Digital transformation and the renewal of social theory: Unpacking the new fraudulent myths and misplaced metaphors

Abstract

In this article, it is argued that social theory must be renewed to comprehend the new power constellations and new challenges to aesthetic and intellectual ways of life that are being shaped by digital transformation. However, while social theory has to renew its tools in order to grasp previously unknown realities, it also runs the risk of being assimilated into the very process that it seeks to understand, or to assimilate so much of the dominant belief system that it loses its critical and creative potential. The aim of this article is to propose a particular, renewed social theory that consists in a recasting some social theoretic insights to be able to preserve aesthetic and intellectual potentials of critique and negation. Through the lens of this renewed social theory, digital transformation is understood as a form of economic domination, which, as this article shows, is sustained by un-enlightenment, that is, by fraudulent myths and misplaced metaphors.

The future of manufacturing: A Delphi-based scenario analysis on Industry 4.0

“…Industry 4.0 is commonly understood as a broad socio-technical paradigm (Dalenogare et al, 2018;Mariani and Borghi, 2019). In its original German conceptualization (Kagermann et al, 2013) the scope of the phenomenon was limited to manufacturing, but the distinction became less sharp in the light of technology-driven transformations across economic sectors (e.g., Simchi-Levi and Wu, 2018;Caro and Sadr, 2019;Mariani et al, 2018) as well as in the public and social sphere (e.g., Nicolescu et al, 2018;Ossewaarde, 2019;Pauget and Dammak, 2019).…”

“…Research has been tackling the effects of one or more technologies on single performance metrics (e.g., Kunovjanek and Reiner, 2020), operational performance expectations (e.g., Frank et al, 2019a;Büchi et al, 2020), stock market returns (Lam et al, 2019), and overall firm competitiveness (e.g., Niaki and Nonino, 2017). Scholars have also warned against unintended social consequences of the phenomenon (e.g., Kaplan and Haenlein, 2020;Kovacs, 2018;Ossewaarde, 2019), with empirical investigations mainly related to job market impacts (e.g., Dengler and Matthes, 2018;Balsmeier and Woerter, 2019). The last overarching research issue concerns -under the assumption of Industry 4.0 as a socio-technical paradigm -the non-technological features of the phenomenon.…”

The Function Shift of Tre’bang Randu Kentir Dance from Ritual to Pseudoritual

“…The new hybrid appeared, human experiences were predicated on the incorporation of physic world and digital world. This period created digital process which was very embedded in daily life [7]. Digital technology significantly influenced the change of cultural heritage spreading [8].…”

Digital Transformation Methodology of Industrial Enterprises

“…According to the results of another study [25] conducted by KPMG in 2019, the following eight became the key technologies for digital transformation in Russia: The primary task within the framework of the beginning of digital transformation of industry is the appointment of CDTO with the assignment of its corresponding functions and powers and the formation of Competence Center [23].…”