Power and Persuasion in Digital Society

Introduction

With social media and other digital platforms, people have gained new channels to express their opinions, desires, and needs. Digitalisation has expanded our opportunities to communicate and engage; it has increased access to information and contributed to democratising the public sphere. At the same time, this new digital reality reflects or amplifies old power structures. The internet has opened global markets and networks, but it has also made a few players very powerful. Power and disempowerment go hand in hand, and for better or worse, global technology giants and so-called tech oligarchs have changed the premises for human communication, the role of traditional media, freedom of expression and democracy. Much is thus at stake in societal development, where topics such as monopolisation, algorithmic power, behavioral surveillance, and artificial intelligence (AI) are the seeds of significant dilemmas and controversies.

In this course, students will acquire fundamental knowledge about technological development in a broad economic, social, and cultural context to independently reflect on how digitalisation impacts power relations in the world.

Course content

• The development of the internet, web, and digital platforms 
• Algorithmic power and the gatekeeping role of platforms 
• Attention economy and surveillance capitalism 
• Public sphere, media, freedom of expression, and democracy in light of digitalisation, platformisation and the development of artificial intelligence (AI) 
• The power of tech giants and tech oligarchs
• Conflict areas related to security, surveillance, privacy, monopoly power, copyright, and more 

Disclaimer

This is an excerpt from the complete course description for the course. If you are an active student at BI, you can find the complete course descriptions with information on eg. learning goals, learning process, curriculum and exam at portal.bi.no. We reserve the right to make changes to this description.