2 Digital Transformations , Informed Realities , and Human Conduct

The information that people search for, collect, and utilize on a daily basis is now largely sourced through what Jørgensen, in the Introduction to this volume, terms “the social web.” As many have recognized, this results in the most popular platforms— such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram— being able to influence and direct human activities in relatively novel ways (Flyverbom et al. 2016; Gillespie 2014; Whelan 2019a; Zuboff 2015, 2019). Despite various backlashes against these commercial platforms (such as that relating to the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal of 2018), the perceived convenience and value of such services— in terms of consuming, communicating, socializing, and learning for example (cf. Hargittai and Marwick 2016; Varian 2010, 2014)— seem far from abating. Given this context, we use the present chapter to introduce a framework that helps conceive of how these platforms construct what we term “informed realities.” Like many before us, we are intrigued by the fact that, while people are free to act, they only ever act within environments that they have played, at best, a minimal role in constructing (Bourdieu 1977; Certeau 1984; Foucault 1977). More specifically, and just as popular platforms (Schmidt and Cohen 2013) and their critics (Vaidhyanathan 2011) have also recognized, we seek to highlight how choice is constrained and directed by the continuously restructured platform interfaces that help people satisfy their various desires (Flyverbom 2016; Mansell 2017). Further to the impacts it is having in terms of privacy (see chapter 10), freedom of expression (see chapters 8 and 9), and democratic accountability (see chapter 3), then, the social web impacts upon our personal freedom and