Technology, Power and Society: Critical Perspectives on the Global Digital Transformation offers a critical exploration of how digitalization, datafication, and automation impact societies worldwide, with a particular focus on underrepresented and understudied contexts. This interdisciplinary volume unpacks the sociopolitical dynamics of new technologies, investigating their potential to empower, disrupt, and transform social structures across varied cultural landscapes. The book takes a broad view at various critical issues pertaining to digital media technologies and the socio-cultural challenges that come with their rise: How do big tech platforms try to dominate Internet access in the Global South? To what extent can they offer ways for resistance, where do they post risks for activists? How do current technology discourses maintain gender stereotypes and imbalances? How do visions of AI differ between political cultures? And how can we develop methodologies capable of capturing the complexity of global technology trends and their local manifestations? By bringing together global perspectives, this collection moves beyond conventional narratives to foster a nuanced understanding of how digital transformations both challenge and reshape local contexts.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Figures and Tables
Notes on Contributors
Introduction
Dennis Nguyen, Bruce Mutsvairo and Jing Zeng
Part 1
Concepts
1 Cosmopolitan Critical Data Studies
Dennis Nguyen
2 Digital and Epistemic Sovereignty in the Science Ecosystem in Latin
America
Thaiane Oliveira, Afonso de Albuquerque and Tatiane Mendes
3 Experimenting on the Frontier: Imperial Laboratories and Facebooks
Political Effects in Myanmar
Stefan Bächtold
4 From Datafication to Interpellation Becoming a Data Subject in Contemporary
Surveillance Cultures
Bjorn Beijnon
Part 2
Digital Cultures and Digital Politics
5 BM Girl Influencers on Xiaohongshu: Tracing Beauty Discourse, Social
Media Challenges, and Consumption Practices in Chinese Society
Shen Sijun and Crystal Abidin
6 Privacy Expectations and Norms: Perceptions of Individual Digital Activists
in Turkeys Xsphere (Twittersphere)
Yusuf Yüksekda and Sarper Durmu
7 Detouring, Rerouting, Weaponization: Memetic Soundscapes and the Secondary
Orality of WarTok
Marloes Geboers, Daria Del and Elena Pilipets
8 Making Sense of Post-Coup Myanmar through Facebook
Paula Romero Jiménez, Ana Melchor Pérez, Siebe Dekker, Miguel Oliveira Royo
and Jing Zeng
9 Artificial Intelligence Governance Made in China: Negotiating Imaginaries
and Power
Yishu Mao
Part 3
Inequalities, Resistance and Alternatives
10 With great power comes great responsibility: Lending Visibility to Risky
Political Content
Özlem Demirkol Tønnesen
11 Artificial Intelligences Sexual Politics: Three Modes and the Case of
Japan
Hiromi Tanaka and Michelle H. S. Ho
12 The Tech Gender Gap: A Closer Look at Womens Experiences in the
Technology Industry
Julia Luteijn and Rhied Al-Othmani
13 Beyond the Strictest Computation of the General Proportion
Gys-Walt Van Egdom and Christophe Declercq
Index
Dennis Nguyen is an assistant professor for digital literacy and digital methods at Utrecht University. His research concerns critical data studies, public epistemology, and computational methods for researching media.
Jing Zeng is an assistant professor of computational social and communication science at University of Zurich. Her research concerns social implications of emerging digital technologies and methodology development.
Bruce Mutsvairo is a professor and chair of media, politics and the Global South at Utrecht University.
