Explanation
Digitalization describes the growing influence of digital technologies, platforms, algorithms, and networked communication on social, cultural, economic, and political life.
Digitalization affects many areas of society, including:
- communication and media,
- work and education,
- consumption and markets,
- identity formation and social interaction,
- surveillance and policing,
- and political participation.
Digital platforms and data-driven technologies increasingly shape how people interact, access information, construct identities, and experience public life.
In criminology, digitalization is associated with:
- cybercrime,
- surveillance technologies,
- predictive policing,
- online radicalization,
- digital subcultures,
- and algorithmic governance.
Researchers also examine how digitalization contributes to new forms of inequality, social acceleration, platform capitalism, and transformations of privacy and social control.
Theoretical Reference
Digitalization is associated with digital sociology, surveillance studies, media theory, platform studies, cultural sociology, and late modernity.