DigiPatch

The main aim of the project was threefold

It aimed to:

1. investigate how digital media created conditions for cultural and societal change from a traditionally networked society to a rigidly ‘patchwork’ one.
2. find out why this occurred, with a focus on cultural factors and the socio-cognitive processes of individuals.
3. outline the potential societal consequences of these processes.

DigiPatch was part of CHANSE, Collaboration of Humanities and Social Sciences in Europe, a joint initiative of 27 research funding organisations from 24 countries. The main goal of the CHANSE initiative was to launch a transnational call for collaborative projects focused on the topic of Transformations: Social and cultural dynamics in the digital age.

Project description

The rise of digitalization provides people with almost unlimited opportunities to access information and express themselves, as well as to share opinions and communicate with others. It also creates opportunities to develop new and multiple social ties. At the same time, digitalization contributes to the emergence of various types of closed (micro)groups with strong identities, strong in-group ties, and their own epistemic realities.

The main aim of the project was to investigate the role of digitalization in social and cultural transformation, i.e., a process of moving parts of society from more open, permeable, flexible networks to more closed, bounded, rigid “little boxes” – a patchwork society.

Building on extensive theory and research showing that individuals are not merely passive targets of algorithms who inadvertently stumble into a ‘miasma’ of biased information and dubious networks, the project sought to provide a much-needed understanding of how psychological needs, cognitive biases, and processes of social influence in the digital (and real) world interact to give rise to virtual loyalties and the construction of parallel social realities lacking social cohesion.

The analysis was framed within a 3N theoretical model (need, narratives, networks), based on the assumption that considerable frustration with respect to fundamental human needs (the need for security and certainty and the need for significance) motivates people to develop beliefs that satisfy these needs (narratives) and incentivizes them to build or engage in communities of others who share this dissatisfaction (networks).

To address these questions, the project applied a variety of advanced methodologies, combining large-scale analysis of a transnational three-wave panel survey, laboratory experiments, field studies, social network designs, computational simulation, and cultural analysis.