Digital Humanism in IS Research: A Research Agenda for a New Movement to Re-center the Human
摘要
Digital humanism presents a perspective and emerging movement that emphasizes placing the human at the centre of a rapidly evolving digital landscape, increasingly shaped by the exponential rise of autonomous agents and agentic systems. Despite its multidisciplinary nature, the movement has received limited engagement from the information systems (IS) field. In this paper, we aim to investigate how the IS field can contribute to this rising movement. To do so, we draw connections between digital humanism and the foundational sociotechnical movement that originally shaped the IS discipline. We argue that, as the spirit of the original sociotechnical movement has declined over time, digital humanism offers a reinvigoration by restoring its core focus on human choice, impact, and purpose, aligning closely with recent advancements in digital technologies. In this regard, digital humanism serves as a vital revival and evolution of sociotechnical thinking, purposefully repositioning the human at the forefront of digital transformation, development, implementation, and use. The study proposes a digital humanism agenda for the IS field, comprising four promising research streams and encouraging innovation in related research methodologies.