Paradigmatic and Discursive Dimensions of AmI and the IoT and Knowledge/Power Relations, Subject Positioning, and Legitimation

Abstract

As they derive from scientific discovery or innovation, visions of the future of technology such as AmI and the IoT tend to be conceived of as paradigms and thus paradigm shifts in relation to various spheres of society, although they are concerned with people-centered approaches in the practice of technological development—that is, they are directed towards humans and targeted at complex, dynamic social realities. Moreover, as research subjects, they are positioned in a field of tension between social, political, and cultural practices and the performance aspects of technological systems. While such visions emanate from the transformational effects of computing, where concepts of paradigm and paradigm shift do actually hold, they still entail a lot of aspects of discursive nature in the sense of a set of concepts, ideas, claims, assumptions, and premises that are socio-culturally specific and historically contingent. The aim of this chapter is twofold: (1) to examine and classify multiple aspects of the paradigmatic dimension and key aspects of the discursive dimension of AmI and the IoT and related key issues, and (2) to investigate from a discursive analytical perspective knowledge/power relations, subject positioning, and legitimation pertaining to AmI and the IoT as discourses. I argue that there is a paradigm profile relating to (ubiquitous) computing, but there is no paradigm in society—nor should there be. In view of that, AmI and the IoT as computing paradigms are affected by knowledge/power relations in the sense of possessing the particularity of having a scientific-objective foundation, and I contend that this allows their promoters, creators, and producers to link AmI and the IoT with the scientific knowledge (and discourse), which is one of today’s main sources of legitimacy in European society in relation to knowledge-making, decision-making, and policy-making. As societal discourses, they are, as results suggest, constructed in correspondence with the subjects—favorably positioned within such discourses—that support them with regard to their institutional belonging, scholarly affiliation, social location, cultural inclination, ideological commitment, and/or socio-political status. This involves biases in the strategic actions of these subjects as well as their mode of calculation about their ‘objective ideal and material interests’. Also, the legitimation of their actions—and hence their interests—occur on the basis of normative orientations and values.