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While the notion of digital sovereignty is loaded with a multitude of meanings referring to various actors, values and contexts, this paper is interested in how to actualize individual digital sovereignty. We do so by introducing the concept of agency affordances, which we see as a precondition for achieving digital sovereignty. We understand this notion as the ability to exercise power to, as autonomy and agency for (digital) self-sovereignty, and as power over the infrastructural sovereignty of the privately owned automated decision-making systems (ADM) systems of digital media platforms. Building our characterization of digital sovereignty on an empirical inquiry into individuals' requirements for agency, our analysis shows that digital sovereignty consists of two distinct but interrelated elements - data sovereignty and algorithmic sovereignty. Enabling practicable digital sovereignty through agency affordances, however, will require going beyond the just technical and extending towards the wider societal (infra)structures. We outline some initial steps on how to achieve that.

We advocate for the adoption of an integrated strategy aimed at achieving increased participation via effective digital public administration services. We argue that it is urgent to understand the integration of participatory approaches from the field of e-democracy in digitalized public administration, as trendsetting e-government implementations are already underway. We base our arguments on the observation that the approaches in e-democracy and e-government seem to be locked into extremes: In e-democracy, (experimental) platforms have failed to create a participative political culture. E-government, in turn, narrowly perceives citizens as customers. Additionally, efforts to increase digital sovereignty have mostly been educational ones that support citizens' self-determined use of the digital but do not address sovereignty via the digital. As a result, digitalized public administration is not achieving its potential to create opportunities for participation during encounters with the administration. Hence, we argue for the adoption of a digitally aided sovereignty as a normative guide for an e-government transformation that strives to create opportunities for participation via the digital.

While classes become more heterogeneous and children grow up as digital natives, instruction is still characterized by an emphasis on middle-class children and analogue media. Moreover, national and international comparative studies have repeatedly shown that Germany in OECD comparisons often ranks last in terms of the level of digital learning opportunities in schools. A gap exists between children's lifeworld experiences and informal learning processes in a digital world on the one hand and digital learning opportunities at school on the other. Thus, schools do not offer content and digital infrastructure that links to students' informal digital knowledge. Therefore, there is a need to discuss how schools can integrate the emancipatory power of digitalization.

Whether we are discussing measures in order to "flatten the curve" in a pandemic or what to wear given the most recent weather forecast, we base arguments on patterns observed in data. This article presents an approach to practicing ethics when working with large datasets and designing data representations. We programmed and used web-based interfaces to sort, organize, and explore a community-run archive of radio signals. Inspired by feminist critique of technoscience and recent problematizations of digital literacy, we argue that one can navigate machine learning models in a multi-narrative manner. We hold that the main challenge to sovereignty comes from lingering forms of colonialism and extractive relationships that easily move in and out of the digital domain. Countering both narratives of techno-optimism and the universalizing critique of technology, we discuss an approach to data and networks that enables a situated critique of datafication and correlationism from within.

This study is dedicated to the interdependencies between digital sovereignty and sustainable digitalization, which need to be explicitly linked to an increasing degree in political discourse, academia, and societal debates. Digital skills are the prerequisites for shaping digitalization in the interest of society and sustainable development.

Artificial intelligence (AI) strategies are exhibiting a shift of perspectives, focusing more intensively on a more human-centric view. New conceptualizations of AI literacy (AIL) are being presented, summarizing the competencies human users need to successfully interact with AI-based systems. However, these conceptualizations lack practical relevance. In view of the rapid pace of technological development, this contribution addresses the urgent need to bridge the gap between theoretical concepts of AIL and practical requirements of working environments. It transfers current conceptualizations and new principles of a more human-centered perspective on AI into professional working environments. From a psychological perspective, the project focuses on emotional-motivational, eudaimonic, and social aspects. Methodologically, the project presented develops AI testbeds in virtual reality to realize literally graspable interactions with AI-based technologies in the actual work environment. Overall, the project aims to increase the competencies and the willingness to successfully master the challenges of the digitalized world of work.

Digital twins are gaining attention in healthcare, especially in fields like hospital management, simulating surgeries, or providing personalized health. As digital replicas based on users' data, digital twins can inform citizens in-depth about their lifestyle, medical data, and biomedical data. Hence, there is the assumption that digital twins could facilitate preventative healthcare at home, bringing healthcare closer to citizens, yet there are underexamined ethical concerns. In this paper, we explore the ethics of digital twins based on citizens' perspectives on digital twins in healthcare via recent literature and research. Although digital twins have great potential, citizens have concerns about surveillance, data ownership, data accuracy, and personal and collective agency.

This paper looks at conceptual approaches to digital sovereignty from an international political economy perspective, focusing on the state level. We consider the implications of the rise of the data economy and analyze different economic policy approaches to restoring and preserving Europe's digital sovereignty from market liberal and industrial policy perspectives. We conclude that networked sovereignty can optimally be attained by supporting the emergence and success of homegrown technology companies in a globalized data economy. Digital sovereignty can best be achieved by policy makers using a mix of market liberal and more proactive industrial policy instruments. The liberal focus on framework conditions is useful in refocusing policy makers' efforts on deepening the EU single market, while the industrial policy approach can be a suitable way of funding pilot projects in early-stage technology areas in partnership with industry and setting rules for newly emerging markets. State action is also necessary to avoid monopolies.

This contribution looks at cultural heritage institutions and their digital assets from a commons perspective. Since the beginning of digitization in the late 1990s and with the change of the medium from the analogue to the digital, the role and mission of cultural heritage institutions has changed. Challenges for managing their assets in the sense of a commons arise, on the one hand, due to the current legislation on copyright and intellectual property rights, and, on the other, because of the availability of digital cultural heritage as Big Data, which opens up possibilities for economic exploitation of these assets by private companies. Should digital assets be available open access, or should access and use be regulated? This short paper discusses the possibilities for this model of sovereign data governance within the legal regimes of intellectual property rights and the public domain.

Es gibt Anhaltspunkte dafür, dass die durch die COVID-19-Pandemie ausgelöste Krise zu strukturellen Veränderungen der Arbeitswelt geführt hat, die in engem Zusammenhang mit Digitalisierungsprozessen stehen. Einige Veränderungen sind in industriellen Produktionsprozessen, der mobilen Arbeit und auch der Plattformarbeit zu erwarten. Damit solche Veränderungen sich positiv auf die Arbeitswelt auswirken ist politische Gestaltung gefragt. Beobachtbar ist, dass einige Unternehmen ihre Digitalstrategien überdenken, teils forcieren und vermehrt mit neuen Möglichkeiten experimentieren. Hier ist es notwendig, Betriebsrät_innen und Beschäftigte frühzeitig in die Gestaltung neuer Ansätze einzubinden. Am offensichtlichsten hat sich die Arbeitswelt in der Krise durch die digitale Kommunikation im virtuellen Raum verändert. Menschen die bereits im Homeoffice arbeiten, sind jedoch verschiedenen Schwierigkeiten ausgesetzt. Virulent sind Fragen der Geschlechtergerechtigkeit, die Vermischung von beruflichem und privaten, sowie die Ausstattung des häuslichen Arbeitsplatzes. Aufgrund der Erschütterung der regulären Arbeitsmärkte nahm auch über digitale Plattformen vermittelte Arbeit zu. Die prekären Arbeitsbedingungen der Plattformarbeiter_innen haben sich während der Pandemie noch zugespitzt, gleichzeitig ist international aber eine politische Regulierung der Plattformarbeit in Sicht, die inzwischen auch in Deutschland in Ansätzen stattfindet. Diese Arbeit wurde durch das das Bundesministerium für Arbeit und Soziales (684 11 - “Denkfabrik Digitale Arbeitsgesellschaft”) und das Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) gefördert (Förderkennzeichen: 16DII121, 16DII122, 16DII123, 16DII124, 16DII125, 16DII126, 16DII127, 16DII128 – „Deutsches Internet-Institut“).

Best practices for displaying data and metadata pertaining to software licensing and copyright are currently unharmonized. The multiple competing licensing requirements for communicating the chosen license of a software project and its copyright holders increase the compliance burden on project maintainers, especially for smaller free and open source (FOSS) ones. The "REUSE Software" initiative aims to remediate this situation by defining a set of easy-to-implement best practices for declaring copyright and licensing in an unambiguous, human- and machine-readable way, so that the information is preserved when the file is copied and reused by third parties. REUSE specifications facilitate management policies for digital commons, improving data and metadata communication for individuals, communities, governments, and businesses.

The COVID 19 crisis has had a massive impact on the world of work. Based on a standardized survey of 540 company sites and 34 qualitative case studies in six industries (automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering, logistics, healthcare and financial services), this study examines how companies’ digitalization and automation strategies have changed in the context of the pandemic. The analysis shows that the companies surveyed have by and large coped well with the crisis. However, an increasing polarization is becoming apparent. Digital pioneers intensified digitalization measures to a greater extent than those that were already behind in this respect before the pandemic. The focus of digitalization during the pandemic was particularly on supporting processes in administration, human resources management and sales. Automation also primarily played a role in these fields and only a minority of respondents expected employment losses in the medium term. Another key finding of this study is the correlation between technical and organizational innovation. It can be observed that those companies that invested more heavily in technical digitalization processes were also more inclined to make organizational changes with regard to management styles, working hours and work organization. This work has been funded by the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (684 11 - "Denkfabrik Digitale Arbeitsgesellschaft") and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany (BMBF) (grant no.: 16DII121, 16DII122, 16DII123, 16DII124, 16DII125, 16DII126, 16DII127, 16DII128 - "Deutsches Internet-Institut").

This paper will first investigate possible contributions that an AI-based detector for deepfakes could make to the challenge of responding to disinformation as a threat to democracy. Second, this paper will also investigate the implications of such a tool - which was developed, among other reasons, for security purposes - for the emerging European discourse on digital sovereignty in a global environment. While disinformation is surely not a new topic, recent technological developments relating to AI-generated deepfakes have increased the manipulative potential of video and audio-based contents spread online, making it a specific but important current challenge in the global and interconnected information context.

Taking the notion of health as a leitmotif, this paper discusses some conceptual boundaries for using machine learning⁠ - a data-driven, statistical, and computational technique in the field of artificial intelligence⁠ - for epistemic purposes and for generating knowledge about the world based solely on the statistical correlations found in data (i.e., the "End of Theory" view⁠).The thrust of the argument is that prior theoretical conceptions, subjectivity, and values would - because of their normative power⁠ - inevitably blight any effort at knowledge-making that seeks to be exclusively driven by data and nothing else. The conclusion suggests that machine learning will neither resolve nor mitigate⁠ the serious internal contradictions found in the "biostatistical theory" of health⁠ - the most well-discussed data-driven theory of health. The definition of notions such as these is an ongoing and fraught societal dialogue where the discussion is not only about what is, but also about what should be. This dialogical engagement is a question of ethics and politics ⁠and not one of mathematics.

The COVID-19 pandemic has seemingly reinforced the need for geographic restructuring and a rehoring of production, as it has demonstrated the vulnerability of globalized production. This article provides an assessment of the impact of COVID-19 on the geographies of production, looking particularly at developments in the automotive, electronics, and clothing industries. Criticizing overly simplified prospects for deglobalization, we argue that the COVID-19 pandemic cannot be interpreted as a trigger for a general retreat from global manufacturing but rather as an event that is reinforcing long-standing shifts toward more multipolar production and consumption. While the issue of global production network resilience has attracted great attention in corporate strategies and industrial policies, re- or nearshoring of production networks is only one of several strategies and it has hardly been implemented so far. Ongoing disruptions and, above all, geoeconomically/-politically and environmentally motivated policies could well lead to a shift in investment and sourcing patterns. Political efforts in this direction are, however, limited by pre-existing global economic development paths and the balance of power associated with them.

Contemporary models of digital inclusion and the digital divide assume that developing the digital literacy that enables individuals to participate in society is a sequential and linear process that is more or less similar for all individuals in all contexts and requires basic linguistic skills. This paper challenges these understandings, arguing that such a technical, normative perspective excludes marginalized and disadvantaged publics, such as low-(digital) literate citizens. Based on a longitudinal ethnographic study of low-literate Dutch adults, we show that the often-described causal relation between (digital) literacies, (digital) participation, and (digital) inclusion is not as evident as it seems and neglects the important socio-cultural contexts through which (digital) literacies are often gained and enacted in everyday practice. Consequently, we argue that current conceptualizations of (digital) inclusion and (digital) participation need to be rethought in terms of the limitations, potential, and capabilities of low-literate people.

This paper asks what skills migrants need to be able to deal with artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in a self-determined way in their everyday lives. We propose a conceptual framework to empirically identify migrant's awareness and perceptions of possible discrimination through AI. Following Bucher (2017, 40), we argue that by experiencing AI systems in their digital environments, people develop AI imaginaries that shape their attitudes, interactions, and practices with AI. We assume that experiences of discrimination evoke affects, feelings, and emotions that at first glance are not associated with AI technologies. The paper provides relevant research questions that address AI imaginaries. In addition to studying knowledge about and perceptions of AI, research should increasingly focus on users' attitudes towards AI, their evaluations of AI, and their feelings, emotions, and affects related to AI. Subsequently, we elaborate on dimensions of digital literacy based on these AI imaginaries. Finally, we will describe the digital skills that are necessary to confidently cope with discrimination by AI technologies.

The unprecedented rise of startups such as Google or Amazon has spurred an ongoing debate on the conceptualization of the corporate model these firms represent. Thus far, attention has centered on the analysis of their product and market strategies highlighting their platform nature as common feature and its defining characteristic. By applying and scaling the platform business model these companies have been able to capture value created outside the firm. The focus on the platform nature and the evolution of their external ecosystems, however, has left the work that is done inside these companies to create and provide online platforms largely unnoticed. Against this background, the article seeks to contribute to the debate by analyzing the inner mode of production as an essential component of their corporate model. The second nature of online platform firms, it is argued, is that they are tech companies. Building on this, the article aims to reconstruct how as tech companies they have learned and perfected to continuously develop and operate the internet applications that power their online platforms at global scale.

We explore the impact of automation and digitalization on labor in the US agrifood system during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study considers each of the primary nodes in the system stretching from consumer through grocery stores and restaurants to last-mile delivery, distribution, food processing, farming, and agri-inputs. Not only automation and digitalization, but also the role of platforms such as Amazon, and food delivery firms such as GrubHub, Instacart, and Uber Eats are discussed. For restaurants, we consider not only dine-in restaurants, but also ���ghost kitchens���. Furthermore, the possibility that farmers or distributors could disintermediate other nodes and deal directly with consumers is discussed. We conclude that, as a generalization, the further upstream one goes from the consumer, the less immediate and disruptive automation is likely to be for labor. However, our overall conclusion is that, given the current trajectories, labor is becoming increasingly precarious. If the current labor shortages continue, then automation is likely to accelerate. Platformization, while rampant in the relationships with final consumers, is likely to be less rapidly adopted further upstream where relationships are B-to-B and thus composed of actors that are wary of sharing data.

This discussion paper investigates two questions: To what extend can Tesla be regarded as a digital firm, and do we - as a result - see elements of a distinct "Tesla production system"? While the EV-startup is widely approached as a competing automaker focusing on the electric drive train, which it certainly is, this paper argues that it can only fully be understood as a digital firm - a digital car company with a digital product embedded in a digital ecosystem. Its roots in Silicon Valley, its software-first approach, and its strategic exploitation of user activity data point into this direction. In the second part, this paper explores to what extent Tesla's rootedness in software and its Silicon-Valley ancestry gave reason to introduce methods borrowed from software development on the shop floor. To a certain degree, concepts from agile software development found their way to the very assembly-line at Tesla. Although it might be exaggerated to speak of a distinct "Tesla Production system", indications for a considerable and possibly enduring alteration of Lean Production paradigm can be determined. This work has been funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany (BMBF) (grant no.: 16DII121, 16DII122, 16DII123, 16DII124, 16DII125, 16DII126, 16DII127, 16DII128 - "Deutsches Internet-Institut") and the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs of Germany (BMAS).

This article explores the position of industrial internet platforms (IIP) in manufacturing value chains. We develop an understanding of the role of data in global value chains (GVCs), referring to literature on intangible assets and theories on platform business models. We use data from a qualitative empirical study based on 45 interviews on platforms active on the German market to answer (1) whether there are tendencies of oligopolization that lead to an accumulation of power on the side of the platforms, and (2) whether it is the platforms that capture most of the gains derived from higher productivity or lower transaction costs. The analysis shows that platforms mainly act as service providers and/or intermediaries that support manufacturing companies in reaping benefits from data. While the relationship between platforms and manufacturers currently corresponds to a symbiosis, a stronger power imbalance could evolve in the future since processes of oligopolization are likely.

Es gibt Anhaltspunkte dafür, dass die durch die COVID-19-Pandemie ausgelöste Krise zu strukturellen Veränderungen der Arbeitswelt geführt hat, die in engem Zusammenhang mit Digitalisierungsprozessen stehen. Einige Veränderungen sind in industriellen Produktionsprozessen, der mobilen Arbeit und auch der Plattformarbeit zu erwarten. Damit solche Veränderungen sich positiv auf die Arbeitswelt auswirken ist politische Gestaltung gefragt. Beobachtbar ist, dass einige Unternehmen ihre Digitalstrategien überdenken, teils forcieren und vermehrt mit neuen Möglichkeiten experimentieren. Hier ist es notwendig, Betriebsrät_innen und Beschäftigte frühzeitig in die Gestaltung neuer Ansätze einzubinden. Am offensichtlichsten hat sich die Arbeitswelt in der Krise durch die digitale Kommunikation im virtuellen Raum verändert. Menschen die bereits im Homeoffice arbeiten, sind jedoch verschiedenen Schwierigkeiten ausgesetzt. Virulent sind Fragen der Geschlechtergerechtigkeit, die Vermischung von beruflichem und privaten, sowie die Ausstattung des häuslichen Arbeitsplatzes. Aufgrund der Erschütterung der regulären Arbeitsmärkte nahm auch über digitale Plattformen vermittelte Arbeit zu. Die prekären Arbeitsbedingungen der Plattformarbeiter_innen haben sich während der Pandemie noch zugespitzt, gleichzeitig ist international aber eine politische Regulierung der Plattformarbeit in Sicht, die inzwischen auch in Deutschland in Ansätzen stattfindet.

In the current public discussion, it is considered certain that we are living in a time of rapidly advancing automation, which is driven in particular by the use of robots. Accordingly, many academic publications use robot density as the central indicator of automation. The present study challenges this perspective. It examines two central questions: First, what approaches to automation and digitalization have been pursued in the automotive industry in Germany, Japan and the USA? Second, how have employment and its occupational composition in the automotive industry developed in the three countries? The first part of the study focuses on the development of automation and digitalization approaches in the automotive industry from the early 1990s until today. It combines a qualitative analysis of press articles and a quantitative evaluation of the development of the stock of industrial robots from 1993 to 2018 based on the statistics of the International Federation of Robotics. The second part of the study focuses on the change in employment structures using occupational statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (USA), the Federal Employment Agency (Germany) and the Statistics Bureau of Japan. The study questions the perception of an automation-related threat to employment and especially to production employment. At the same time, it discusses developments in Germany, Japan and the USA in comparison and highlights differences in automation and digitalization approaches as well as different paths of change in employment structures. Zugl.: Preprint (Manuscript Version) von Krzywdzinski, Martin (2021): Automation, digitalization, and changes in occupational structures in the automobile industry in Germany, Japan, and the United States: a brief history from the early 1990s until 2018, Industrial and Corporate Change, ISSN 1464-3650, Oxford University Press, Oxford, doi: 10.1093/icc/dtab019.

Weizenbaum Series

The platform economy has been criticized for exacerbating social inequalities in various ways. This study draws on these discussions and examines the extent to which social inequalities are being reproduced, reduced, or even increased within platform work. The first central question is that of the precariousness of this form of work and the vulnerability of the platform workers as a group. This is followed by a second question about the role of classical dimensions of inequality of education and gender within the group of platform workers. The study focuses on inequalities related to income, workload, and the subjective perception of platform work. It follows a comparative approach, building on institutionalist analyses developed in labor market and inequality research. The empirical analysis is based on case studies of 15 crowdwork platforms in the United States and Germany and on an online survey of crowdworkers in both countries. While platforms represent a global organizational model, they are embedded in different models of capitalism. The study shows that existing labor market segmentation and social welfare systems determine who works on platforms and to what extent. The weaker the social safety net, the more likely platform work is to be both a curse and a blessing: It offers a much needed and flexible source of income, albeit under extremely precarious conditions. The stronger the social safety net, on the other hand, the greater the market power of workers vis-à-vis the platforms.

The emergence of the digital society has become one of the most pressing research topics in social science. So far, political science has been at the margins of the debate because it has been restricted by a rather narrow focus on networked communications. The paper attempts to change this by presenting a more encompassing way to address digitalisation from within political science. After briefly criticising the development of the research in political science the paper reconstructs at length some of the most popular conceptualisations in neighbouring disciplines. While we highlight the commonalities and strengths of those approaches in theorising digitalisation, we criticise their rather derivative understanding of democratic practices and the political as such. We go on to propose a modified understanding - which we term the "digital constellation" - that looks at the changing shape of democracy by developing a much more nuanced understanding of the interplay between societies and technologies. Finally, we illustrate the argument in an exemplary analysis of the changes occurring in political representation in the context of digitalisation.

Proceedings of the Weizenbaum Conference