Oasis 2019 panel report: A glimpse at the “post-digital”

The information systems (IS) discipline has long focused on digitalization processes’ nature. Currently, substantial hype around the opportunities that digital technologies offer exists. But what can IS expect from an apparently near “post-digital” era when the “digital” becomes so ubiquitous that no one sees it as worthy of separate attention any longer? We summarize a panel discussion that addressed this question at the 2019 OASIS pre-ICIS workshop that the Working Group 8.2 of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) organized. Spurred by a deliberatively provocative theme, the panelists discussed the implications of a shifting focus in research and policy from phenomena that become digital to those that simply are digital. While the panelists agreed that no widely accepted vision of what the “post-digital” might entail exists, they all problematized the digitalization rhetoric from different, complementary perspectives. Their discussion highlights the invisibilities that digitalization initiatives surface, the socio-ethical consequences of future technologies for work and organizing, and the methodological apparatus that IS scholars need to investigate a still largely uncharted terrain. We summarize the panel to elicit further discussion on these pressing concerns for the IS discipline.