Governed by algorithms: Facebook, Foucault, and the digital state
Year: 2025
Type: dissertation
Abstract: The objective of this thesis is to propose and analyse the digital state through an exploration of thegovernmentalities of Facebook. In this thesis, the digital state is proposed as the newest iteration of theFoucauldian technology called “state”, and Facebook is proposed as the most salient site for its explorationand analysis. This thesis provides original contribution to Foucauldian theory, as well as to the socialsciences and related fields in general and the intersection between political theory and social media studiesin particular. It does so through the development of the concept of the digital state, through the digitalgenealogy employed to analyse the governmentality of the digital state of Facebook, and through its farreachinginsights about the subjects of the digital age, both individually and collectively.A methodological approach based on Foucauldian scholarship termed digital genealogy is proposed anddeveloped. In the digital genealogical approach the researcher combines a critical, hermeneutic approachwith digital tools of information gathering, allowing him to take advantage of the breadth and depth of theconnected communities of the digital world. It is found, first, that the digital state wields similar tools andtechnologies to the modern state, as described by Foucault and others; second, that the particular natureof algorithmic adaptation of the digital milieu to personalise content makes the digital state more than justa hyperlinked version of the modern state. The current and coming subjects of digital modernity existacross the offline-online divide, and this entails a radical difference from the pre-digital subjects that camebefore. While a double subjection is taking place in the digital realm, as well as in the space related to anoffline state, the emerging nature of that subjection in the digital is so different from the double subjectionso well known to Foucauldians as to constitute a triple subjection. This triple subjection unique to theregime of the digital state births insights about the user-citizens of the dawning age, and leads to cautionsabout the subjects we are to become. The thesis emphasises the radical difference to those that camebefore the dawning trans-human life-form which most humans have already become without theirreflective 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 isargued, which cannot be stemmed, only steered.
Author: Brønholt, Peter Thorsten
Institution: University of the West of Scotland
Language: English
Topic: Foucault, Power, and Ethics
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7106845183
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