The next talk in the DigHum Lecture Series of the TU Wien is this:

Tuesday, September 22, 2026 at 5:00 p.m. (17:00) Central European Summer Time (UTC+2)

Topic: “Techno-Colonization of Academic Knowledge Production: Drones, Swarm Intelligence, and the Future of Cyber-Physical Societies”
(scroll down for abstract and CV)

Speaker: Stefan Klein (University of Münster, Germany)
Moderator: Anna Bon (VU Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

To participate in the talks via Zoom go to: https://tuwien.zoom.us/j/96389928143?pwd=UU5YRkNuRmdoWHV4MFBwMWRCcUErdz09
(Password: 0dzqxqiy)

The talk will be live streamed and recorded on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/digitalhumanism

For further announcements and information about the speakers in the Lecture Series, see https://dighum.org/#latest-news. Please note that you can access the slides and recordings of our past events via that link.

In case you missed the event with Franco Accordino & Monika Lanzenberger you can watch the recording of “Drones, Swarm Intelligence, and the Future of Cyber-Physical Societies”.


Next events:
23.09 18:30 Vienna Humanities Festival Kara Swisher “The Tech Bros: What do they want and what can we do about it?”
06.10 17:00 DigHum Panel “The Future of Computer Science in Academia” 
24.11 17:00 DigHum Lecture Sanne Vrijenhoek “Let me inform (and entertain) you: news recommender systems to support democratic society”
stay up to date via our public calendar

We are looking forward to seeing you!

Stefan Woltran




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ABSTRACT “Drones, Swarm Intelligence, and the Future of Cyber-Physical Societies”:

Over the past 30 years, the leading academic publishers (often referred to as the “Big Five” – Elsevier, SpringerNature; Wiley, Taylor & Francis, and Sage) have morphed from publishers of scholarly manuscripts into research infrastructure and information analytics businesses, combining monopolistic publishing strategies with AI-enabled transformation of research supported by opaque systems of data extraction and surveillance. In this talk I will focus on Elsevier as prominent and highly complex example for the increasing corporate control and shaping of academic knowledge production.

The analysis will construct a strategic trajectory of Elsevier’s waves of digital transformations as evolutionary technography. The results will be discussed using the lens of techno-colonization, an interpretative pattern to illustrate how publishers redesigned the scholarly communication ecosystem driven by an ideology of datafication and high performance institutions in a competitive environment. They not only took ownership and control over journals, rankings, and research infrastructures, but extended these into tools and professional services for university administrations, governments and industry.

The broad consensus that academic publishers’ techno-colonization is dangerous and inacceptable poses the riddle why the academic community so far has shown little resistance, instead engaged in Faustian bargains, collaboration and “voluntary servitude” (La Boétie).

Short Bio of Stefan Klein:

Stefan Klein is Professor emeritus for Interorganizational Systems in the Department of Information Systems at the School of Business and Economics, University of Münster, Germany. Previously he held teaching or research positions at University College Dublin, Ireland; University of Linz, Austria; University of Koblenz-Landau, Germany, University St. Gallen, Switzerland; Harvard University; the German Research Center for Computer Science; and University of Cologne, Germany.

Stefan’s research looks at the societal and organizational impact of digital innovation and transformation. He has studied digital infrastructures across a range of domains, including tourism, healthcare, publishing and research. He has an interest in new ways of working and collaborative modes of organizing.

His methodological orientation is in line with phronetic social science, which also motivates critical studies in digital inversions: how innovators have turned into oligarchs, disruptors into monopolistic incumbents, how technology has morphed from a force of good into a force of evil, and how meaningful communication has deteriorated into bullshitting.

He is a co-founder of NITIM.org the International Graduate Research School on Networks, Information Technology and Innovation Management, an ongoing collaborative experiment in international and interdisciplinary PhD coaching.

Short Bio of Anna Bon:

Anna Bon is researcher and lecturer in Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Maastricht University, and senior project manager at VU Amsterdam’s International Office (CIS Centre for International Cooperation). She directs the interdisciplinary research, education and community service program W4RA (Web alliance for Regreening in Africa). Her interdisciplinary research centers around how innovative context-aware technologies can be developed in a co-creative way to support local value chains and improve food security, serving especially smallholder farmers and communities in Africa’s drylands. Her international projects include digital voice-service support for local cereal seeds value networks in West Africa (Mali); ICT4D Community Service Learning in rural Sarawak, Malaysia; Sustainability and Ethics in Digital Development; AI for Sustainable Development, and the Amsterdam Digital Divide. Anna Bon is the coordinator of EURIDICE, an EU-funded project covering 15 countries, that aims to establish interdisciplinary, master-level education for Digital Society, Social Innovation and Global Citizenship, to build a new generation of professionals with skills and thought-leadership to navigate the rapidly changing Digital Society.