Governed by algorithms : Facebook, Foucault and the digital state

• Main Author: Bronholt, Peter Thorsten
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: University of the West of Scotland 2021

The objective of this thesis is to propose and analyse the digital state through an exploration of the governmentalities of Facebook. In this thesis, the digital state is proposed as the newest iteration of the Foucauldian technology called “state”, and Facebook is proposed as the most salient site for its exploration and analysis. This thesis provides original contribution to Foucauldian theory, as well as to the social sciences and related fields in general and the intersection between political theory and social media studies in particular. It does so through the development of the concept of the digital state, through the digital genealogy employed to analyse the governmentality of the digital state of Facebook, and through its far-reaching insights about the subjects of the digital age, both individually and collectively. A methodological approach based on Foucauldian scholarship termed digital genealogy is proposed and developed. In the digital genealogical approach the researcher combines a critical, hermeneutic approach with digital tools of information gathering, allowing him to take advantage of the breadth and depth of the connected communities of the digital world. It is found, first, that the digital state wields similar tools and technologies to the modern state, as described by Foucault and others; second, that the particular nature of algorithmic adaptation of the digital milieu to personalise content makes the digital state more than just a hyperlinked version of the modern state. The current and coming subjects of digital modernity exist across the offline-online divide, and this entails a radical difference from the pre-digital subjects that came before. While a double subjection is taking place in the digital realm, as well as in the space related to an offline state, the emerging nature of that subjection in the digital is so different from the double subjection so well known to Foucauldians as to constitute a triple subjection. This triple subjection unique to the regime of the digital state births insights about the user-citizens of the dawning age, and leads to cautions about the subjects we are to become. The thesis emphasises the radical difference to those that came before the dawning trans-human life-form which most humans have already become without their reflective knowledge. Finally, the thesis proposes recommendations for individuals and political entities, seeking to weather the tide of digital modernity and the subjects created by the digital state. A tide, it is argued, which cannot be stemmed, only steered.