<b>Digital Age| The Management of Visibilities in the Digital Age — Introduction</b>

Authors

  • Mikkel Flyverbom Copenhagen Business School
  • Paul Leonardi University of California, Santa Barbara
  • Cynthia Stohl University of California, Santa Barbara
  • Michael Stohl University of California, Santa Barbara

Keywords:

digital age, visibilities, transparency

Abstract

What we see, what we show and how we look are fundamental organizational concerns made ever more salient by the affordances, dynamics, and discourses of the digital age. Contemporary organizing practices are awash with material, mediated and managed visibilities: companies erect glass buildings with open and networked office spaces to efficiently share information, respond to stakeholder demands by crafting extensive transparency policies, and orchestrate the massive distribution of information online in the name of accountability. At the same time, states and corporations aggregate digital traces to track and profile citizens and users, while activists use the same tools to expose corporate and state malfeasance.  

Author Biographies

Mikkel Flyverbom, Copenhagen Business School

Mikkel Flyverbom is Associate Professor at the Copenhagen Business School. His research focuses on global internet governance, transparency, corporate advocacy and sociological questions related to ‘big data’ and other developments in the digital domain. He is the author of The Power of Networks: Organizing the Global Politics of the Internet (Edward Elgar, 2011) and articles in journals such as Organization, Management Communication Quarterly, and European Journal of Social Theory. Currently, he is writing a book on transparency and visibilities, to be published by Cambridge University Press.

Paul Leonardi, University of California, Santa Barbara

Paul M. Leonardi is the Duca Family Professor of Technology Management at UC Santa Barbara. His research and teaching focus on helping companies to create and share knowledge more effectively. He is interested in how implementing new technologies and harnessing the power of informal social networks can help companies take advantage of their knowledge asses to create innovative products and services.

Cynthia Stohl, University of California, Santa Barbara

Cynthia Stohl is Professor of Communication and the Director of the Center for Information Technology and Society at the University of California, Santa Barbara.  Her research focuses on globalization and network processes, most recently in the context of collective action and corporate social responsibility in the digital media environment. Her most recent publications include the co-authored book Collective Action in Organizations: Interaction and engagement in an era of technological change (2012), Crowds, clouds, and community (2014), and Social Media Policies: Implications for contemporary notions of corporate social responsibility (2015).  

Michael Stohl, University of California, Santa Barbara

Michael Stohl is Professor of Communication and the Director of the Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.  His research focuses on political and organizational communication and international relations with special reference to political violence, terrorism, and human rights.  He is the author, editor or co-editor of fifteen books and the author or co-author of more than one hundred scholarly journal articles and book chapters. His most recent publications include the co-authored books Fragile States: Violence and the Failure of Intervention (2012) and Crime and Terrorism (2010).  

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Published

2016-01-05

Issue

Vol. 10 (2016)

Section

Special Sections

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