Open AccessPeer ReviewedDouble-Anonymous ReviewCC BY 4.0 ↗Continuous Publication
1.0 Aims and Scope
Digital Society, Governance & Development (DSGD) publishes interdisciplinary scholarship examining how digital technologies reshape institutions, economies, communities, public services and everyday social life.
The journal is concerned not only with technological adoption but with the social, political, institutional and developmental consequences of digital transformation. It welcomes research addressing the ways digital systems redistribute opportunity, authority, information, risk and power.
Core areas include digital government, AI governance, data governance, digital public infrastructure, platform economies, digital labour, civic technology, digital media, education technology, smart cities, digital financial systems, technology and development, surveillance, digital inclusion and digital inequality.
DSGD provides a forum for scholarship from social science, public policy, development studies, information systems, media studies, sociology, political science, communication, economics and related fields where the central research problem concerns digital society or governance.
The journal encourages work from diverse geographical and institutional contexts and particularly values scholarship that moves beyond assumptions that technological change produces identical effects across societies.
1.1 Core Research Areas
Relevant themes include digital transformation of institutions; digital government; public-sector technology; digital identity; digital public infrastructure; platform governance; algorithmic governance; AI regulation; data protection and governance; digital labour; platform work; digital financial inclusion; technology-mediated participation; online communities; social media governance; misinformation and information integrity; surveillance; cybersecurity governance; digital education; digital health governance; smart cities; and inequalities in access, capability and outcomes.
1.2 Interdisciplinary and Emerging Areas
DSGD encourages research connecting technical systems with social institutions. Emerging areas include generative AI and society, public-sector algorithmic decision-making, platform accountability, automated welfare administration, digital sovereignty, cross-border data governance, digital identity infrastructures and governance of AI in low- and middle-income contexts.
2.0 Contributions We Welcome
The journal welcomes Original Research, Reviews, Systematic Reviews, qualitative and quantitative studies, mixed-methods research, comparative studies, policy and practice articles, Perspectives, Case Studies and Editorials.
Empirical research should provide sufficient information about context, sampling, data sources and analytical methods. The journal welcomes surveys, interviews, focus groups, ethnography, administrative-data analysis, computational social science, digital-trace analysis, content analysis, network analysis and appropriately designed mixed methods.
2.1 Evidence and Methodological Expectations
Authors should explain the social and institutional context in which digital phenomena are observed. Sampling decisions and limitations should be transparent.
Studies using online-platform or social-media data should explain how data were collected and consider privacy, consent, platform terms, representativeness and potential harm.
3.0 Disciplinary Standards
Research involving people must address appropriate ethical review, consent and confidentiality requirements.
Demographic categories should be reported carefully and only when analytically justified. Qualitative researchers should describe their analytical process sufficiently to support confidence in interpretation.
Authors should avoid treating technology as independent of institutional and social conditions.
3.1 Research Transparency
Where data cannot be publicly shared because of privacy, platform restrictions, participant protection or legal obligations, authors should explain the restriction.
Researchers should reflect on positionality where the relationship between researcher, participants and context materially affects interpretation.
4.0 Topics Outside Scope
DSGD does not normally consider purely technical computer-science manuscripts without substantive societal or governance analysis; unsupported predictions about societal transformation; purely promotional descriptions of digital platforms; partisan commentary without scholarly analysis; or claims generalised across populations without evidence appropriate to those populations.
From this journal
DSGD editorials
These four editorials develop the journal’s research priorities and the questions that define its field.
Artificial intelligence is becoming embedded in institutional decision-making, public services, education, health systems, finance, regulation, and digital platforms. Its public significance therefore depends not only on model capability but on the organizational, legal, and social arrangements through which automated systems are selected, configured, supervised, contested, and evaluated. This editorial argues that governing AI in the public interest is fundamentally a problem of institutional capacity and accountability. Bias, opacity, data quality, automation bias, privacy risks, vendor dependence, weak procurement, and fragmented responsibility can undermine otherwise capable systems, while formal transparency alone may fail when affected people cannot understand or challenge decisions. Effective governance requires independent auditing, meaningful documentation, contestability, human oversight, public-sector expertise, procurement standards, longitudinal evaluation, and evidence about actual social outcomes after deployment. Identical technologies can produce different consequences across organizations because professional norms, legal safeguards, incentives, data infrastructures, and administrative practices shape how AI is used. Research should therefore evaluate AI as a socio-technical institutional system rather than as an isolated technical artefact.
Digital connectivity has expanded dramatically, yet access to a network does not guarantee meaningful participation in digital society. Digital inequality increasingly concerns the quality and affordability of connectivity, access to capable devices, digital skills, accessibility, safety, language, institutional support, and the capacity to translate online activity into educational, economic, civic, and social benefits. This editorial argues that inclusive digital development requires moving beyond binary measures of who is online toward evidence about the conditions under which people can use digital systems effectively and convert connectivity into valued outcomes. First-level inequalities in access interact with second-level differences in skills and patterns of use and with outcome-level inequalities in who benefits. Infrastructure therefore remains necessary but is insufficient. Research and practice should prioritize longitudinal measurement, meaningful-connectivity indicators, accessibility-by-design, device affordability, rural and underserved populations, digital skills, inclusive public services, locally relevant content, and rigorous evaluation of development outcomes. Digital inclusion should ultimately be judged by whether people possess realistic capabilities to participate safely and productively in increasingly digital institutions and economies.
Digital platforms have become institutional infrastructures for communication, commerce, work, culture, search, advertising, and social participation. Their significance extends beyond individual applications because platforms organize visibility, collect and monetize data, set rules for participation, mediate transactions, and influence how other institutions reach users. This editorial argues that platforms should therefore be analysed as institutions with technical, economic, and governance functions rather than as neutral intermediaries. Algorithmic curation, moderation, advertising systems, data extraction, app ecosystems, and platform labour create informational asymmetries between firms, users, workers, regulators, and researchers. These asymmetries complicate accountability and public trust, while concentration and interoperability choices can reshape market and social power. Research should prioritize independent data access, platform transparency, algorithmic accountability, comparative and longitudinal analysis, data governance, user agency, trustworthy moderation, worker outcomes, and evidence from diverse geographic settings. Understanding platform effects requires connecting algorithms and interface design with business models, regulation, user behaviour, social norms, and institutional dependence.
Digital identity, interoperable payments, data-exchange systems, registries, authentication services, and government portals are increasingly described as digital public infrastructure because they provide reusable foundations for public and private services. Their developmental significance, however, depends on more than technical scale. This editorial argues that digital public infrastructure should be evaluated as socio-technical public infrastructure whose effects are shaped by architecture, law, administration, inclusion, privacy, cybersecurity, institutional capacity, and citizen capabilities. Interoperability can reduce fragmentation and transaction costs, but poorly governed identity or data systems can amplify exclusion, surveillance, security risks, and errors across multiple services. Effective systems require privacy-preserving architecture, inclusive identity processes, correction and grievance mechanisms, resilient cybersecurity, accessible service design, transparent governance, and evidence about actual service outcomes. Research should compare institutional models across development contexts and distinguish infrastructure adoption from improved public value. The central question is not whether governments possess digital rails, but whether those infrastructures remain trustworthy, inclusive, interoperable, and correctable as they mediate increasingly consequential interactions between citizens and institutions.
