Description

"Adjusting to the Digital: Societal Outcomes and Consequences"

This lecture draws insights from the history of critical assessments of digital innovation and applies them to contemporary developments such as the development of 5G mobile communication networks and digital services in the Cloud. In particular, it emphasises that the changes we are witnessing in the digital environment are typically informed by a dominant framework in the science, technology and innovation literature that insists that citizens and consumers must adjust to digital innovations. This notion that informs many claims about the benefits to society of the ‘4th Industrial Revolution’ is contrasted with alternative frameworks that emphasise the ambiguity of technology innovation, the guiding principles embedded in the innovation process, and the interpenetration of political and economic power. 

Robin Mansell is Professor of New Media and the Internet in the Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Science. She received her PhD 1984 from Simon Fraser University Canada and was Professor of Information and Communication Technology Policy at SPRU (Science Policy Research Unit) University of Sussex 1988-2000. Her research focuses on technology innovation, digital platform regulation and governance and its socio-political and economic consequences. She is author of Imagining the Internet: Communication, Innovation and Governance, Oxford University Press, 2012 co-author of Advanced Introduction to Platform Economics, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2020 and more than 120 papers and other books. He holds an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Fribourg.