Postdigital Democracy

Democracy in 2024 is inherently postdigital, yet in literature, the term ‘postdigital democracy’ has received limited attention. Postdigital democracy critically highlights how entanglements of humans, digital technologies, and societal structures impact societies and social life. It is a mashup of continuities (e.g., values, participation, and socio-political histories) and ruptures (e.g., datafication, disinformation, and algorithmic decision-making) which transcend boundaries between geographies, digital–analog, and biological–informational. This entry approaches an understanding of postdigital democracy in three ways: by consulting the concepts of postdigital citizenship, postdigital publics, and by considering the postdigital totality of relations influencing society’s affairs. The entry does not offer a conclusive definition of postdigital democracy. Instead, it offers examples of what postdigital democracy is or can be.