Postgraduate Course: Understanding Digital Capitalism (EFIE11472)
Course Outline
| School | Edinburgh Futures Institute |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course explores in depth the relationships between global capitalism, economics, modes of government and emerging technology. It draws from Science and Technology Studies; case studies of major businesses and emerging digital innovations; and creative interventions. We critically explore how the dynamics of capitalism - finance, regulation, governance, innovation, and infrastructure - shape and are themselves shaped by technological innovation.
Each week, we will introduce a set of conceptual tools for making sense of and investigating technological innovation, and pair this with an in-depth exploration of a particular technology, it's meanings and values, the functioning of the technology itself, its core business model, different ways that people find to use it in practice, and its place in wider geopolitical systems. We will use futuring methods and constrained speculation in the class to open up these technologies to critical examination and imagine alternative futures, grounded in the dynamics of technology and capitalism. |
| Course description |
This course introduces a detailed critical exploration of the dynamics of technology-enabled innovation in a modern capitalist world. By examining key case studies of particular technologies (such as, in previous years, the Ring doorbell or the Strava fitness band) in their financial, regulatory, cultural, geopolitical and material contexts students identify the forces shaping emerging innovations, while developing through collaborative activities a set of teamworking and critical research skills.
These skills are anchored by theoretical and conceptual tools distributed across the course will draw from following themes and others:
1) Introduction to how we think about technology in Science and Technology Studies - the emergence of various technologies, and the creation of technology-enabled systems and infrastructures; where they come from, and how they become socially embedded, the role of capital, entrepreneurs, the state, legal regimes, and other factors
2) Critical accounts of capitalism, beginning with political economy and Marx, but moving forward to the 'social shaping of technology' accounts of how technology and innovation are implicated in power and social structure, in the context of globalisation of capital, the relation between government and capital.
3) The contemporary innovation landscape and how it can be managed: the role of national strategies and standards, start-ups, venture capital, hype, theatre of innovation - and modern critical accounts.
4) How users and markets shape technology - introducing the social learning perspective on innovation in which the user plays a far more active role in shaping new technologies that emerge - while many aspects of our lives are changed by technology, we collectively are able exert power though markets, culture and politics.
5) Futures of the digital economy - a critical exploration of radical emerging, alternative and competing models of digital capitalism and social governance, from video games to networked crypto states and state-backed digital wallets.
Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI) - Hybrid Course Delivery Information:
The Edinburgh Futures Institute delivers many of its courses in hybrid mode. This means that you may have some online students joining sessions for this course. To enable this, the course will use technologies to record and live-stream student and staff participation during their teaching and learning activities.
Students should be aware that:
- Classrooms used in this course will have additional technology in place: in some cases, students might not be able to sit in areas away from microphones or outside the field of view of all cameras.
- All presentations, and whole class discussions will be recorded (see the Lecture Recording and Virtual Classroom policies for more details).
You will need access to a personal computing device for this course. Most activities will take place in a web browser, unless otherwise stated. We recommend using a device with a screen, a physical keyboard, and internet access.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2026/27, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 30 |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 10,
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 5,
Supervised Practical/Workshop/Studio Hours 5,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
176 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
This course will be assessed by means of the following components:
1) Group Project (30%)
Group presentation of a pitch/proposal of a creative intervention / visualisation making visible how language data is used and its potential effects.
Learning Outcomes Assessed by Component: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
2) Individual Essay (70%)
1,500-2,000 word individual investigation/explanation of an existing technology/platform (e.g., Facebook, Alexa, search engines, Wikipedia etc.), using group, formative and individual research to inform discussion of what impact they have in producing narratives in the world, and how existing interventions/ visualisations / creative methods have made these narratives visible and understandable to wider audiences.
Learning Outcomes Assessed by Component: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 |
| Feedback |
Feedback on any formative assessment may be provided in various formats, for example, to include written, oral, video, face-to-face, whole class, or individual. The Course Organiser will decide which format is most appropriate in relation to the nature of the assessment.
Feedback on both formative and summative in-course assessed work will be provided in time to be of use in subsequent assessments within the course.
Feedback on the summative assessment(s) will be provided in written form via Learn, the University of Edinburgh's Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Understand a range of core ideas about the interrelationship between digital technology, innovation, capitalism, society and government.
- Critically explore the power dynamics, politics, and wider forces of capitalism shaping modern technological society and particular social issues relating to digital technologies.
- Critically apply key theoretical concepts from Science and Technology Studies to analyse the dynamics shaping specific case studies of innovation through group collaborative research.
- Find, interpret, evaluate, and use a wide range of different types of data, empirical material and arguments relating to how technology shapes societies around the world.
- Apply creative futuring methods to develop new options and interventions in response to major social issues facing policymakers in relation to digital society.
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Reading List
Crawford, K. (2021). The atlas of AI: Power, politics, and the planetary costs of artificial intelligence. Yale University Press.
Andressen, M, Techno-Optimist Manifesto, a16z.com
Schiller, D. (2015). Digital capitalism: stagnation and contention. Open Democracy, https://www.opendemocracy.net/digitaliberties/dan-schiller/digital-capitalism-stagnation-and-contention
Gillespie, T. (2010). The politics of 'platforms'. New media & society, 12(3), 347-364.
Pollock and Williams (2026), After Hype: The Business of Taming the Digital Economy, Cambridge University Press
Mackay, H. and Gillespie, G. (1992) 'Extending the Social Shaping of Technology Approach: Ideology and Appropriation', Social Studies of Science, 22(4), pp. 685-716. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/030631292022004006.
Noble, D. F. (1978). Social choice in machine design: The case of automatically controlled machine tools, and a challenge for labor. Politics & Society, 8(3-4), 313-347.
Sevignani, S. (2022) 'Surveillance, Classification, and Social Inequality in Informational Capitalism: The Relevance of Exploitation in the Context of Markets in Information', - Historical Social Research Vol. 42,1, pp 77-102 p. 27.
Kampmann, D. (2024). Venture capital, the fetish of artificial intelligence, and the contradictions of making intangible assets. Economy and Society, 53(1), 39-66.
Subramanian, V., & Hassan, Y. (2024). Peripheral visions: STS and digitalisation in the non-West. Science, Technology and Society, 29(4), 505-516.
Berry, D. M., & Moss, G. (2005). The libre culture manifesto. Free Software Magazine, 2.
Benkler, Y. (2006) The wealth of networks: how social production transforms markets and freedom. New Haven [Conn.]: Yale University Press. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Data,Language,Digital Capitalism |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Ben Collier
Tel:
Email: Ben.Collier@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Yasmine Lewis
Tel:
Email: yasmine.lewis@ed.ac.uk |
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