Hot air and corporate sociotechnical imaginaries: Performing and translating digital futures in the Danish tech scene

Abstract

This article analyzes the role of hype in performing and translating corporate sociotechnical imaginaries of digital technologies, into the context of Danish society. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork of technology events in Denmark, this article proposes “hot air” as a concept to describe how hype for the future performs these imaginaries. This article describes the overlapping sociotechnical imaginaries that dominate these events and the performative effects of hype and its critique, in articulating and translating them. This article makes an empirical and conceptual contribution to the study of sociotechnical imaginaries, in particular, their socio-material performance, the role of corporations in articulating them, and how hype is central to their translation.