Agency in a datafied society: an introduction

Abstract

In media and communication research the datafied society has become a core concept for describing a society in which data-based sense making has become a fundamental principle of the construction of reality. In datafied societies it is often suggested that the possibilities of human agency are evolving, while also recognizing that a new form of machinic agency has become a ubiquitous phenomenon of daily life. The thematic issue Agency in a datafied society takes up such a discussion and aims to contribute to further clarification through theoretical and empirical articles. This introduction aims to achieve two objectives: First, it addresses the intellectual risks posed by empirical and conceptual ambiguity linked to vague interpretations of a datafied society. In tandem, it systematically categorizes the diverse applications of the term agency in the context of investigating a datafied society. Both serve as a foundation for situating the further contributions to this special issue in within the broader discourse of the field.