IB DP: Digital Society: Inquiry Questions

IB DP Digital Soceity Inquiry Questions are developed by teachers and students; are open-ended, thought-provoking and worth considering from different perspectives and support discoveries that move beyond recall, description and summary.

2.1 Change Inquiry Questions (and Answers)

What is a technological revolution?
Is technological change and innovation distinct from historical change?
What caused change in the past?
What is driving change in the present?
What obligations do we have toward future generations? How might digital systems and
technologies help us meet these obligations?
Is progress an inevitable outcome of advances in digital systems and technologies?
How might past events, patterns or trends help us to forecast future developments?
Can we understand the future without understanding historical change?
Which is more important for understanding change: disruptions and discontinuities or enduring patterns and trends
How can events, trends or patterns in the present help us prepare for the future?
What role do individuals and/or institutions play in historical and future change?
What role do new technologies play in historical and future change?
A 2.1A Change is the evolution, transformation, adaptation or movement from one form, state or value to another.
A 2.1B Change involves understanding and evaluating people, ideas, objects and forces that shape the world: past, present and future.
A 2.1C The nature and importance of change is debated.
A 2.1D Change may indicate continuity or discontinuity with prior established ways of understanding or doing things.

2.2 Expression Inquiry Questions (and Answers)

In what ways do digital systems influence how we express ourselves?
What different kinds of stories are possible through digital media?
Are there forms of digital expression that should be limited? Who decides and how?
Does the form of expression determine its meaning? Is the medium the message?
What is most important for interpreting the meaning of an expression or representation? An author, audience or user
What does it mean to say that an expression is performative?
Are expression and power inseparable?
Are there universal forms of expression or is all expression contextual?
What does it mean to say that digital media are convergent?
A 2.2A Expression is the act, process or instance of representing ideas, emotions and/or experiences using different modes and media.
A 2.2B Expression serves many functions, including storytelling, world-building, artistic innovation and political activism.
A 2.2C Expression brings people and communities together while also introducing significant dilemmas.

2.3 Identity Inquiry Questions (and Answers)

How do different fields and professions understand digital identity?
Does a robot have an identity?
How do online identities change over time?
How do digital systems and technologies influence or construct identity?
To what extent do different aspects of our identity intersect on digital platforms?
Are identities socially constructed?
Do non-humans have identities?
How does someone’s identity influence how they understand the world?
What is the relationship between stereotypes and identity?
Do we have the same identity online and offline?
What does it mean to grow up? Have digital systems changed what it means to grow up?
Is privacy a core element of identity?
A 2.3A Identity helps define a person, group, social entity and/or community.
A 2.2B Identity is not static but changes over time and according to context and the perspectives of others.
A 2.3C Identities are intersectional and may include aspects related to age, nationality, religion, culture, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity as well as social and economic class.

2.4 Power Inquiry Questions (and Answers)

How is power embedded or exercised through a specific digital system, technology or platform?
Do digital systems and technologies enable or constrain the exercise of power?
Is it inevitable that power in digital society is unequally distributed?
How might digital systems and technologies influence the distribution of power?
How do we identify power in the world? Is power everywhere?
What is the relationship between power and knowledge? How do digital systems affect this relationship?
What kinds of power do digital systems exert?
How do digital systems enable the exercise of governmental, institutional and/or organizational power?
What is the relationship between freedom, security and power? How do digital systems affect this relationship?
To what extent does fairness and justice involve power? Do digital systems enable or constrain fairness and/or justice?
A 2.4A Power is a feature of all social relations that involves a person’s or group’s capacity to influence or control the actions of others.
A 2.4B Power is structural and embedded within institutions, organizations and governments.
A 2.4C Power is not equally distributed.

2.5 Space Inquiry Questions (and Answers)

How do digital systems and technologies affect how we experience specific spaces and locations?
Do physical or political borders still have meaning in a digital society?
In what kinds of spaces do digital divides exist?
How does online space differ from physical space? How are they similar?
How does media circulate and move through digital society?
To what extent does physical space influence virtual space (and vice versa)?
How do people and communities organize space?
How do digital systems construct different spaces?
To what extent are hybrid spaces unique to digital society?
How do borders, regions and/or zones change over time?
How does space influence personal and group identity?
Discuss how do humans organize, construct, and represent space based on physical, geographic, cultural, and/or social features.
Examine how different spaces serve distinct functions for people and communities.
Discuss how access, movement and flows are significant considerations involving space.
Compare and contrast ways to represent physical space in a digital realm.
A 2.5A Humans organize, construct and represent space based on physical, geographic, cultural and/or social features (for example, into locations, regions, borders, zones).
A 2.5B Different spaces often serve distinct functions for people and communities.
A 2.5C Access, movement and flows are significant considerations involving space.
A 2.5D Space can be understood using multiple scales and dimensions, including local, regional, national and global as well as virtual.

2.6 Systems Inquiry Questions (and Answers)

Are digital systems distinct from social systems?
What are the human elements involved in the design or use of a specific digital system?
How might a new technology result in unintended consequences in digital society?
What do models and maps reveal about a digital system or technology?
How is society organized? Is society a system or a group of systems?
How do digital systems contribute to the organization of society?
How do digital systems help people, objects and/or ideas circulate?
Are social connections defined by competition or cooperation? Do digital systems impact these connections?
Do digital technologies contribute to or challenge inequalities in a system?
What causes conflict in a system? How can conflicts be resolved?
A 2.6A Systems provide one way to think about structure and order in human, natural and built environments.
A 2.6B Systems involve sets of interacting, interdependent and/or interconnected elements.
A 2.6C Changes within a system of interdependent connections may generate intended and unintended consequences.
A 2.6D Models, maps and visualizations can help us understand connections within and between systems.

2.7 Values & Ethics Inquiry Questions (and Answers)

Can we program or code values and ethics into AI?
Can there be a universal system of digital ethics?
Do robots have ethics? Should they?
Do hackers share values or an ethical code?
What happens when different ethical frameworks are applied to the same issue in digital society?
Do the designers of digital technologies have an ethical obligation to their users?
What is the distinction between values and ethics?
Are values and/or ethics universal or contextual?
What does it mean to ethically design digital systems? Who decides and how?
Does digital society require new ethical principles or values?
What is the difference between normative and applied ethics? Which is more important for evaluating the impact of digital systems?
How do organizations convey ethical principles and/or values?
Do the designers of digital systems have ethical obligations to their users?
Is it possible for a digital system to be values neutral?
What happens when different ethical frameworks are applied to the same real-world problem?
A 2.7A Values and ethics are ways to determine possible distinctions between right and wrong, fair and unfair, just and unjust, legal and illegal, proper and improper.
A 2.7B Values and ethics guide human action in the world, including individual and group conduct, and decision-making.
A 2.7C Values and ethics may be personal, shared, collective and/or professional.
A 2.7D Values and ethics are expressed through frameworks, codes, rules, policies and laws.
A 2.7E Values and ethics influence and shape ideas, objects, practices, systems and spaces.

Digital Society and Theory of Knowledge Inquiry Questions

How might technology exacerbate or mitigate unequal access and divides in our access to knowledge?
Do social networks reinforce our existing perspective as a knower rather than boost our engagement with diverse perspectives?
Should we hold people responsible for the applications of technologies they develop/create?
Do social networks reinforce our existing perspective as a knower rather than boost our engagement with diverse perspectives?
How does technology extend or transform different modes of human cognition and communication?
Should we hold people responsible for the applications of technologies they develop/create?
To what extent have social networks led to an increase in data being collected without people’s consent or when they are unaware that it is being collected?
How might technology exacerbate or mitigate unequal access, and divides in our access, to knowledge

DIGITAL SOCIETY