Digitality

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The term digitality is a word created from digital and materiality / reality . Digitality was developed in the humanities contexts and is mainly based on the work of Manuel Castells .

Digitality primarily means the entanglement of "digital" and "analog" realities. The understanding of analog and digital is differentiated. “Analog” is used here as a substitute for terms such as “offline” or “reality”, but also as a synonym for “the old” (which is replaced by the digital as “the new”). The point is to make it clear that digitality - understood as digital-analog networking - means more than just technical development and also means no delimitation in the sense of the displacement of "old" technologies by "new" (in the sense of "digital") technology. When problems, dangers and risks of technical developments (as digital disruption, transformation etc.) are described, the perspective of digitality with the search for a digital-analog balance offers a way out.

In contrast to digitization (see also digital transformation ) , digitality thus opens up a non-technology-oriented perspective on change processes in the 21st century. Thus, aspects of the "social" are carried into the change discourse, which influences the worlds of life (and thus the world of work, education and leisure) and systems of action (politics, economy, society).

Digitality in English-speaking countries

The English equivalent "digitality" means "the quality of being digital".

This means the conditions under which people live in a digital culture, and is derived from Nicholas Negroponte's book Being Digital , in analogy to terms such as modernity ( modernity ) and post-modernity ( postmodernism ).

With this understanding, a new form of culture is developing in the course of digital changes.

Digitality in the German-speaking area

Digitality as technology - understanding technology in the humanities

From a technical point of view, digitality is understood as the “representation of information through character strings, whereby the characters used come from an agreed set of characters. A special form of digital representation is the binary representation of information, in which the character set used comprises only two characters, mostly represented as 0 and 1 (bit) ”. This definition can be found on the Wirtschaftslexikons24 website.

Digitality is therefore mostly linked to the electronic transferability of signals and is based on code. In this sense, Heilmann understands digitality “as a historically locatable, technical implementation of the general principle of tactility [according to McLuhan ]. (...) (A) he apparatus-based positiveization of the paradigmatic-syntagmatic logic of the symbolic is digitality a technique of articulation. ”Another perspective describes“ digitality (...), as a medium ”in the sense of Niklas Luhmann .

This very technical understanding of digitality is taken up in various contexts, especially in the humanities.

In his book “Digitality, Language, Communication”, Bittner examines the relationship between language, communication and digital media from a linguistic perspective. This understanding of digitality is characterized by a separation between digital and analog.

The DFG- funded series of symposia “Digitality in the humanities” pursues a similar point of view .

The series formulates its approach as follows: “The use of digital processes and technologies in humanities research practice is increasing. A comprehensive reflection of this process is necessary and it is still pending. It can be assumed that digitality will change the objects of investigation in the humanities, their epistemologies and the premises of their claims to knowledge, the disciplinary self-image of the humanities subjects, as well as their research practices. "

Here, too, the concept of digitality is characterized by a distinction between analog and digital: "While the work on and with the digital is often seen by some of the research community as fruitful in terms of new insights for many areas of knowledge in the humanities and as an opportunity for renewal If the classical humanities are shown (if not the only chance of survival), many researchers also ask skeptical questions. Are the humanities only acquiring more efficient instruments with digitalization, or are they swapping their epistemic ideals for those from the natural and social sciences How does the understanding of humanities roles change under the auspices of Open Access , interactive text production, Wikipedia and digital archives? Ultimately: How does digitality change our research? How do digital technologies change the humanities fo r and their items? Is there ultimately only an expansion or are the humanities essentially changing? How should the relationship between digital methods and classical hermeneutic approaches be thought? What are the effects on young scientists and their support? The symposium series "Digitality in the humanities" is dedicated to these and other questions. "

The digital research infrastructure DARIAH-DE is an application example of how digitality should be made scientifically usable and tangible.

Another example of this technical understanding of digitality as “digital humanities” is the Mainz Center for Digitality in the Humanities and Cultural Studies. And combines six Mainz scientific organizations to jointly research and mediation in the field of digital humanities ( digital humanities to dedicate).

Culture of digitality

Felix Stalder describes digitality as a triad of referentiality, community and algorithmicity in his book "Kultur der Digitalität" from a cultural studies perspective.

“Referentiality, community and algorithmicity are the characteristic forms of the culture of digitality, in which more and more people, in more and more fields and with the help of increasingly complex technologies (have to) participate in the negotiation of social significance. In this way they react to the challenges of a chaotic, overflowing information sphere and contribute to its further spread. This is causing old cultural orders to collapse and new ones can already be clearly identified. Felix Stalder sheds light on the historical roots as well as the political consequences of this development. The future, he concluded, is open. Our actions determine whether we will live in a post-democratic world of surveillance and knowledge monopolies or in a culture of commons and participation. "

Stalder describes digitality as

"that set of relations that is now the basis of the infrastructure of digital networks in the production, use and transformation of material and immaterial goods as well as in the constitution and coordination of personal and collective action. This should not be the dominance of a certain class of technological artifacts, such as computers, be moved into the center, and even less the "digital" from the "analog", the "immaterial" from the "material" be delimited "

Digitality and not "digitalization" - three premises of digitality

André Schier looks at digitality from a political science perspective and combines this with media, cultural and social science aspects. Under the title: " Identities in digitality from" digital lifestyle "to" design your life ". Generation and political culture under the sign of changed living environments in Germany in the digitality discourse in advertising " he has changes in the discourse on digitality and the effects on identities in examined this digitality discourse.

The networking of technical-digital-virtual with organic-analog-real life worlds is at the center of the idea behind the word creation digitality. Thus, the term digitality should not be thought too technically. In this understanding of digitality, the Internet is not a medium, but a place. In this, people pursue social actions: "I educate myself, I work, I go shopping, I meet friends, I develop my artistic and creative skills, I take part in a demonstration" - digitally and analogously.

The following premises result from this digital-analogue self-evident:

Digitality premise 1: Digital-analog networking has become commonplace and leads to new confusion: structures and social relationships in the living environment and the system of action evaporate and become unclear.

Digitality premise 2: Digital-analog networking is more than just (technical) media usage and action. Digitality intervenes in the socio-political framework conditions of systems of action and living environment.

Digitality premise 3: Digital-analog networking changes the understanding of identity formation. (Goods) aesthetic logics, which are formatted by media and advertising, determine the display and the "fight" for attention.

Under the influence of these digital-analog networking processes, individuals and collectives are at the beginning of the 21st century in a stage of experimentation and in discursive negotiation processes about the "correct" handling of technical innovations and digital-analog balance.

Digitality as a business process

Entrepreneurs face the challenge of mastering the transformation of their business from offline to online. This includes, on the one hand, enabling communication with customers in the analogue as well as in the digital world, as well as establishing links, and on the other hand, it includes a strategy to be successful as an entrepreneur.

Through the will to accept and embrace the change process, to come to the realization that so-called digitization is by no means technology-heavy, but has a lot to do with emotionalization. Without emotions, no decisions can be made and no customers can be excited. Both necessary conditions and prerequisites to be able to generate sales at all. Against this background, the term digitization of a company is more than inappropriate. It is digitality as a business process that comprehensively describes a successful transformation.

In addition to emotionalization, automation is part of the basis of this business process. The use of automation,

  • to customers online through marketing automation to win
  • to simplify recurring work processes in a time-saving manner via email marketing automation
  • and to win and keep customers as fans through the excellent support before and after the purchase.

The extent to which QR code marketing, pin codes from Pinterest , NFC technology, augmented reality or iBeacon as a bridge between the virtual and real world are integrated into the business process depends on which target group is to be addressed. With digitality as a business process, the goal is inspiring communication within and outside the company.

literature

  • Felix Stalder: Culture of Digitality. Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-518-12679-0
  • Heidrun Allert, Michael Asmussen, Christoph Richter (Eds.): Digitality and Self. Interdisciplinary perspectives on subjectification and educational processes . Transkript Verlag, Bielefeld 2017, ISBN 978-3-8376-3945-2 .
  • André Schier: Identities in digitality from “digital lifestyle” to “design your life”. Generation and political culture under the sign of changed living environments in Germany in the digitality discourse in advertising, Verlag Dr. Kovac, Hamburg 2018, ISBN 978-3-339-10326-0
  • Oliver Stengel, Alexander van Looy, Stephan Wallaschkowski (eds.): Digital Age - Digital Society. The end of the industrial age and the beginning of a new era. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2017, ISBN 978-3-658-16508-6

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Manuel Castells: The Rise of the Network Society The Information Age. Economy. Society. Culture. 2nd Edition. tape 1 . Suhrkamp Verlag, Wiesbaden 2017, ISBN 978-3-658-11322-3 .
  2. ↑ definition | digitality defined. In: www.yourdictionary.com. Retrieved September 22, 2016 .
  3. ^ Dictionary Digitality - definition and meaning
  4. ↑ When is digitality? In: www.uebertext.org. Retrieved September 22, 2016 .
  5. ↑ Current Issue | Journal of Media Studies. In: www.zfmedienwissenschaft.de. Retrieved September 22, 2016 .
  6. ↑ Digitality as a modern mythologist / ePub | Ripperger & Kremers Publishing House. In: verlag-ripperger-kremers.de. Retrieved September 22, 2016 .
  7. ↑ Digitality, language, communication. An investigation into the mediality of digital forms of communication and text types and their variety-linguistic modeling - LINSE - Linguistics Server Essen. In: www.linse.uni-due.de. Retrieved September 22, 2016 .
  8. ^ Johannes Bittner: digitalitaet.net »Home. In: www.digitalitaet.net. Retrieved September 22, 2016 .
  9. ↑ a b Home - Digitality in the humanities. In: Digitality in the humanities. Retrieved September 22, 2016 .
  10. ↑ Hypotheses | Platform for academic blogs in the humanities and social sciences. In: hypotheses.org. Retrieved September 22, 2016 .
  11. ↑ Digitality - Digitality in the humanities. Retrieved September 22, 2016 .
  12. ↑ Home. Retrieved September 22, 2016 .
  13. ↑ DARIAH-DE - Digitality in the humanities and cultural sciences: Special issue of the journal "Bibliothek - Forschung und Praxis" | DHd blog. In: dhd-blog.org. Retrieved September 22, 2016 .
  14. ↑ Mainz Center for Digitality in the Humanities and Cultural Studies, mainzed. In: www.mainzed.org. Retrieved May 22, 2019 .
  15. ^ Felix Stalder: Culture of digitality . Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin 2016.
  16. ↑ nn - notes & nodes on society, technology and the space of the possible, by felix stalder. In: felix.openflows.com. Retrieved September 22, 2016 .
  17. ^ Felix Stalder: Culture of digitality . Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin 2016, p. 18 .
  18. ↑ André Schier: Identities in digitality from digital lifestyle to design your life. Generation and political culture under the sign of changed living environments in Germany in the digitality discourse in advertising. Retrieved April 6, 2018 .
  19. ↑ André Schier: Identities in digitality from digital lifestyle to design your life. Generation and political culture under the sign of changed living environments in Germany in the digitality discourse in advertising. André Schier, accessed on September 22, 2016 .
  20. ↑ Simply explained ... -. Accessed on September 20, 2018 (German).
  21. ↑ Beate Roth | Digital Leadership | Digitality and Communication. Accessed on September 20, 2018 (German).