2025/12/08 by Celeste Campos‐Castillo, Jessica Freedman, Xuan Kang +6 · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Social Media and Politics #Information Systems Theories and Implementation #Ethics and Social Impacts of AI
paper · pdf · doi:10.1080/1369118x.2025.2598052
openalex publication_date 2025/12/08 · openalex created_date 2025/12/09 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/15
We introduce a special issue of Information, Communication & Society that showcases research from the 2024 annual meeting of the American Sociological Association and related symposia. Collectively, the articles humanize the study of digital governance by centering humans. We draw on the sociotechnical systems paradigm to describe how the authors in this issue challenge reductionist views that treat technology as deterministic by highlighting how digital governance emerges from negotiated interactions among diverse actors. Across empirical cases, authors display quintessentially sociological depictions of human agency, wherein agency is both constrained and enabled by structure. Methodologically, the issue spans qualitative and quantitative methods and illustrates sociology’s capacity to illuminate micro- and macro-level dimensions of sociotechnical systems. This issue underscores that digital governance is not imposed unilaterally but constituted through human action within sociotechnical systems, which is a refreshing take amidst the latest cycle of anxiety over the existential risks of digital technologies.