Matthias Rath

Marginalized communities are confronted with issues resulting from their marginalization, such as exclusion, invisibility, misrepresentation, and hate speech, not only offline but – due to digital change – increasingly online. Our research project DigitalDialog21 aims at evaluating the effects of digital change on society and how digital change, and the risks and possibilities that come with it, is perceived by the population. Digital change is understood as a factor of social change in this project. By investigating digital change and its effects on society, we are able to draw more general inferences on how societies change socially and what needs to be done in education to establish digital trust. In 2017 the Digital Evolution Index observed an increasing trust deficit and skepticism towards digitalization in both very industrialized and lesser industrialized countries. We will draw inferences from these observations here and hypothesize the following: It seems that especially in marginalized communities, that is: in communities that are structurally and systemically disadvantaged and that experience societal marginalization, this trust deficit and skepticism towards digitalization is prevalent. This could be so because, as a member of a marginalized community, one might quickly find issues resulting from marginalization to be present in digital spaces just like they are present in non-digital spaces. This paper will examine critically how attitudes in marginalized communities towards digital media are influenced by digital change. Do the risks of digitalization outweigh the advantages for marginalized communities? Are digital media perceived to provide advantages such as increased visibility and representation or are they perceived to fuel discrimination against marginalized people? Our research project brings together secondary analyses of existing studies with the results of our own qualitative interview study on marginalized people's perceptions of digital change. The paper will portray some example interviews, and thereby analyze if and how attitudes in the margins towards digital media change, what this change consists of, and how we can understand the changing attitudes within an ethical and educational framework. Our findings will point at a necessity to increase ethically based digital literacy (PEAT) in the German education system, starting in early education. Marginalized groups in particular must be empowered to become digitally competent through problem-oriented education. Independent self-efficacy can increase digital trust in fragmented societies. The paper concludes by introducing media ethics tools that are being developed as part of the project.

Digital change is one of the most critical factors influencing social change in most societies. The Digital Evaluation Index 2017 (Chakravorti & Chaturvedi, 2017) showed based on 60 national economies that almost no digitally indifferent societies exist anymore. However, different speeds of development and, above all, different attitudes towards the challenges and opportunities of digitization can be observed. Primarily industrially, highly developed nations are also digitally highly developed. However, a "trust deficit" is prevalent in those nations as well; that is, there is a rather reserved attitude on the side of policymakers and the population towards digital development. This "trust deficit" points to a changing attitude towards media and thus towards social change as a whole. According to the mediatization theory (Krotz, 2009), "digitization" can be understood as a factor of social change brought about by media-technical progress. This media-driven change is pedagogically and ethically relevant. Digitization does not only influence the ways we engage with one another (online vs. offline) but, more importantly, seems to influence the attitudes and feelings we have towards engaging with one another and also the attitudes and feelings towards how we engage with one another. Phenomena like cyberbullying, hate speech, digital addiction are examples of behaviors that are (seemingly) made possible through digitization. These negative examples might be considered to show the downsides of digitization, though, at the same time, the way these examples are portrayed generates a fear-based attitude around digitization that contributes to the "trust deficit." German teachers – as several international studies, especially the ICILS studies (cf. Fraillon et al. 2014; Fraillon et al. 2019), have shown – are rather critical and restorative media users. Research shows that ethically sound knowledge and easy use tools for reviewing and normatively evaluating media offerings and practices can have a positive impact on educational institutions (Marci-Boehncke & Vogel 2018). The interdisciplinary German research project DigitalDialog21 aims to contribute to a comprehensive evaluation of current and future technologies, practices, and ways of thinking of digital change. The task of an ethical reconstruction of the "trust deficit" is to make the attitudes of the population accessible and processable via a digital assessment of ethics (Rath, 2003). This task will set the theoretical framework for comprehensive digital literacy. One pedagogical goal of the project is to develop practical tools that help to arrive at a concrete, well-founded evaluation of digital offers at the individual level.

This volume deals with the normative challenges and the ethical questions imposed by, and through, the developments and changes in everyday life, culture and society in the context of media change. We are thus concerned with the questions of whether and how the central concept of ethics must evolve under these premises—or in other words: what form do ethics take in mediatized societies? In order to address this question and to stimulate and initiate a debate, we have focused on two concepts: responsibility and resistance.

The volume deals with the normative challenges and the ethical questions imposed by, and through, the developments and changes in everyday life, culture and society in the context of media change. It is thus concerned with the questions of whether and how the central concept of ethics must evolve under these premises – or in other words: what form do ethics take in mediatized societies? In order to address this question and to stimulate and initiate a debate, the authors focus on two concepts: responsibility and resistance. Their contributions try to shed light not only on the empirical shreds of evidence of change in mediatized societies, but also on the normative challenges and ethical possibilities of these developments.

Der Band untersucht die besonderen ethischen Probleme, die die Entwicklung autonom „handelnder“ und „kommunizierender“ medialer Systeme aufwirft. Da sie Prozesse nicht nur eigenständig vollziehen, sondern zugleich steuern, stellt sich die Frage, inwieweit sie in diesem „Handeln“ und „Entscheiden“ normativ orientiert werden können. Über frühere Entwicklungen hinaus entsteht zudem eine computergesteuerte digitale Infrastruktur, die alle symbolischen Operationen integriert und an sich bindet. Ausgehend von der Mediatisierungstheorie werden die medienethischen Implikationen solcher Systeme diskutiert.

Die grundlegende Metaphysikkritik seit Immanuel Kant macht eine essenzialistische Wesensdefinition des Menschen obsolet. Es wird vorgeschlagen, die alltagslateinische Formel „conditio humana“ als das jeweilige epochale Menschsein in den thematisch definierten „Metaprozessen“ Mediatisierung, Globalisierung und Ökonomisierung zu konzeptionalisieren. „Conditio humana“ beschreibt dann das Spezifikum des Menschen nicht mehr essenziell, sondern funktional. Der Mensch war und ist immer global, ökonomisch und medial. Daraus zieht der Beitrag zwei Folgerungen: Anthropologisch werden diese Metaprozesse als historisch unterschiedlich dominante Bewusstseinsformen bestimmt. Und ethisch ermöglicht die kritische Reflexion auf diese Metaprozesse, sie nicht in ihrer Funktion als Movens sozialen und kulturellen Wandels zu verneinen, sondern sie unter den Anspruch plausibilisierter normativer Prinzipien der intentionalen und reflektierten Gestaltung dieser Metaprozesse zu stellen: normative Orientierung, menschliche Würde und kommunikative Authentizität.

Rather than being merely a descriptive template for distinct and historically differentiated processes of media practices, mediatization is an expression of a growing awareness that imputes a logic of change to observable media and communications practices. It can be conceived of as one, or perhaps even the, definitive category of the contemporary epoch’s reflexive self-understanding. To clarify this, the theory of mediatization is first taken up from an anthropological perspective and defined as an epochal awareness concept. The mediatized world is thus not merely the description of contemporary everyday life, culture and society, but also the description of the pertinent contemporary self-understanding of everyday life, culture and society. This has relevance for today’s concept of ethics in general: present-day normative ethics is the ethics of the mediatized world or it is none at all.