A special section of Internet Policy Review, “Concepts of the digital society” consists of academically rigorous reference articles on emerging concepts relevant to the research field of internet and society.
Read the editorial introducing the special section here:
This article provides an overview of the Value Sensitive Design (VSD) methodology and explores how it can enrich the current debates on algorithmic bias and fairness in machine learning.
Algorithmic governance as a key concept in controversies around the emerging digital society takes up the idea that digital technologies produce social ordering in a specific way.
Artificial emotional intelligence refers to technologies that perform, recognise, or record affective states. More than merely a technological function, however, it is also a social process whereby cultural assumptions about what emotions are and how they are made are translated into composites of code, software, and mechanical platforms. This essay illustrates how aspects of cultural difference are both incorporated and elided in projects that equip machines with emotional intelligence.
Cybersecurity describes technical and social measures needed to protect networked information systems. But its evolution has led to concerns of inappropriate militarisation.
The concept of data justice has been used to denote a shift in understanding of what is at stake with datafication beyond digital rights. This essay speaks to different interpretations of the substance of data justice (ontology), who it applies to (scope), and how it should be upheld (procedure).
Datafication is a key concept of digital society referring to the quantification and, often, monetisation of human life through digital information.
This article belongs to Concepts of the digital society, a special section of Internet Policy Review guest-edited by Christian Katzenbach and Thomas Christian Bächle. 1. Introduction The concept of decentralisation traverses multiple contexts, fields and disciplines. We begin this multidisciplinary discussion on decentralisation with describing the technical definitions and motivations for decentralisation in network engineering. We then move on to discuss the broader motivations for such decentralised networks, which span social, political and economic aims. Our intention is not to compare cases of decentralisation across disciplines and contexts as much as to point out that a study of …
Digital commons, understood as shared information, culture and knowledge resources created and maintained online, are a crucial concept to think about the development of the digital sphere beyond surveillance capitalism and steer it toward a more socially inclusive and sustainable economy and a renewal of democracy.
For contemporary societies, digital democracy provides a key concept that denotes the relationship between collective self-government and mediating digital infrastructures.
Digital organising refers to the collective purposeful alignment and distributed action fostered through digital technologies. The apparently opposing nature of digital organising draws attention to the need to unravel the concept theoretically.
This essay analyses how the key concept of digital sovereignty has evolved into a discursive practice in digital policy worldwide.
This concept paper contextualises, defines, and systematises the concepts of trust and distrust (and their interrelations).
Concepts such as ‘filter bubble’ enjoy considerable popularity in scholarly as well as mainstream debates, but are rarely defined with any rigour. This has led to highly contradictory research findings. This article provides a critical review of the ‘filter bubble’ idea, and concludes that its persistence has served only to distract scholarly attention from far more critical areas of enquiry.
This article delves into the diverse and complex nature of conceptualising misinformation as an object of research.
What is platformisation? This article contextualises, defines, and operationalises the concept. Drawing insights from different scholarly perspectives on platforms it develops a comprehensive approach to this process.
The text reviews current technological developments and the challenges they pose for privacy. It provides an overview of the relevant theories of privacy and their recent developments in light of technological changes.
How does resistance evolve under the pressure of datafication? People adopt defensive and productive tactics to resist the harms and risks of a data-driven society.
Smart technologies are capable of responding to feedback in ways that range from clever to mind-boggling. The point is how they affect human agency.
The concept of surveillance is indispensable for understanding the digital age, even as it requires constant inflection.
Introduction: transparency in AI Transparency is indeed a multifaceted concept used by various disciplines (Margetts, 2011; Hood, 2006). Recently, it has gone through a resurgence with regards to contemporary discourses around artificial intelligence (AI). For example, the ethical guidelines published by the EU Commission’s High-Level Expert Group on AI (AI HLEG) in April 2019 states transparency as one of seven key requirements for the realisation of ‘trustworthy AI’, which also has made its clear mark in the Commission’s white paper on AI, published in February 2020. In fact, “transparency” is the single most common, and one of the key five principles emphasised in the vast number – a …