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 EditionPrefaceIntroductionHow to think about digitalisation?A technological-sociological kind of intuitionEarly technology pushesOriginal and copyProductive wrong and predetermined breaking point1 The Reference Problem of DigitalisationFunctionalist questionsConnecting data – offlineWhat is the problem?The uneasiness with the digital cultureThe digital discovery of `society´Empirical social research as the identification of patterns`Society´ as digitalisation materialThe cyborg as a means of overcoming society?2 The Idiosyncracy of the DigitalThe inexact exactness of the worldThe particular idiosyncracy of dataCybernetics and the feedback of informationThe digitalisation of communicationThe dynamic of closureThe self-referentiality of the world of data3 Multiple Duplications of the WorldData as observersDuplicationsDisturbancesTransverse data-like duplicationsThe trace of the trace and discrete duplicationsTraces, Patterns, Networks4 Simplicity and MultiplicityMedium and formCoding and programmingThe digital simplicity of societyIncreased optionsSapere aude as it is reflected in digitalisationExcursus: Digital Metabolism5 Functioning TechnologyThe function of the technologicalDigital technologyCommunicating technologyThe function of functioningLow-level technologyDemonised technologyInvisible technology and the Turing testThe privilege of making mistakes6 Learning TechnologyDecisionsAbductive machines?Distributed intelligence?Anthropological and technological questionsExperiencing and acting machinesIncompleteness, temporariness, systemic paradoxesArtificial, bodily, incomplete intelligence7 The Internet as a Mass MediaSurplus of meaning dealsSynchronisation functionSynchronisation and socialisationSelectivity, mediality and voice in the InternetWatching the watchingComplexity and overheatingThe Internet as an archive of all kinds of statementsIntelligence in the mode of Future perfect8 Endangered PrivacyThe improbability of informational self-determinationA new structural change of the public?HazardsPrivacy 10Privacy 10 as a result of Big Data?Big Data and privacy 20Rescuing privacy?9 Debug: Sociology Reborn from the Spirit of DigitalisationDigital dynamic and social complexityAn opportunity for sociologyNotesIndex