Working towards a dialectical understanding of the political ideology within technological projects

2026-03-23

AI Summary

This study addresses the question of how to systematically uncover the political ideologies embedded within technological projects. By integrating critical and emancipatory traditions in the social sciences, it proposes a dialectical analytical framework that juxtaposes value orientations with structural constraints, thereby transcending the limitations of one-dimensional ideological interpretations. The framework synthesizes critical social theory with methods of ideological analysis to yield an operationalizable paradigm, whose explanatory power is demonstrated through empirical case studies. The primary contribution of this research lies in offering a novel approach that combines theoretical rigor with practical feasibility, enabling a systematic deconstruction of the political dimensions inherent in technological endeavors.

Technology Category

• Application Domains: Humanities & Computational Social Science
• Philosophy and Ethics of AI: Morality & Value-based AI
• Humans and AI: Learning Human Values and Preferences

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Web for democratic and emancipatory futures
• Social Networks and Social Media: Socio-technical web-based systems
• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Bridging structured and unstructured data

Abstract

In this short position paper, I develop a dialectical framework for understanding the political ideology of technological projects. To do so, I draw on critical and emancipatory social science discussions, highlighting how both a project's values and constraints are necessary for understanding its ideology. A brief example is then presented to aid comprehension.

Problem

• political ideology
• technological projects
• dialectical understanding
• values
• constraints

Innovation

• dialectical framework
• political ideology
• technological projects
• critical social science
• emancipatory theory