Seduced by Technology? How moral agency is mediated by the invisibility of everyday technologies

Abstract

We introduce postphenomenology to organization studies to address the question: How is moral agency mediated through everyday technologies? Drawing on our everyday experiences of academic knowledge production as an empirical illustration, we argue that the extent to which technological mediations are visible and invisible has important implications for moral agency. We conceptualize the visibilities of technological mediations through two dimensions: (1) visibilities of the source of mediation, and (2) visibilities of the connection between the means of mediation and its effects. Using these dimensions, we differentiate four different modes of mediation – coercive, persuasive, decisive and seductive – each varying in terms of moral agency. We problematize the invisibility of technological mediations, as evinced by a condition we term seductive mediation where both the sources of mediation and the means of mediation are invisible, then conclude with specific implications for organization studies.