Digital technologies are widely considered as drivers of innovation and solution for small and grand challenges alike. In this context 'the digital' appears to be problematic only because there is still too little of it: too little digital services in public administration, too little digital learning and teaching etc. Consequently, policy makers, technologists, and businesspeople alike frequently call for more digitization. The capacity to accumulate, analyze and utilize data is seen as a key factor for leveraging the potentials of digital innovation. Once data was claimed to be without material limits, a 'capitalist-colonialist fantasy' became the metaphor naturalizing the next digital revolution.

Marcus Burkhardt is a lecturer in the media studies department at the University of Siegen. Together with Karin Knorr Cetina, he heads the project »Agentic Media: Formations of Semi-Autonomy« in the DFG Collaborative Research Centre 1187 »Media of Cooperation«. He has a background in media studies, philosophy, and computer science and received his doctorate at Justus-Liebig-University Gießen with a thesis on the media theory of digital databases. His research interests include the history and theory of digital media, especially the logi(sti)cs of database technologies, big data, and algorithmic media as well as digital methods.