Towards a manifesto for a critical digital humanities: critiquing the extractive capitalism of digital society

Abstract

This article proceeds in two distinct parts. The first section engages with a deliberately small number of popular texts written by discriminating and interrogative consumers and producers of digital culture and society. While these may be dismissed as journalistic texts and sources by those of a more focused academic intent, here these texts are used because they are the connection between academic engagement and wider public readership. As such, they frame what can be termed the critical public engagement with digital capitalism. These texts are read in tandem with my thesis of immaterial capitalism and Marazzi's' The Violence of Financial Capitalism. The paper then concludes with what can be described as the 'manifesto turn' by raising some questions for a renewed engagement with digital society, to be undertaken from what is termed, an emergent critical digital humanities, as the site of critique and resistance. This is an exercise in what can be labelled Mongrel methodology and ideology, a neo-logism deliberately provocative in intent to signal a postacademic approach, chosen over such traditional descriptors as mixed-methods or assemblage and the like. As such, it may draw on Marxist thought but is not Marxist in ideology or final intent; it is critical of capitalism but acknowledges our ongoing existence and possibilities within it; it is written by an academic seeking to act as intermediary between academic and non-academic readings and responses. It is a deliberate act of provocation as a manifesto call for change.

The Responsible Adoption of (Highly) Automated Decision-Making Systems

“…Our goal in this paper is to develop a theoretical framework that emphasizes the socio-ethical factors surrounding the decision made by organizations to deploy an ADMS. This endeavour, which echoes contemporary callings like critical technological citizenship [8] and critical digital capitalism [9], as well as early writings on the diffusion of new technology e.g., [10], [11]- [13], is intended to move researchers' attention beyond the rather instrumentalist perspective espoused by existing information technology (IT) adoption theories [14], [15]. This literature focuses on the questions of why, when, and how prospective organizations and individuals adopt or intend to adopt an IT for their own use and benefits, without inquiring whether the adoption decision or the process leading to the decision is socially responsible [16], [17].…”