Patterns

Armin Nassehi is Professor of Sociology at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.

"Nassehi’s theory is neither dystopic nor utopic, but asks what digital technology is for. Here the ultimate simplicity of zeros and ones describes an infinite complexity, itself structured into patterns. These patterns are the data that pervade, indeed are constitutive of, the entire social life as we know it. A mind-numbingly simple thesis that indeed works. Read this book."Scott Lash, Oxford University "The pandemic showed how much we depend on digital technologies for our connections to others, and at the same time many areas of the world and disadvantaged social groups continue to experience digital social inequities. Armin Nassehi offers a fresh perspective on digital societies through the lens of European sociological theories that have, until now, been little adopted in this area of inquiry."Deborah Lupton, UNSW Sydney

• Preface to the English EditionPreface IntroductionHow to think about digitalisation? A technological-sociological kind of intuition Early technology pushes Original and copy Productive wrong and predetermined breaking point 1 The Reference Problem of DigitalisationFunctionalist questions Connecting data – offline What is the problem? The uneasiness with the digital culture The digital discovery of `society´ Empirical social research as the identification of patterns `Society´ as digitalisation material The cyborg as a means of overcoming society? 2 The Idiosyncracy of the DigitalThe inexact exactness of the world The particular idiosyncracy of data Cybernetics and the feedback of information The digitalisation of communication The dynamic of closure The self-referentiality of the world of data 3 Multiple Duplications of the WorldData as observers Duplications Disturbances Transverse data-like duplications The trace of the trace and discrete duplications Traces, Patterns, Networks 4 Simplicity and MultiplicityMedium and form Coding and programming The digital simplicity of society Increased options Sapere aude as it is reflected in digitalisation Excursus: Digital Metabolism 5 Functioning TechnologyThe function of the technological Digital technology Communicating technology The function of functioning Low-level technology Demonised technology Invisible technology and the Turing test The privilege of making mistakes 6 Learning TechnologyDecisions Abductive machines? Distributed intelligence? Anthropological and technological questions Experiencing and acting machines Incompleteness, temporariness, systemic paradoxes Artificial, bodily, incomplete intelligence 7 The Internet as a Mass MediaSurplus of meaning deals Synchronisation function Synchronisation and socialisation Selectivity, mediality and voice in the Internet Watching the watching Complexity and overheating The Internet as an archive of all kinds of statements Intelligence in the mode of Future perfect 8 Endangered Privacy The improbability of informational self-determination A new structural change of the public? Hazards Privacy 10 Privacy 10 as a result of Big Data? Big Data and privacy 20 Rescuing privacy? 9 Debug: Sociology Reborn from the Spirit of DigitalisationDigital dynamic and social complexity An opportunity for sociology NotesIndex