Agency in a Digital Society

Digital technologies are currently part of greater transformations of society. A range of sociological analyses focus on the related intensification of economic and political power relations, note the establishment of new regimes of surveillance, self-disclosure, (self-)exploitation, discipline, and control, and consider digital technologies to be neoliberal and governmental tools. Reasons cited for these negative scenarios are the power of the large internet companies; the scope of platforms, bots, robots and algorithms which increasingly shape human actions; and self-tracking apps which lead us to a new stage of monitoring and self-control. Furthermore, digital technologies are ubiquitous and thereby often invisible, producing data continuously.

These approaches address important sociological issues. However, it would be inappropriate to consider the use of digital technologies only as a practice of subjection under these new demands. Neglected in these are perspectives asking for individuals’ own strategies and how individuals contribute to and shape digitalization. Using data from a number of empirical projects on the use of digital technologies at work, in everyday life, and for political activism, I would like to further develop a concept of agency in the digital age. My interviews and observations show a variety of practices which reveal obstinate or resistant adoptions of new technologies. Alongside a range of productive usages which strategically try to meet the requirements of digital technologies, we can observe different ways of personally evading digital demands. Furthermore, it becomes obvious that the technologies are often reason for struggles, modifications and negotiations.

This paper will develop a micro-sociological perspective on these digital transformations, focusing on the room to maneuver within the process of digitalization. I will conceptualize the questions of how individuals contribute to digital transformations, how they negotiate technological and social changes, and in how far they become obstinate, passionate, stressed, dismissive, or resistant actors of digitalization.