Manoeuvring in a digital dilemmatic space: making sense of a digitised society

Göran Fransson

doi:10.18261/issn.1891-943x-2016-03-04

Abstract

Although an increasingly digitised society offers a variety of options, it also implies challenges, risks and dilemmas for citizens, organisations and corporations. The purpose of this article is t ...

Highlights

As society becomes more digitised, the pros and cons of this digitisation become more apparent
Choosing the best option can be dilemmatic. All this implies we live in a digital society that calls for a digital literacy, which goes beyond the very use of digital tools
The article could be seen as an argument that the conceptual frame helps us to make sense of, relate to and manoeuvre in a digitised society

Summary

INTRODUCTION

186 MANOEUVRING IN A DIGITAL DILEMMATIC SPACE: MAKING SENSE OF A DIGITISED SOCIETY | GÖRAN FRANSSON identity theft, cyberbullying, phishing and grooming are examples of activities that people need to be aware of and avoid exposure to (cf. Guarnieri & Przyswa, 2013). I will apply the framework when discussing specific aspects of a digitised society, such as social networking communities, file sharing, network control, surveillance and issues in educational settings These aspects and examples are used as illustrations of how to operationalise the conceptual frame of dilemmatic space. Dilemmas and dilemmatic spaces are social constructions that result from the structural conditions and relational aspects of everyday life (Fransson & Grannäs, 2013; Hogget, et al, 2006) This implies that people, organisations and ideas position themselves in relation to others, and are at the same time positioned by others. I argue that the conceptual frame of dilemmatic space helps us to elucidate and deepen our understanding of a digitised society as emphasising positions, relations, spatiality, manoeuvring, and potential dilemmas in an ever present dilemmatic space. In the examples of virtual social networking communities (SNC) and blogs, the construction of dilemmatic space(s) is related to social communities in which people express themselves by sharing things like texts, photos, films and audio, and by commenting, discussing, interacting and networking in communities that are elaborately multimodal

The blogosphere and social networking communities as dilemmatic spaces

DISCUSSION