The pastoral power of technology. Rethinking alienation in digital culture

The purpose of this paper is to rethink alienation in digital culture in the light of Foucault’s "pastoral modalities of power". Pastoral power does not displace other conceptions of power, but provides another level of analysis when considering the forging of reasonable, responsible subjects willing and able to sustain alternative conceptions of power. We will draw particularly on the early writings of Marx and the recent poststructuralist developments concerning hegemony and superstructure in relation to technology. Technology as such is analysed in terms of the repercussions of the "design of the machine" in industrial technological contexts and the "design of digital culture" in digital technological contexts. Pastoral power not only directs our attention to the making of technologies, but also to the making of individuals capable of taking on responsibility for those technologies. This means that it is necessary to acknowledge the fact of the effective power of ideologies and their material realities