Bourdieu revisited: new forms of digital capital–emergence, reproduction, inequality of distribution

Abstract

Based on Bourdieu’s theory of capital, we discuss in this paper the extent to which economically utilizable individual-level data can be seen as the foundation of an independent form of a new digital capital. A variety of digital practices, business models and data-analytical processes are based on these data. They are unfolding massive impact in all social fields and affect the reproduction strategies of actors from various social classes. Individual-level data are the subject of field-immanent conflicts, which we discuss using the example of a general digital field (which is mainly driven by the Big 5 tech companies) and the subfields (1) of software engineering, (2) of prosumption, and (3) of social media content creators. We consider individual-level data not only as relational positions within the digital field and its subfields, but also in relation to the structure of social classes. As a valuable and contested commodity, individual-level data are unequally distributed in favor of the upper class and a new digital elite. The middle and lower classes try to compensate for their limited power of disposal over digital capital through practices of status investments and singularistic counter-strategies.