Table Of ContentDigital Ethics
This fifth volume in Christian Fuchs’s Media, Communication and Society series presents foundations and
applications of digital ethics based on critical theory. It applies a critical approach to ethics within the
realm of digital technology.
Based on the notions of alienation, communication (in)justice, media (in)justice, and digital
(in)justice, it analyses ethics in the context of digital labour and the surveillance-industrial complex;
social media research ethics; privacy on Facebook; participation, co-operation, and sustainability in
the information society; the digital commons; the digital public sphere; and digital democracy. The
book consists of three parts. Part I presents some of the philosophical foundations of critical, humanist
digital ethics. Part II applies these foundations to concrete digital ethics case studies. Part III presents
broad co nclusions about how to advance the digital commons, the digital public sphere, and digital
democracy, which is the ultimate goal of digital ethics.
This book is essential reading for both students and researchers in media, culture, communication
studies, and related disciplines.
Christian Fuchs is Chair Professor of Media Systems and Media Organisation at Paderborn University,
Germany. His fields of expertise are critical digital and social media studies, Internet and society, the
p olitical economy of media and communication, information society theory, social theory, and critical
t heory. He is the author of numerous publications in these fields.
Digital Ethics
Media, Communication and Society
Volume Five
Christian Fuchs
Cover image: mammuth, Getty Images
First published 2023
by Routledge
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© 2023 Christian Fuchs
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asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
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trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Fuchs, Christian, 1976- author.
Title: Digital ethics / Christian Fuchs.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2023. |
Series: Media, communication and society; volume five |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022010363 (print) | LCCN 2022010364 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781032246147 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032246161 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781003279488 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Internet—Moral and ethical aspects. |
Internet—Social aspects. | Information society.
Classification: LCC TK5105.878 .F83 2023 (print) |
LCC TK5105.878 (ebook) | DDC 395.5—dc23/eng/20220625
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022010363
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022010364
ISBN: 978-1-032-24614-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-24616-1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-27948-8 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003279488
Typeset in Univers
by codeMantra
Contents
List of Figures vi
List of Tables vii
Acknowledgements ix
PART I
Foundations 1
1 What Is Digital Ethics? 3
2 Foundations of Communication/Media/Digital (In)Justice 21
3 The Ethics of the Digital Commons 45
PART II
Applications 81
4 Information Ethics in the Age of Digital Labour and the Surveillance-
Industrial Complex 83
5 “Dear Mr. Neo-Nazi, can you please give me your informed consent
so that I can quote your fascist tweet?”: Questions of Social Media
Research Ethics in Online Ideology Critique 105
6 Towards an Alternative Concept of Privacy 119
7 The Ethics and Political Economy of Privacy on Facebook 141
8 Information Technology and Sustainability in the Information Society 165
9 Theoretical Foundations of Defining the Participatory, Co-operative,
Sustainable Information Society (PCSIS) 193
PART III
Conclusion 219
10 The Digital Commons and the Digital Public Sphere: How to Advance
Digital Democracy Today 221
Index 244
Figures
2.1 The matrix of domination in intersectional theories (based on Adams
and Zúñiga 2016, 162) 29
3.1 Tweet by Nigel Farage in the context of the Brexit-referendum 73
7.1 Capital accumulation on Facebook 146
8.1 The vicious cycle of neoliberalism 179
9.1 Society as a dynamic, dialectical system 195
9.2 Share of developed economies in world GDP 198
10.1 Club 2.0, first published as Creative Commons in Fuchs (2018b, 74) 230
Tables
1.1 The application of four ethical approaches to digitalisation 7
2.1 A typology of theories of justice 23
2.2 Axel Honneth’s theory of recognition 25
2.3 Nancy Fraser’s theory of justice 26
2.4 I ris Marion Young’s concept of the five faces of oppression (based on
Young 1990, Chapter 2) 27
2.5 A typology of injustice as alienation in the economy, politics, and culture 33
2.6 Alienation as injustice in capitalist society 35
2.7 The communicative dimension of different forms of injustice 36
2.8 F orms of alienated communication and alienated media/means of
communications 37
2.9 The interaction of class, racism, gender oppression 37
2.10 Types of digital alienation 39
2.11 Dimensions of a humanist society 40
2.12 Forms of humanist and just communication/media 41
2.13 A typology of just, humanist digital communication(s) 42
3.1 Types of goods in the economic theory of goods 46
3.2 Three dimensions of the digital commons 69
5.1 The most active and most mentioned users in the Corbyn dataset 115
6.1 A typology of privacy theories 123
8.1 Approaches on sustainability and information society policies (based
on: Fuchs 2010) 170
8.2 Internet and computer use statistics for the EU (data source: Eurostat) 173
8.3 Regions in the EU, where in 2015 less than 60% of households had
broadband access at home (data source: Eurostat) 174
8.4 Regions in the EU, where in 2015 40% or more have never used a
computer (data source: Eurostat) 174
8.5 Market share of the incumbent in fixed line broadband subscriptions
and minimum level of the Herfindahl–Hirschman-Index, data for
2015, data source: European Commission 2015 176
8.6 Market share of the incumbent in mobile network subscriptions
and minimum level of the Herfindahl–Hirschman-Index, data for
2014, data source: Eurostat (Digital Agenda Key Indicators), UK and
Germany: Ofcom (2015) 177
viii Tables
8.7 The world’s most profitable transnational information corporations in
the year 2015 (data source: Forbes 2000, 2015 list) 183
8.8 A dialectical view of the un/sustainability of ICTs and the
information society 187
9.1 An overview of structures in society 196
9.2 Approaches on the sustainable information society 200
9.3 Dimensions of sustainability 210
10.1 T he domination transnational communication and digital
corporations, data sources: Forbes 2000 List (year 2020), https://
www.forbes.com/global2000, accessed on 7 October 2020 222
10.2 Four types and dimensions of the commons 233
10.3 Four types and dimension of the digital commons 234
10.4 Three political economies of digital platforms (further development
based on: Fuchs 2021, Table 8.2) 237
Acknowledgements
Chapter 2 was first published as a journal article using a Creative Commons CC-BY li-
cence that allows reprint: Christian Fuchs. 2021. Foundations of Communication/Media/
Digital (In)Justice. Journal of Media Ethics 36 (4): 186–201. http://doi.org/10.1080/2373
6992.2021.1964968
A shorter version of Chapter 3 was first published as a journal article. The chapter is
an extended version of the original paper. It has been reused and extended based on a
contractual stipulation in the author agreement with Taylor & Francis that allows republi-
cation and modification. Christian Fuchs. 2020. The Ethics of the Digital Commons. Jour-
nal of Media Ethics 35 (2): 112–126. https://doi.org/10.1080/23736992.2020.1736077
Chapter 4 was first published as a book chapter. It has been reprinted based on a stip-
ulation in the author agreement that enables the author to reprint his chapter in a volume
of his own works. Fuchs, Christian. 2016. Information Ethics in the Age of Digital Labour
and the S urveillance-Industrial Complex. In Information Cultures in the Digital Age: A
Festschrift in Honor of Rafael Capurro, ed. Matthew Kelly and Jared Bielby, 173–190.
Wiesbaden: Springer.
Chapter 5 was first published as a book chapter. It has been reprinted based on a
stipulation in the author agreement that enables the author to reprint his chapter in a
volume of his own works. Fuchs, Christian. 2018. “Dear Mr. Neo-Nazi, can you please
give me your informed consent so that I can quote your fascist tweet?”: Questions of
Social Media Research Ethics in Online Ideology Critique. In The Routledge Companion
to Media and Activism, ed. Graham Meikle, 385–394. Abingdon: Routledge.
Chapter 6 was first published as a journal article. It has been reprinted based on Em-
erald’s Author Rights (https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/our-services/authors/
author-policies/author-rights) Fuchs, Christian. 2011. Towards an Alternative Concept of
Privacy. Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society 9 (4): 220–237.
https://doi.org/10.1108/14779961111191039
