Designing for social transformation with alternative infrastructures

Abstract

Emerging "decentralized,"peer-to-peer, and offline-first alternatives to existing digital communications have gained attention alongside increased calls to action around the current state of the internet. As new technologies that delegate decision-making and action away from a central authority, these alternatives seek to redistribute power within online communities and radically rethink networks. My dissertation focuses on a selection of decentralization projects in order to understand the potentials for social transformation that value-driven design practices hold. Further, my research provides a rich account of the networked contingency this present wave of decentralization arises out of, along with tracing the way the concept operates as a sense-making frame for those building and using these new infrastructures.