Digital Futures between Domination and Participation. Part I

ISA Research Committees Futures Research (RC07), Participation, Organizational Democracy and Self-Management (RC10), Sociology of Communication, Knowledge and Culture (RC14), Sociology of Science and Technology (RC23), and the Thematic Group on Digital Sociology (TG10) are planning one or more Joint Sessions on “Digital Futures between Domination and Participation”.

Digital formations from the Internet and social media to artificial intelligence and robotics are reshaping the world. They offer joy, participation, and higher productivity, but they have also brought disruption, new modes of control, and new inequalities.

The new digital technologies have global reach but are not globally uniform. Diverse social actors cooperate, compete, or combat over the social shaping of digital futures. Outcomes vary according to differential access to resources, capacities, political-legal frameworks, and changing constellations of forces.

This session aims to compare digital formations in different domains, regimes, and regions. Papers are welcome that address questions such as: Who captures the benefits of productivity gains, who loses out, and on what factors does this depend on? How do working conditions and employment relations change? How are election campaigns and their outcomes influenced? Who contests the power of oligopolies? What ethics and regulatory approaches shape and control big data and artificial intelligence? How do nation-states impose cyberwalls or social credit systems? Who contests the dominant trends, and how? What values, strategies, and visions are in play? What tasks should be on the agenda for sociological research?