Reframing sociotechnical imaginaries: The case of the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Abstract

In recent years, a Fourth Industrial Revolution emerged in public discourse as a narrative of exceptional societal disruption. At the core of this conceptual construct, led by the World Economic Forum, rests a sociotechnical imaginary of future essentialism, based on the revolutionary potential of digital, biological and physical innovations. This article addresses the lack of studies assessing the dynamics between the institutionalisation and the public performance of the Fourth Industrial Revolution concept through news media. We present the results of a quantitative content analysis of how the topic has been covered (frames, sources, tone) by the Portuguese national circulation press (2013–2020). This exploratory case study informs a proposal for an epistemic and methodological articulation between the theoretical frameworks of sociotechnical imaginaries and of media framing.

Public AI imaginaries: How the debate on artificial intelligence was covered in Danish newspapers and magazines 1956–2021

“…However, previous findings also suggest that although AI imaginaries often operate on a global or transnational scale, they come to prominence when they are performed and articulated within national and local societal institutions and contribute to actual social practices (e.g., Schiølin, 2020). This includes national news media institutions, as shown in, for instance, Brennen and colleagues's (2020) study on AI imaginaries in British news media and Vicente and Dias-Trindade's (2021) study on how AI is framed in the Portuguese national press. Both studies point to a co-constructive link between national public news media institutions and national governmental strategies in the debate and digital agenda surrounding AI.…”

Freezing out: Legacy media's shaping of AI as a cold controversy

“…For example, hyperbolic narratives positioned nanotechnology as key to economic growth two decades ago (Chateauraynaud, 2005). Just like promoters constructed narratives about nanotechnology leading to a third industrial revolution in the early 2000s (Colleret and Khelfaoui, 2020), AI is promoted as promising to bring about a fourth industrial revolution (Vicente and Dias-Trindade, 2021). The convincing nature of these representations—visions of what science and technologies will one day be able to achieve—make these news stories performative : they rally actors, attract funding, coordinate research activities, form the basis of policy making, and organise entire technoscientific communities in and outside of academia (Ananny and Finn, 2020; Borup et al, 2006; Konrad, 2006).…”