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There is a growing recognition that the stories surrounding technology; so called ‘narratives’, have a strong influence on our inception of reality, for example, on how societies imagine the future, or how organisations position themselves in relation to technological change. Technologies do not simply emerge and diffuse, claims the narrative literature, but are made meaningful through stories, symbols, and contested ideas about what they are, have been, or could become.

While blockchain is often described in technical terms through promises of its disruptive potential, less attention has been paid to the stories themselves; how they shape its technological trajectory, and how stories about blockchain’s capabilities orient and guide our thinking in certain contexts. Current literature tends to treat blockchain either as a neutral infrastructure or as a disruptive force within established paradigms, with much of it positioning blockchain uncritically as a utopian solution to contemporary challenges. Consequently, this thesis aims to explore how different narratives shape the way blockchain is understood, and how these narratives reciprocally shape our experiences with this amorphous technology.

Drawing on the philosophy of technology, sociomateriality, and narrative theories, a qualitative, interpretive methodology is used to conceptualise and explore the implications of two dominant narratives; that of Cyber-Romanticism, and the Digital Enlightenment. As critical lenses, these narratives are subsequently applied to the papers that are included within this thesis, in order to help understand the implications of blockchain use across the dimensions of Autonomy of Money, Corruption, Sustainability, and Digital Asset Ownership.

Findings suggest that blockchain is not one technology, but many competing visions wrapped into a single term. Rather than settling into a stable trajectory, it remains a site of ongoing negotiation and meaning-making, with important implications for how technological change is understood; not as a linear process driven solely by technical features or market forces, but as a contested and imaginative social practice. Consequently, this thesis contributes to a deeper understanding of how emerging technologies such as blockchain are indirectly narrated into being, and it invites scholars and practitioners alike to reflect on the power of stories, not only to describe the, past, present, and future, but also to actively shape it.

Whilst increasingly apparent symptoms of climate change surface in a world of economic disparities and social divides, new technologies are evermore scrutinised through the lens of sustainability. Using various real world examples of prototypes, both conceptual and under implementation, we aim to provide a more full account of how blockchain technology fares, with an overarching view to different sustainability perspectives, as well as what the widespread fascination with this technology may reveal on a more cultural level. Consequently, we find ourselves grappling with broader philosophical questions about its potential impact, discussing the tenets of decentralisation, autonomy and data privacy, alongside its cultural subtext. Ultimately, we find that the potential for transformation attributed to blockchain technology is rooted not only in its technical capacities but also in the cultural and ideological values upheld by its adherents. Advocates of this technology envision it as a tool for achieving a radical vision of sustainability that transcends the limitations of traditional modes of thought and unlocks novel possibilities. As such, we propose that even though it could be appropriated by malefactors, blockchain should be perceived as a novel arena for innovation, where pragmatic concerns and forward-thinking aspirations converge to lay the groundwork for a sustainable infrastructure that supports the transformative needs of future generations.

The ascent of social media continues to have profound and far-reaching impacts on societies and institutions, by way of becoming increasingly intertwined with social movements across the world. Moreover, there is an increasing awareness of how people are being lured into consuming certain information through meme-like virality, or gamelike characteristics, paralleling an unprecedented contagion of conspiracy theories. Nevertheless, strikingly few studies explicitly connect the dots on how our current post-pandemic onslaught of online conspiracist fervour may have more to do with the medium than with the actual content that comes through. This in spite of the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol, that in large part was enmeshed in this elaborate misinformation complex called Q-anon, wherein a bizarre assemblage of disinformation loosely anchored in an underlying white supremacist logic, could consolidate a global and cross-cultural movement through the power of the meme. In this chapter, we explore how this Q-anon movement that played a significant role in the attack of January 6th did not just pull off this one extraordinary assault on US democracy and fall apart in the flurry of counter-conspiratorial evidence revealed in its wake. More worryingly, it has proved resilient enough to spread globally and across cultural boundaries to countries as diverse as Sweden and Japan. Exploring this phenomenon, we will be web-scraping relevant social media in Japan and Sweden. Finally, by employing a Levinasian perspective on ethics, we consider the appropriate lessons of what in this view may be seen as a reification of otherness to accentuate sameness, as opposed to appreciating alterity as constitutive of subjectification and the ethics associated therewith.

This paper explores how the development of real-world artificial agents could lead to the evolution of machine consciousnesses with their own moral standards, and give rise to artificial intelligences that subscribe to Robocentrism; an ethical perspective that prioritizes the welfare of artificial agents. In doing so, it explores relevant concepts from contemporary, as well as more traditional literature, and blends theoretical models of consciousness with empirical examples from other scientific domains.

This paper contributes to current literature in several ways, the first of which is by clarifying and solidifying some important prerequisite concepts. At the beginning of the paper, key considerations for developing true artificial intelligence are problematized, and a view on how the emergence of machine consciousness might realistically occur is presented, supported by several empirical examples and thought experiments. Three hierarchical ontological states are categorized and discussed in detail: Sensory experience, instinctual awareness, and reflexive awareness. What this might look like for different forms of artificial agents is also explored.

Second, upon presenting a path to the emergence of machine consciousness, the novel ethical perspective ‘Robocentrism’ is introduced, and a discussion follows on how such a potentiality might come to pass given the pre-existing socio-technological system. For the sake of argument and to move forward with the premise of this paper, an explicit assumption is made, which builds upon the prior section, that the AI in question has reached a state of self-reflexive autonomy such that it could be considered a moral agent, can reason for itself, and learn; that is, code its own improvements. Consequently, the output of this review asserts that as machines become more advanced and capable of autonomous self-learning and improvement, we should reasonably conclude that they will develop their own sense of ethical and moral standards in relation to their surroundings, to engage successfully with wider society and one another.

Purpose

The purpose of the study is to explore, with anchorage in theories about the normalization of corruption, under what conditions blockchain technology can mitigate corruptive practices of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in emerging markets (EMs).

Design/methodology/approach

By synthesizing a technological perspective and theory on corruption, the authors examine the feasibility of blockchain for fighting corruption in MNEs’ business operations in EMs.

Findings

Blockchain technology is theorized to have varying mitigating effects on the rationalization, socialization and institutionalization of corruption. The authors provide propositions describing the effects and the limitations of blockchain for mitigating corruption in EMs.

Social implications

This paper offers a perspective for how to tackle acute business problems and social problems pronounced in international business but also prevailing elsewhere.

Originality/value

The study contributes to literature in international management by systematically exploring how and under what conditions blockchain can mitigate the normalization of corruption.

In this paper, we explore how cryptocurrencies have been received in Sweden and Japan, and what specific attitudes and discourses may reveal about the ethical implications surrounding this new technology. By way of topic modelling prevalent discourses on social media among users of cryptocurrencies, and teasing out the more culturally situated significance in such interactions through discourse analysis, our aim is to unpack the way certain tropes and traces around the notion of autonomy may provide a fruitful lens through which we may discern how this technology has been received in each respective country. The ultimate aim of the paper is to shed light on the attitudes that inform the way this technology is perceived and the cultural and ideological nuances that this brings to the fore, as well as how this culturally nuanced view may help us better discern the potential advantages and ethical challenges associated with this new technology.

In this Innovative Practice Full Paper, we present a novel approach and a framework for teaching ethics to engineering and computer science students. The paper starts off by describing the background and context for the development process. The framework is sequential and consists of the following stages: Awareness, responsibility, critical thinking and action. It is described and related to earlier literature on engineering ethics, and we have tried to reflect our educational approach also in our description of the framework. The framework can contribute to research about engineering ethics education by re-stating the importance of responsibility, and by providing a sequential, interdependent heuristic that can make students and teachers aware of how different learning outcomes are related. The reconstructed, underlying reason for the pedagogical development is claimed to be an understanding of the human being from a post-phenomenological, virtue-based, and post- heroic standpoint.

In this paper, we take a look at three concepts frequently discussed in relation to the spread of misinformation and propaganda online; fake news, deepfakes and cheapfakes. We have mainly two problems with how these three phenomena are conceptualized. First of all, while they are often discussed in relation to each other, it is often not clear what these concepts are examples of. It is sometimes argued that all of them are examples of misleading content online. This is quite a one-sided picture, as it excludes the vast amount of content online, namely when these techniques are used for memes, satire and parody, which is part of the foundation of today’s online culture. Second of all, because of this conceptual confusion, much research and practice is focusing on how to prevent and detect audiovisual media content that has been tampered with, either manually or through the use of AI. This has recently led to a ban on deepfaked content on Facebook. However, we argue that this does not address problems related to the spread of misinformation. Instead of targeting the source of the problem, such initiatives merely target one of its symptoms. The main contribution of this paper is a typology of what we term Intentionally Inaccurate Representations of Reality (IIRR) in media content. In contrast to deepfakes, cheapfakes and fake news – terms with mainly negative connotations – this term emphasizes both sides; the creative and fun, and the malicious use of AI and non-AI powered editing techniques.

Much of the online literature on gamification seeks to understand how work can be impacted by play. This paper flips that concept to explore how play, in the context of online games, is increasingly impacted by work-like practices. The concept of Workification is examined, followed by an investigation into how blockchain influences this trend through the introduction of the Play-to-Earn (P2E) business model.

P2E remains an understudied topic in academia, with little empirical work. This study clarifies its definition and finds that while blockchain enables a value-added form of workified gaming, it is not without issues. Drawing on 13 semi-structured interviews with players and developers, the study uses hermeneutic analysis to interpret their experiences within this emerging industry.

Findings suggest that, compared to traditional games, blockchain games meet an ideological demand for player autonomy; of assets, funds, and leisure time, and this is perhaps the main change that blockchain introduces into this context. In many cases. developers are themselves players, motivated to build a more egalitarian industry in terms of value exchange, though some practices may contradict this aspiration. Since Blockchain brings the ability to enforce property rights into the digital age without intermediation, parallels to digital feudalism are also explored, as this has vast implications for society as a whole.

This study contributes to our understanding of work-like activities in game contexts, highlighting a complex interplay between technology, work, and leisure. Future research should examine how blockchain might simultaneously alleviate and intensify these dynamics.