Contested visions: Digital discourses as empty signifiers from the ‘network’ to ‘big data’

Abstract

This article engages with two key concepts that have come to define our digital cultures: the ‘network’ and ‘big data’. It critically considers how these concepts have largely been framed by techno-utopian or techno-dystopian political understandings of historical transformation. In the last few years, the relationship between technological discourses and political visions has led to the emergence of critical research in the field. This research has shown that we cannot fully understand digital discourses without considering the very Western belief that technological innovation necessarily leads to new political possibilities. By drawing on the findings of a cross-cultural ethnographic research among three different political groups in Europe, this article argues that current research in the field has focused too long on how digital discourse is shaped by Western meta-narratives of technological progress. This is to the detriment of a careful consideration of the fact that different political actors discursively construct digital technologies with reference to different political visions. Understanding these contested visions, as this article shows, is of central importance as it could enable us to appreciate that digital discourses have become today ‘empty signifiers’, which define the basis of contemporary hegemonic struggles.