet, technology, science & democracy Flashcards
How are digital technologies understood in the course? Name one quality and 3 areas of society it impacts on.
Digital technologies are perceived as a disruptive force that (re)shapes social order, modes of production and consumption, and induces power shifts.
What is digitalisation? Name 3 key factors
- proliferation of digital technology in our life.
- transformation of data from analogue to the digital format, which significantly improved the efficiency of data transfer, processing, and storage.
-data appears in a binary form (1 and 0) in digital systems and it is used in all usual electronic digital devices (1/0 = on/off).
4 waves of digitalization (according to Fujitsu 2016)
- Internet
- Mobile Internet
- Internet of Things
- AI, AR and Robotics
When digitalization begun
Many answers:
1940-s: First programmed computers
1956: IBM RAMAC 350 first computer with a hard disk
1981: First personal computer IBM PC 5150
1989: Tim Berners-Lee invents World Wide Web
1995: SMS enters the market as a result of introducing the digital 2G mobile network
2007: Apple presented iPhone
…
1703: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz wrote Explication de l’Arithmétique Binaire
Gartner’s Emerging Technology Hype Cycle: 5 steps
- Technology trigger
- Peak of Inflated expectations
- Trough of disillusionment
- Slope of enlightenment
- Plateau of productivity
How digitalisation affects our life?
Integration of digital technology into the everyday life
-> Old ways of doing things adapt to the new digital reality, while at the same time new ways emerge.
-> Onlife (Floridi), key characteristics:
- “Fourth discontinuity” - New sense of reality
- New sense of ‘self’
–>New way of acting
What is Digital transformation (of society)?
New informations and communication technologies (ICTs) impact all spheres of private and public life
- Use of digital applications and services
- Changed sense of reality (on/offline)
- Opportunities: business, public services, etc
- Formation of
a digital environment
How does internet affect democracy
- greater citizen empowerment vs reinforcement of existing divisions of power
-increased social fragmentation vs new forms of community
- reinvigorate democratic discourse vs instigate hate speech
- a new golden age of participatory democracy vs threats of ever greater surveillance and control of citizens
-interactive age of democracy that overcomes voter apathy vs commercialization of political life that marginalizes democratic concerns
How do (digital) technology and science impact democracy
- Advances in ICTs are neither sufficient nor necessary to bring about changes to systems of governance.
- When governance institutions and technology jointly evolve, the causal links between the two resist distillation into simple, unidirectional relationships.
- Due to the multifaceted natures of digitalisation and democracy, researchers must consider diverse causal paths linking technological change, systems of political communication, and democratic governance.
- Interactions between technology and the polity occur simultaneously on multiple levels (individuals, groups, institutions, media system, etc)
- Artifacts and the context of their use matter
- Our understanding and use of the artifacts matter
The level of analysis matters (micro meso macro) - Technological change (unavoidable?) vs political change (bargaining)
- How future looks like is a political question, technology matters, but does not define.
Technological determinism vs Social constructionism vs Theory of technological politics: on the role of technology in society
- technological determinism: technology develops as the sole result of its internal dynamic,… and molds society to fit its patterns
- Social constructionism: What matters is not technology itself, but the social or economic system in which it is embedded.” Neutral technology thesis: “People have politics, not things.”
- Theory of technological politics: Certain technologies are political phenomena in their own right.
