Disenchanting Trust: Instrumental Reason, Algorithmic Governance, and China's Emerging Social Credit System
Abstract: Digital technologies have provided governments across the world with new tools of political and social control. The development of algorithmic governance in China is particularly alarming, where plans have been released to develop a digital Social Credit System (SCS). Still in an exploratory stage, the SCS, as a collection of national and local pilots, is framed officially as an all-encompassing project aimed at building trust in society through the regulation of both economic and social behaviors. Grounded in the case of China’s SCS, this article interrogates the application of algorithmic rating to expanding areas of everyday life through the lens of the Frankfurt School’s critique of instrumental reason. It explores how the SCS reduces the moral and relational dimension of trust in social interactions, and how algorithmic technologies, thriving on a moral economy characterized by impersonality, impede the formation of trust and trustworthiness as moral virtues. The algorithmic r
- Location
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Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
- Extent
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Online-Ressource
- Language
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Englisch
- Notes
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Veröffentlichungsversion
begutachtet (peer reviewed)
In: Media and Communication ; 9 (2021) 2 ; 140-149
- Event
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Veröffentlichung
- (where)
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Mannheim
- (who)
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SSOAR, GESIS – Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften e.V.
- (when)
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2021
- Creator
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Zou, Sheng
- DOI
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10.17645/mac.v9i2.3806
- URN
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urn:nbn:de:101:1-2022101516572387440778
- Rights
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Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
- Last update
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15.08.2025, 7:34 AM CEST
Data provider
Deutsche Nationalbibliothek. If you have any questions about the object, please contact the data provider.
Associated
- Zou, Sheng
- SSOAR, GESIS – Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften e.V.
Time of origin
- 2021
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