Project description
Investigating progressive parties’ practices in the context of digitalisation
The dominance of non-European big tech companies is impeding the EU’s digital strategies, thereby posing risks to its citizens. It remains unclear whether a new progressive political approach to the digital age is currently unfolding. The MSCA-funded IMDIGICOMM project aims to establish a three-pillar theoretical framework for comprehending the impact of digitalisation on gender, democratic and productive relations. This is rooted in the assumption of the emergence of two contrasting models: the ‘digital as commodities’ and the ‘digital as commons.’ The project will concentrate on progressive parties in Germany, Spain, France, Italy and Poland. It will study their practices in promoting the concept of the digital commons. It will also assess the societal consequences of transitioning from the digital as commodities to the digital as commons.
Objective
Putting the ‘people at the centre of the digital transformation’ is one of the core goals of EU strategies for the digital decade. However, the excessive power of a few non-European big tech companies governing the digital transition also carries risks for EU citizens. While state-of-the-art theorises and describes the new opportunities and threats of the political impacts of ‘platformisation’, the question of whether and how a new progressive politics for the digital age is emerging is rarely asked. IMDIGICOMM will answer these questions in four steps.
First, building on critical literature on the ‘digital commons’, IMDIGICOMM will elaborate a three-pillar theoretical framework to make sense of how digitalisation affects gender, democratic and productive relations. The assumption underlying IMDIGICOMM is the emergence of a new cleavage counterposing two models of platformisation: the ‘digital as commodities’ and the ‘digital as commons’. Second, empirical research will focus on Progressive Parties in five countries (France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain) to map their ideologies and practices regarding the digital transition to assess whether they facilitate or hamper the advance of the 'digital commons'. Third, the maps will result in a ‘Digital Commons Politics’ Index to measure the extent to which parties’ imaginaries on platform societies contribute to redirect the digital transition, and Qualitative Comparative Analysis will assess the combination of conditions that may lead to an increase in the index. Fourth, the project will evaluate the societal impacts of transformative shifts from the ‘digital as commodities’ to the ‘digital as commons’ through a digital dashboard. IMDIGICOMM represents a stepping stone to elaborate the theoretical and methodological tools to make sense of the politics of the digital age. Finally, IMDIGICOMM aims to open future research pathways to systematise the understanding of the political confrontations in platform societies.
Fields of science
Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European FellowshipsCoordinator
46010 Valencia
Spain