Exploring human agency and digital systems

Abstract

The paper explores the relationship between human agency and digital services. The capacity of digital services to create knowledge from a range of sources has led some commentators to argue that digital services are a factor in redefining human agency because these services link, combine, and compute data to create new knowledge [Lyotard, J. (1984) The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Manchester University Press, Manchester; Lash, S. (1999) Another Modernity, A Different Rationality, Blackwell, Oxford]. This, they argue, is resulting in non-human knowledge systems rather than knowledge created by humans within cultural frameworks. The paper critically engages with these debates to explore the ways in which digital services are made meaningful through the way individuals interpret and use them. It focuses on three contexts in which agency and digital services interact to provide insights into the framework and characteristics of agency in these settings. The three areas that are addressed are: virtual city modelling, digital or electronic-assisted living technology, and Second Life. The conclusion points out that agency is influential in these services in that it is situated in particular spaces and contexts, reflects on the past, assesses the present, and looks to the future. The agency of individuals is important in generating knowledge in digital services, and is part of a personalized form of participation in consumer culture.

Keywords:

• domestication of ICTs
• ICTs
• sociology

Notes

The focus on services addresses the relationship between digital technology and agency through the culture of technology-in-use scenarios. This adds another dimension approaches that focus on decision-making in behavioural economics, which cite examples such as user acceptance of computer settings (Thaler & Sunstein 2008).

Ritzer and Jurgenson (2010) argue that prosumption has always been part of capitalism and is becoming central in the digital economy.

Knowledge in this paper refers to everyday knowledge in terms of common sense or common knowledge.

Button's (1996) ethnomethodological perspective stresses work involves the practical actions of human beings.

This phase is termed the ‘Second Age of the Internet’ (Wellman and Haythornthwaite 2002).

The concept of culture yields ambiguity (Bauman 1973) and raises debate about the relationship between structure, culture and agency (Grossberg 1986; Archer 1989; Chaney 2002). The debates are well rehearsed and involve the relative determination of culture by structure, ideology vis-a-vis agency, and the capacity to act.

Lash (1999) distinguishes between ‘The Enlightenment as an Age of Reason in eighteenth-century Europe and enlightenment as reflective judgement’ (p. 2).

Or second modernity – Lash (1999) defines second modernity as holding a cultural logic in world systems based on nation-states, manufacturing, and institutional structures based on the social or society.

He points out that these were forgotten about in sociological and cultural analyses of second modernity.

The domestication process involves four non-discrete phases, which are the appropriation of the technology, its objectification, and incorporation into the household though which it is meaningfully converted into domestic use (Silverstone & Hirsch 1994).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bridgette Wessels

Bridgette Wessels is Director of the Centre of Interdisciplinary Research in Socio-Digital Worlds and is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Sheffield. She has conducted funded research that addresses digital technology in public services, everyday life, public sphere, new media, and identity. She was expert on EU Fifth Framework Information Society Technology programme, Office of Science and Technology/Department of Trade and Industry, and Royal Society cybertrust programmes and is expert for the EU on the Social Web and communication in Europe. Her current projects are: Mainstreaming Telehealth (Economic and Social Research Council and Technology Strategy Board); Participating in Search Design: a study of George Thomason's Newsbooks (Arts and Humanities Research Council); Augmenting participation in the arts (Department of Culture, Media and Sport and knowledge transfer). Her books include Inside the Digital Revolution: Policing and Changing Communication with the Public (Ashgate, 2007); Information and Joining Up Services: The Case of an Information Guide for Parents of Disabled Children (Policy Press, 2002); Understanding the Internet: A Socio-Cultural Perspective (Palgrave, 2010), and The Cultural Dynamics of the Innovation of New Media: A Case of Telematics (VDM: Saarbrucken). She has published on digital services in journals such as New Media and Society, The Information Society, and the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication.