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This paper aims to view the concept of persuasive technology as a framework for discussing cultural politics on the internet. Taking digital collections as a point of departure, the cases of Europeana and Google Books are to be discussed as promoting different assemblies of information, practice and identity politics. Through this discussion the study aims to show how the internet becomes territorialized through persuasive mechanisms.

The study applies different concepts on the cases, derived from different fields of social theory, such as “soft power”, “assembly” and “folksonomy” in order to question the traditional view of persuasive technology as a concept instrumental to, for example, marketing agendas. Targeting the relation between policy and everyday practice, the paper aims to open a discussion of persuasive technology deeply embedded in digital cultural politics.

The study points through a conceptual investigation to a new scene for critically debating persuasive technology as digital cultural politics. The cases in question emphasize the relation between microscopic practices and global agendas on the internet, and the study concludes that the concepts employed can qualify such a future debate.

The paper suggests a number of problems and questions, but since the cases have limited source material, the perspective is rather to suggest a change of terminology than analyzing Europeana or Google Books. What is found, though, is that a future critical debate of persuasive territories is more important than ever before.

This paper points to a new potential in the use of persuasion as a concept in the study of cultural power relations.

One of the most important challenges of our society is to cope with the transition of our society into a more and more digital one. Thus, the political and governmental system has to face and adapt to those transitions as well. This chapter focuses on the social media communication of the British, German and French national governments. The goal of this chapter is to compare the social media communication of these three countries in 2015 within each other as well as to draw a comparison between the results of two predecessor studies in 2011 and 2014. A new special focus of this chapter will be on the interactive discourse between society/citizens and governments.

Despite certain political, organizational, technological and socioeconomic benefits that e-voting brings, governments around the world are beginning one by one to denounce its further use in the electoral process. In this regard, the paper aims to analyze reasons that led to the discontinuation of e-voting, resorting to the case of Kazakhstan, a transitional post-soviet country, which actively used the technology in 2004-2011, as a poster child of the global trend, elaborating on key political, socioeconomic, organizational and technological risks that could be associated with the possible return of this innovation in future elections.

The research is based on the combination of context and policy analysis, as well as focus groups studies and semi-structured interviews. The context analysis was aimed to understand various political and socioeconomic benefits in adopting e-voting in Kazakhstan. The policy analysis was useful in identifying implementation strategies of the government in promoting e-voting. The focus groups were helpful in understanding the perspectives of various audiences on e-voting. The semi-structured interviews were carried among independent developers in regard to the potential software products that could be used to propose new solutions in the area, including by experimenting with various blockchain platforms.

Analyzing the lessons from Kazakhstan, one can conclude that e-voting was introduced and used for several years by authorities in this country for certain economic and organizational benefits, but later they had to reject it and return to traditional paper ballot due to lack of confidence from the non-governmental sector in the capacity of public sector to ensure the integrity of e-voting procedures. As a result, building trust and applying innovative approaches should be a priority for policymakers in the area, if they wish to return to this technology, especially in adopting new presumably more reliable solutions based on blockchain technologies.

The primary data that was collected by the author from field studies were indexed, refined and presented in a special matrix in a separate section, which were interpreted in the discussion session. These data could be used by other scholars for further interpretation and analysis in their own studies, setting new research agendas and testing hypotheses. This is a single case study research, which is focused on the analysis of reasons that led to the denunciation of e-voting in Kazakhstan, which results could be extrapolated mostly to similar transitional post-totalitarian settings.

The study can be used to inform ways of how to improve the current e-voting platforms, especially in ensuring better security and transparency of the systems, which could be useful for developers who work on blockchain-driven solutions.

The results of the case study research and expert opinions expressed by various software developers in the e-government areas, which were presented in the paper, could be used by both an academic community and practitioners in understanding better a wide range of political, organizational, economic, social and technological drivers, risks and new opportunities in promoting e-voting technology as a trust generating social phenomenon.

The paper proposes the first case study of reasons that led to the discontinuation of e-voting in the context of such a typical transitional, post-totalitarian and post-soviet society as Kazakhstan, providing new insights into a wide range of political, regulatory, socioeconomic, organizational and technological aspects of related policy decision-making and implementation strategies adopted by public institutions in this country.

Despite the pendulum swing from utopian to dystopian views of the Internet, the direction of the popular and academic literature continues to lean toward its liberatory potential, particularly as a tool for redressing social inequality. At the same time, decades of digital inequality scholarship have shown persistent socioeconomic inequality in Internet access and use. Yet most of this research captures class by individualized income and education variables, rather than a power relational framework. By tracing research on how fear, control, and risk manifest itself with inequalities related to digital content, digital activism, and digital work, I argue that a narrow stratification approach may miss the full cause and effect of digital inequality. Instead, a class analysis based on power relations may contribute to a broader and more precise theoretical lens to understand the digital divide. As a result, technology can reinforce, or even exacerbate, existing patterns of social and economic inequality because of this power differential.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the shifting conceptualization of the democratizing potential of digital technology can be more comprehensively understood by bringing in science and technology studies (STS) perspectives to communication scholarship. The synthesis and discussion are aiming at providing an interdisciplinary theoretical framework for comprehensively understand the democratizing potential of digital technology, and urging researchers to be conscious of assumptions underpinning epistemological positions they take when examining the issue of democratizing potential of digital technology.

The paper is a constructive literature review that synthesizes and integrates existed literature from communication and STS on the democratizing potential of digital technology. The author attempts to bridge theoretical perspectives from communication and STS by identifying core arguments and debates around key concepts and discussing potential implications of different epistemological positions.

Tracing the evolving analytical perspectives of technological determinism, the social construction of technology and actor-network theory, the author argues that researchers should be aware of their underlying epistemological assumptions embedded in relationships among users, technological systems and social factors. Analyzing the contested notion of power in the democratizing potential of digital technology from two contrasting perspectives, the author argues that researchers should recognize both the front end and the back end of digital technology in their analysis. In addition, new challenges of algorithm opacity and accountability in impacting the democratizing potential of digital technology are further discussed.

This study provides an original interdisciplinary theoretical framework by reviewing and bridging scholarship from communication and STS in examining the democratizing potential of digital technology. Adopting this interdisciplinary theoretical framework helps researchers develop a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of the democratizing potential of digital technology.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to further develop Paul Edwards’ concept of “data friction” by examining the socio-material forces that are shaping data movements in the cases of research data and online communications data, second, to articulate a politics of data friction, identifying the interrelated infrastructural, socio-cultural and regulatory dynamics of data friction, and how these are contributing to the constitution of social relations.

The paper develops a hermeneutic review of the literature on socio-material factors influencing the movement of digital data between social actors in the cases of research data sharing and online communications data. Parallels between the two cases are identified and used to further develop understanding of the politics of “data friction” beyond the concept’s current usage within the Science Studies literature.

A number of overarching parallels are identified relating to the ways in which new data flows and the frictions that shape them bring social actors into new forms of relation with one another, the platformisation of infrastructures for data circulation, and state action to influence the dynamics of data movement. Moments and sites of “data friction” are identified as deeply political – resulting from the collective decisions of human actors who experience significantly different levels of empowerment with regard to shaping the overall outcome.

The paper further develops Paul Edwards’ concept of “data friction” beyond its current application in Science Studies. Analysis of the broader dynamics of data friction across different cases identifies a number of parallels that require further empirical examination and theorisation.

The observation that sites of data friction are deeply political has significant implications for all engaged in the practice and management of digital data production, circulation and use.

It is argued that the concept of “data friction” can help social actors identify, examine and act upon some of the complex socio-material dynamics shaping emergent data movements across a variety of domains, and inform deliberation at all levels – from everyday practice to international regulation – about how such frictions can be collectively shaped towards the creation of more equitable and just societies.

The paper makes an original contribution to the literature on friction in the dynamics of digital data movement, arguing that in many cases data friction may be something to enable and foster, rather than overcome. It also brings together literature from diverse disciplinary fields to examine these frictional dynamics within two cases that have not previously been examined in relation to one another.