Introduction

Power relies on abstraction to manage the complexities of reality, using metaphors and models to make society legible and controllable. The digital era heralds a new epistemology of power, shifting from the industrial age's machine metaphors and top-down planning to the organic, adaptive systems of digital modernity. Digital technologies of power – like AI and platforms – call for new epistemologies of critique. By examining historical transformations and drawing from works like James Scott's Seeing Like a State and David Harvey's The Condition of Postmodernity, this chapter explores the distinct cultural logics and ways of knowing that define digital modernity, highlighting the need to update our conceptual vocabulary to grasp these emergent forms of power.