The vast infrastructure that enables the transfer of electronic data over communication networks of today also provides the conduits for the transfer of a unique kind of power that seems to envelope large segments of contemporary societies. While physically weaker than the electrical power of the grid, this power seems to be much stronger socially, culturally, and politically — with a grip on people’s minds and behaviors that is rather fierce, forceful, and, at times, formidable. The close association between this kind of power and pervasive computer technologies of today encourages us to dub it “digital power” or, more aptly, “digital discipline.” What makes digital discipline most distinctive from other forms of social power that historically preceded it is its seemingly voluntary and self-inflicted character. Not only do we not resist, we show a strong readiness to embrace it, availing our minds and bodies as vehicles for its circulation and operation. In our quest for happiness and in competing for enhanced performance (longevity, health, wealth, fun) our bodies become docile and our minds complicit in the process. We seem to become happy slaves with respect to some technologies (iPhones, Blackberries, etc.), frustrated but dependent cogs in a system of others (users of customer support in almost any domain, users whose privacy is not respected), and transcendently empowered experts for still others (expert programmers, gamers). What is the origin and character of this power? What are the social, economic, and political mechanisms that enable it? And what moral order and cultural values does it cultivate? These are the questions that I would like to examine here. My interest in these questions is partly retrospective — I want to understand the historical origins and the course of development of the contemporary subject; and partly prospective — I want to see what kinds of designs and arrangements of emerging technologies (health technologies, media, government information systems, financial instruments, etc.) lead to what kinds of roles and relationships between human subjects and technological objects.
Hamid R. Ekbia is Director of Center for Research on Mediated Interaction and Associate Professor of Information Science and Cognitive Science and Adjunct Associate Professor of Informatics School of Library and Information Science at Indiana University, Bloomington
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