Social Digitalisation

This book shows how many previously contingent social processes have gradually been re-organised and transformed into entangled processes of ‘discontinuance’ and ‘continuance’ through the implementation of digital logic. Together with the necessary co-evolution of our collective digital literacy, this persistent process of transformation throughout modernity is theorised here as one of ‘social digitalisation.’ 

Social digitalisation highlights the ways in which material digital technology, like preceding material technologies, has been fitted into the longer term trajectory of digital transformation. This new social theory thus reverses prevailing accounts of the ‘digital revolution’ that focus exclusively on changes allegedly caused by material digital technology in recent decades. 

The book also demonstrates the fruitfulness of applying the theory of social digitalisation as a holistic approach in researching the wide-ranging consequences of contemporary digitalisation, including its contrasting effects on different social groups. It will be useful to students and researchers of sociology, communications, media and history, but also for general readers interested in understanding the overall complexity of digitalisation and how digital transformation has come to dominate the ways we live today. 

"In a theoretical and empirical tour de force, Kornelia Hahn demonstrates, contrary to the generally accepted view, that digitalization is neither something new nor is it limited to contemporary digital technology. Of key importance is her innovative theory of the relationship between social digitalization, the development of advanced digital culture, and the widespread increase in digital literacy."

—George Ritzer, Distinguished University Professor Emeritus, University of Maryland,USA

"Kornelia Hahn’s thought-provoking book has radically changed my view on digital transformation, offering a genuinely fresh sociological approach that turns prevailing views on their head. ‘Social Digitalisation’ exemplifies the power of cultural analysis at its best. "

—Frank Welz, Former President of the European Sociological Association and Professor, University of Innsbruck, Austria

"The focus on social digitalisation theory offers an original contribution to the field. I particularly liked the breadth and depth of historical examples that the book presents in an engaging and compelling demonstration of the social and historical processes underpinning 'transformation’."  

— Kate Orton-Johnson, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, University of Edinburgh, UK

Kornelia Hahn is Professor of General Sociology and Sociological Theory and Chair of the Department of Sociology at the Paris Lodron University in Salzburg, Austria.