Impact of The Digital Society on Global Economy The Free Essay Example

Impact of The Digital Society on Global Economy

The decisions we make along with the outcomes are influenced and shaped by the situations we find ourselves in, the values we have and the behaviors of people around us. The resulting effect of these decisions and actions have an impact on society, and the study of sociology has given us an edge of understanding as to why things happen the way they do. In this essay, I will use the sociological imagination according to C.

Wright Mills, to illustrate how the use of sociological perspective has been depicted on the impact of the digital society on the global economy. The foundation of the following assertion is basically based on the fact that a functioning society comprises of a people and individuals whose digital footprints determine the scale of the global economy. Therefore, for us to have a finite and elaborate discussion of the global economy with regards to a digital society, we must involve a varied array of social issues which will form the basis of the argument for this paper.

Some of the issues that support this theory include; a review of e-commerce by discussing the social case of China’s digital economy, discussion about social conflict by considering the impacts of global digital labor platforms as well as how the non-involvement of women in Canadian digital economy agenda influenced Canada’s sluggard growth in provision of broadband technology and other serious concerns like how digital massification have influenced the role of the institution for higher learning and many more.

The role played by commercial activities in China’s wide range of diversity and transformation depicts the aspect of human independence in this modern age. In as much as this is true, the makers of China’s e-commerce and digital economy have been a subject of critical discussion, from a social perspective, their role and agency has been seen as negotiating a complicated network of power and knowledge in order to create a difference in people’s state of affairs in their daily lives. The articles by Huang redefine the digital economy’s stakeholders as an unlikely collection of unimagined and underrepresented groups (Yu, 2017). This shows sociological imagination in play from a social and cultural impact rather than volumes of business and transaction of the digital economy. In turn, this translates to the implication of the digital economy on these grassroots players’ strategies for survival.

There is also a sense of urgency in China’s aspiration to be a world leader in the digital economy. The Chinese government plays a pivotal role in fostering a sophisticated communication ecosystem (Yu, 2017). With such scrutiny, we can see the Chinese agenda of national rejuvenation from a sociological perspective because it has a state-centered approach to economic development and restructuring through the use of digital media, technology, and telecommunication. They have been using this model as the new epicenter for economic growth and market reforms since the 2000s because the mainstream discourse holds that China missed the best opportunities in the first and second industrial revolutions (Yu, 2017). Despite being a latecomer to the new playing field of digital technology, China is now poised to lead in digital productivity and innovation at a global scale.

The global spread of the internet has liberated most workers from place-bound labor. The typical users of the end products of work such as clients and bosses can now be located in varied corners of the planet. The spatial disengagement of work in global economic margins has given rise to new digital regimes of work. The authors Graham, Hjorth, and Lehdonvirta (2017) talk of major social trends of unemployment or underemployment for people with jobs and those looking for jobs. An in-depth focus of sociological imagination shows us that the need for jobs in the places they don’t exist has brought along the spreading of digital connectivity across most of the world’s population. Currently, millions of people have gained ground to outsource digitally mediated work as a way to scale above some of the constraints of the labor markets within their locality.

The rate at which business process outsourcing has been growing is commendable. There were very few locations that could offer a sufficient amount of connectivity to support transnational flows in the past (Graham et al, 2017). Since more people in low-income countries can now connect to the internet, the advent of digital labor platforms has diverted a large stream of people to fundamentally outsource for jobs where clients post jobs and workers bid on them. Even though digital labor is growing rapidly, there is also the aspect of social conflict since not everyone can equally compete in digital platforms. The author furthermore argues that workers from non-western countries could be poorly rewarded on such sites.

The concern about social inclusion has suffered the lack of sufficient popularity from recent digital policy even though most governments consider the impact that digital skills have on the digital economy. The fact that Canada has been developing federal policy and programs to increase citizens’ internet access draws the aspect of social conflict since the aim was to promote online gender equity. Shade outlines a retreat from the public interest by the conservative-led federal government. They had been on the forefront to diminish this progressive agenda and concern with gender equity (Shade, 2017). Therefore, a withering public interest in social welfare has been the case as seen by the gradual yet crucial disinterest in funding for programs for internet access. Programs like the Community Access Program (CAP) provided for the community’s economic and cultural development. Its termination cost Canada the reputation as an international innovator in broadband access (Shade, 2017). The rise and fall of CAP and the contempt for equality issues are examples of discursive and material shifts in social and digital policy, shifts from promoting internet access that would foster and nurture participatory citizenship to a discourse whose mere advantage is consumers’ access to goods and services.

The broad scale of information economy experienced in the globe today is grounded on the commodification of data, labor as well as the social lives of the users. One area that has been given little attention is the role played by e-books in our world’s network of the information economy. E-book publishing has been leading in exploring new methods of consumption, production and even the organization of work (Davis, 2015). The world’s famous e-book sellers like Google and Amazon realized a scholarship gap, therefore, they have been vying to dominate the global information economy. The economy is usually defined by accessibility to user data as well as consumer preference that is mined through surveillance. The catalyst that has enabled this level of access has been the development of technology that has been used to collect information. For instance, the author states that Amazon’s Whispersync technology gathers information, as users of Kindle e-book reader read, how fast they read, sending information about such things as what they read, preferred reading times, what passages they underline and whether or not they completed the book to Amazon’s database (Davis, 2015). Also, Amazon’s Silk browser traffics all user data through a proxy server owned by Amazon, that collects information about websites visited and customer browsing preferences by default (Davis, 2015). Therefore, e-books promote neoliberal digital capitalism that is achieved through the commodification of our social lives.

From a global perspective, we can deduce the evident mismatch between the internationalism of higher education institutions and the geopolitical and economic context of populist isolation. A simplistic view of this assertion is the symbolic interaction experienced through the modes of learning that have brought about obliviousness of cosmopolitan elites to populist currents. Although poverty levels are declining around the world as measured by income and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita over time, inequality is getting worse between and within most countries (Hill and Lawton, 2018). From a sociological perspective, we could try to calibrate this fa?ade by considering the aspect of higher education. It has been celebrated as a vehicle for individual economic and national success. Due to the massification and digitization of higher education, it is available to more people, in more places than ever before.

It is important that we understand that higher education is important to the national political systems that compete for knowledge and resources across the global capitalist landscapes. Therefore, we can make up a proactive response to global disruption and inequality by considering the academy’s role in the reassertion of the internationalism narrative by looking at the university’s national context. The authors Hill and Lawton argue that universities face implicit societal pressure, coupled with the core national and international functions of university hence unfolding a paradox of identity and activity (2018). This has redefined the relationship and connection between universities and the world around them. In retrospect to this claim, global capitalism has led to a global middle class that drives demand for higher education through digital platforms and the extraordinary imbalances in wealth seen today.

The logic to the structure of the digital economy greatly broadens inequality. We clearly see this gap through the increasing automation of jobs, this suggests that as time progresses, the economy continually produces fewer jobs for the adult workforce. The author takes into account the reports and warnings from academics which highlight how technological advancements in the field of artificial intelligence has reached the stage where automation has become as effective in eliminating jobs in the knowledge economy as well as replacing human labor in the operation of tasks that are repetitive in nature (White, 2019). The same logic of the digital economy has also widened inequality by efficiently delivering enormous profits to a small number of already-enriched individuals and organizations. This assessment can be evaluated by particularly focusing on Universal Basic Income (UBI) and stake-holding schemes. Whether it is a coincidence or not, White states that the sharpening of inequality has reached its climax in digital markets (2019). We can see that monopolies abound in companies where huge wealth is commonly shared among often few shareholders and employees. In the reverie of sociological imagination, we can clearly point out the fact that automation not only threatens menial jobs, but also those upon which the global network economy is of most dependence.

In conclusion, the sociological imagination helps us to understand a lot of things around us, it helps us to explain certain facts about the lives we lead and also incites our minds to question some of the ideals that we hold to be true in our society. The use of the sociological imagination as applied to Information Systems and Technology enables us to distinguish and explore how the digital society influences the global economy, therefore, enabling us to make better decisions regarding how our line of career should propel us. For instance, when we consider the Canadian affair, we learn that inclusivity of both genders to any form of digital development program is good for a nation’s growth. When we consider the impact of e-books in the global information economy, we can question the ethics of big corporations with regard to how secure they keep and how they use customer information and create awareness on good use of the internet. We can also work on the best ways to create employment schemes through the internet for marginalized groups when we consider the impact of global digital labor platforms. In short, the sociological imagination is not as minor as it may seem to be, it can be used as a driving force of the society’s agenda with the aim to bring desirable change.