Digital Innovation in the Innovation Society: Sociological Perspectives

Digitalization is amplifying the double dynamic of selective recombination characteristic of innovation in modern societies. The growing ubiquity of digital data, devices, and infrastructures systematically increases the potential for the emergence of novelties through combination and recombination. This development is fueled, for instance, by the rise of layered modular system architectures and the aggregation of digital data into open-ended data objects. At the same time, these developments face innovative actors with the necessity of reducing complexity and selecting between combinatorial opportunities. Novel practices of selection, in turn, also involve digital technologies, for instance by drawing on algorithmic filtering, simulation, or the standardized interfaces of digital platforms.

This session offers a forum for discussing sociological perspectives on this double dynamic. We invite empirical and theoretical contributions that inquire into the social practices and contexts in which novelties are created, and in which their selection, evaluation, and recombination is achieved. We envision a large range of possible questions, including the following. How does the modeling of the sociotechnical world via digital data allow for new forms of social interaction, as well as new forms of monitoring, steering, and control? How do the modular architectures of digital platforms and software systems enable a continuous stream of novel products, and services, while simultaneously relying on standardization and monopolization? Finally, how does the increasing accessibility of the (digital) means of innovation give rise to new innovative actor constellations such as open-source communities, while allowing established actors to foster, tap into, and channel the latter's activities?